There is a great line (one of many) in the movie, A Love Song for Bobby Long, wonderfully delivered by the equally wonderful Scarlett Johansson, to John Travolta’s (title) character:
Young adult (high school dropout), Purslane Hominy Will (Johansson), accosts Bobby Long upon the discovery that Long — a despondent, bitter and hopelessly alcoholic defrocked and disgraced Professor of Literature, formerly installed at a prestigious southern university, now floundering in the emotional riptide of his rudderless life — is her biological father (a fact also theretofore unknown to Long). Deriding him for his pointless preoccupation with the esoteric trivia of his utterly trashed, once lofty literary past, instead of attending to his pressing human responsibilities to himself, and the others around him, she shouts, “Every idiot knows that books are better than life … that’s why they’re books!” (Love). Told ya it was a great line!
Malcolm Gladwell had to have been counting on many, many of us ignoring this axiom in presenting us with, Outliers, The Story of Success, as a serious tome. Granted, it was a big seller, despite the fact that the book is really only interesting by virtue of his attention to superficially impressive statistical detail and his trademark “counterintuitive” (to me, counterfeit) focus. Even though it is completely devoid of any real-life meaning, it’s still a pretty good yarn, as (allegedly) non-fiction research books go … yet, it is of no earthly use, except as entertainment or idle diversion; loaded with soaring buzzwords, feel-good phrases and Progressive concepts that make people feel really good to agree with in principle (and, particularly, in public). After all, who wants to be caught arguing against “fairness,” even the wholly imaginary fairness represented by Gladwell’s false premises? But the “real life” truth is, nothing in Outliers is true, or even remotely within the realm of truth. There isn’t an actual unadulterated, non-partisan, free-range verity within ten miles of this book; some of his “facts” and statistics may hold up under the bright light of truth, but his resultant extrapolations of their meanings do not. Not even close.
As Mark Twain is quoted in one highly-regarded reference source as having said, “Get your facts first, and then you may distort them as much as you please” (Uncle 249). Taking Mr. Twain’s advice well to heart, obviously, Gladwell so distorts the meaning of all his “data” as to make the book no more than a fantastical utopian fairytale, as opposed to the scholarly, important work of inquiry and analysis it was ballyhooed (by his cohorts in the literary establishment) to be.
Gladwell’s main point, so insincerely cobbled together from all his selective statistical data, tightly-leashed anecdotal vignettes and his totally contraindicated conclusions, is — apparently — that we, as a society, should all get off our collective duffs and start controlling the nature and purpose of the confluence of unpredictable, unknowable and uncontrollable events and conditions (and even those few that might be known, but are practicably unalterable — such as birth date and place, and ethnicity) that may contribute to success, in order to make those “opportunities” available to all. Wow! That’s one darned nifty idea, right there! Problem is, it’s simply impossible to do in any known three-dimensional universe; it’s all dreamy, blue-sky “what ifs” without any conceivable real-world applications, however pretty it may be on paper.
What all his “data” actually prove — conclusively — is not that the successful were “given” more and better opportunities, but that they took the personal initiative to gain advantage from the opportunities fate did present to them. This is so crystal-clear throughout the entirety of his book, in his own words, that his ubiquitous disdain of it borders on the absurd. He continually puts forth unequivocal statements like, “So far in Outliers we’ve seen that success arises out of the steady accumulation of advantages … ” (Gladwell 175). As well, that he is so intent on transmuting (or, perhaps more accurately, discrediting) the time-proven paths to success, leads him down many a deserted, twisting, dead-end road of his own that he nonetheless portrays as straight-line, teeming thoroughfares. The preeminent example of this disordered convolution (rampant in this book) is the story he tells of Chris Langan’s willful refusal to participate in his own success. Langan is quoted as saying, “I have not pursued mainstream publishers as hard as I should have … going around, querying publishers, trying to find an agent. I haven’t done it, and I am not interested in doing it” (114).
This statement vividly shows that Langan knew precisely what he needed to do to achieve success; had, in fact, (at some point) maybe even engaged in the process, at least briefly; that he knew exactly how to do it, but he simply was not interested in doing so. (Remember, now, Langan had punched his step-father, knocking him out cold, when he was just a lad of fourteen (92), and was a bouncer in bars most of his adult life (95) … no “shrinking violet” was he!)
