First Reactions

Malcolm Gladwell is a great author and has slowly become my favorite throughout the past few years. From novels like What the Dog Saw, David and Goliath and Outliers he always has something interesting to say and captivates my interests. While reading through his Afterword in this novel and hearing his story I learned a bit more about him and something fascinating to me is the amount of effort that he puts into his work. When writing this book as well as one of his older books (Blink) he not only spent lots of time researching what he was writing about but even went to the locations of the events. Specifically, a murder that took place in Blink was of specific interest to him and he drove all the way to the steps of where this citizen was murdered. This is one of the reasons I like this author and you can see the passion that he puts into his writing from these actions.

Gladwell begins this book with the story of Sandra Bland and the events that led to her suicide after being pulled over for a small driving infraction (not using blinker when changing lanes). He brilliantly hooks the reader into the story of Sandra and the events that unfolded that day. Additionally, this leads into the first chapter of the book beginning with spies and their deceptions (or lack thereof).

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Breakdown

Chapter 1

The first chapter begins with the lies and deception used by Fidel Castro in the United States having spies within the DIA and CIA. He explains that we need to listen closely to what people are saying because we don’t always know who to trust.

This chapter was brief but absolutely sets up the rest of the book and introduces a later defined concept of the humans default to the truth.

Chapter 2

The second chapter was especially interesting to me as I have a strong interest in the past. This chapter begins with the interactions between Neville Chamberlain and Hitler before the start of World War II. The title of this chapter is “Getting to Know Führer” and shows how Hitler used lies and deception to convince Chamberlain they were safe from a war. Gladwell explains how we use patterns and excuses to confirm our suspicions and what we want to hear from certain interactions. In this case, Hitler convinced Chamberlain that he would not invade and begin WWII.

The second part of this chapter then aims to show the differences between human emotion and machine. Will artificial intelligence be able to better distinguish between the people who lie and those who are telling the truth? How would these algorithms be able to navigate around systematic bias and racism within the court room? These are the questions that begin to be answered (Alternatively, these questions are also answered in another book “System Error”). Aritifical intelligence tends to be better than humans in most cases as we try to judge others like we know them, rather than complete strangers (Chamberlains greatest downfall - trust).

Chapter 3

The Default to Truth - This is a large concept which is defined in this chapter and shows up a lot within the rest of the book and earlier. The default to truth works like the phrase “Innocent until proven guilty.” We as humans don’t listen to conversations from an unbiased standpoint. We believe until we have a reason not to.

This story comes back to Fidel Castro and one of the greatest spies in the DIA, Ana Montes. Montes was at the top of her game and fooling the CIA and DIA for years, being a honored spy for Cuba in the US. Later it was found out how much she deceived the United States while being terrible at telling lies. She was able to get away for so long for the simple default to truth. How could one of the top people in the DIA who always does her job right be a spy for Cuba?…

Gladwell explains that no matter how close you are to someone or how great they may appear, you can be completely blind to their true intentions. We don’t only believe what this person has to say, but we rationalize it to fit our own perception of reality or what we want reality to be.

Chapter 4

This chapter also introduces another interesting concept known as the “holy fool.” This person is someone who does not default to the truth and looks at people like they are always lying. Gladwell explains there are a few people in the world like this with the specific example of Harry Markopolos in the Bernie Madoff case. He was eventually the person that cracked this case and got Madoff convicted of these crimes all because he didn’t believe him.

There are ramifications to being the holy fool. If everyone were the holy fool, our society would have a very hard time moving on. Consider you go to a gas station and buy a candy bar for $3.52. Are you really going to hold up the line so you can pull out your calculator and do the math to make sure everything is alright? No, but you can do this at home later. You just need to default to the truth at that moment.

It took years to settle this Madoff case because no one believed Markopolos. He kept trying and eventually saw the case come out his way. The best people at detecting lies are those who have a hard time trusting in the first place. Even if you are the one to detect the lie or some fraud, you must have some power to do something about it as well.

Chapter 5

Chapter five moves into another new case that starts talking about sexual assault and eventually rape victims. This is definitely something that falls within the lines of this topic as people who have experienced these events usually have to go to court and testify upon the events.

The specific encounter mentioned in this chapter is with Jerry Sandusky, the retired defensive coordinator for the Penn State football team. Glad well picks a great person to talk about these issues with because this was at the time a well respected man and difficult to believe he would commit such heinous actions.

Gladwell shows how people try to protect themselves from other peoples actions which in turn defends the culprit. No one wants to be wrong either, so as more and more people believe the person who did the crime had done nothing wrong it falls out of question.

A fascinating question and final topic posed by this chapter and the next is whether retrieval of memories is ethical from standpoints of those who have been abused. An example of this is trying to get a rape victim to remember the night of the event even though it may cause emotional trauma.

Chapter 6

Chapter six follows a different approach and attempts to define facial emotions and body language. Not only do we have to be able to analyze what people are verbally saying, we also need to be able to understand their physical appearance and demeanor.

Gladwell dives into understanding a program that rates emotions and facial expressions to define how persuasive they can be to our perception of that person. If someone commits a horrible crime and is able to convince the judge and jury that they are a nice person via their facial expressions they may very well receive a more generous sentence.

The issue that arises from these facial expressions is how they are interpreted in different cultures. The program that analyzes what we are doing with our face would have to change depending on which country you are in and the culture surrounding them.

The final note I have for this chapter is that we spend too much time analyzing people’s emotions rather than the facts. Stop looking at people for the answers and start listening to what actually happened.

Chapter 7

This chapter holds a significant place in my heart because I am someone who listens to lots of podcasts. One of the podcasts I love to listen to is Crime Junkies and recently they posted about the story of Amanda Knox. This is what the whole chapter seven is about, her and the issues that she went through in her case and trial.

This story is one that heavily relies on what was spoken about in the previous chapter. What ultimately led to her being a prime suspect in her friends murder is just because she acted different. Since she did not fit the norms of how someone would react to their friends murder, she immediately became prime suspect number one.

This story travels through the police’s shortcomings in their interrogation of Amanda and the troubles that they caused her later in life. She had done nothing wrong and just because she acted differently than their perception of someone who should be innocent, they framed her guilt. Not only did they do this, but they altered her whole image into a sex crazed addict.

This chapter also proves why it is so easy for some people to lie. All they have to do is fit societies perception of someone who is innocent.

Chapter 8

This chapter is reminiscent of the fifth chapter and moves onto a sexual assault/rape case at Stanford University. This chapter mainly brings up the issue of intoxication and its effects on the perceptions of the people around us.

How does alcohol affect our ability to comprehend when someone is actually coming “onto” us? Or how do we know that they really don’t appreciate our advances? This chapter will help you understand how alcohol affects our ability to perceive social situations and what different levels of intoxication do to our ability to handle these situations.

Questions that I was left with at the end of this chapter fall along the lines of understanding consent. Even if we established a way of clear consent, in these drunken situations, would that even matter? What about the issue when the two people in the case were both intoxicated, how should the trial go?

Lastly, a quote from Gladwell himself on this issue is that men in these situations not only need to learn how to act, but people need to learn how to drink less. However, this DOES NOT excuse those actions.

Chapter 9

This chapter now focuses on a new type of person. This is someone who is against you in all forms and wants to see you absolutely fail. When trying to deal with a terrorist in interrogation, how are you going to know that you can believe what they are saying? They could be telling you anything just to get something out of it and to avoid any torture.

Gladwell not only goes through some of the interrogations related to the events of 9/11, but introduces what the US military does to prepare their soldiers for torture. Some forms of torture (waterboarding) are just too effective and therefore, the military is not