Yet, from this, Gladwell somehow concludes, “It was an admission of defeat. Every experience he had had outside of his own mind had ended in frustration. He knew he needed to do a better job of navigating the world, but he didn’t know how” (emphasis added) (114). I would posit that cold-cocking a grown man at only fourteen years of age, and tossing belligerent drunks out of bars for a couple of decades, exceeds the criteria for being “outside of his own mind.” by quite some little bit, and are, as well, rather stunning examples of “navigating the world.” (Not to mention his deft and assertive navigation of the One verses One Hundred television show that netted him a cool $250,000) (69-73). How Gladwell can still get: “He didn’t know how” from: “I know how, I just don’t want to” given all of that, baffles me completely.
What kind of mind can so casually, matter-of-factly — heck, flippantly — amalgamate those two mutually exclusive, totally contradictory, diametrically opposed concepts? A brilliant, logical mind? A “think outside the box,” creative mind? How about a mind so intently focused on a specific agenda (in this case, a political agenda of discrediting success as a way of defending failure and thereby justifying the continued and accelerated redistribution of wealth in America) that it willingly (or delusively) plays alchemist to unmistakably conflicting realities in order to support that agenda?
Gladwell openly shows his cards, in this regard, in the very first chapter of Outliers, when he concludes that the “Matthew Effect” he described supports his interpretation of the birth date-related statistics in sports and education, claiming, “It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success. It’s the rich who get the biggest tax breaks” (emphasis added, again) (30). This one statement contains two distinct declarations that are quite arguably in error (demonstrably so, if one sincerely — and without ideological bias — investigates the intended meaning of Matthew 25:29 and the IRS statistics on tax payments), yet are presented as absolute fact, in corroboration of his point, thereby clearly revealing his true agenda: It’s all (and only) about the money … the money that the rich have and that he thinks the poor are more than entitled to take from them.
So, what kind of mind does think this way? To answer this question for myself, I researched the life of Malcolm Gladwell to try and know his mind. Here is what I discovered …
First, the (not so relevant) biographical details: Born in the United Kingdom, raised in Canada (still a Canadian citizen), university educated (Toronto and Trinity College), professional journalist. The more relevant: Formerly a columnist for the Washington Post newspaper and currently writing for The New Yorker magazine, both unabashed Liberal publications; occasional contributor to Slate.com, mega-Liberal news site/blog. Now, the truly relevant (and I must admit, I thought I’d have to dig a whole lot deeper than I did to find all the following details, but Mr. Gladwell himself gamely accommodated my search by proudly listing them all in his “Disclosure Statement” on his own website, www.gladwell.com.),
” … if I could vote (and I can’t, because I’m Canadian) I would vote Democrat. I am pro-choice … I think the war in Iraq is a terrible mistake … I think, on balance, taxes in America — particularly for rich people — ought to be higher, not lower … I am opposed to the death penalty.”
So far, all is as I suspected, but it’s not over yet! He continues: “I hate SUV’s. I think many CEO’s are overpaid … [I think] the United States needs to adopt a Canadian-style single-payer, government-funded, universal health care system.” So there you have it, Folks …
Gladwell is just your basic garden-variety, well-heeled, professional-class, left-wing-media Liberal, but with some rather clever and unique argumentative techniques on advocating for (and the well-developed venues to promote) the grand ol’ Liberal dream of confiscating the wealth of the productive achievers to subsidize the lesser efforts of the “oppressed” non-achievers, in order to service his ideas of “fairness” … the fanciful fairytale that is Outliers being but that, in spades.
Clearly just a fairytale, indeed, Outliers will likely hang around a while, as a provocative read, but — as the eighteen-year-old (fictitious) high school dropout, Purslane Hominy Will, so effortlessly was able to point out about such works, even in her youthful innocence and lack of literary sophistication — it’ll never be anything other than a “better than life” diversion; an old-fashioned ideological tapestry, artfully pieced together from carefully pinked bolts of (equally fictitious) brand new, glittery, whole cloth.
Works Cited
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers, The Story of Success. New York. Little, Brown. 2008. Print.
(also) “Disclosure Statement.” www.gladwell.com. 10 Dec. 2004. Web. 23 Feb. 2011.
Love Song For Bobby Long Dir. Shainee Gabel. Perf. John Travolta and Scarlett Johansson.
Lions Gate, 2004. Film. 2005. DVD.
Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader 17 th ed. Ashland. Bathroom Reader’s Pr.
2004. Print.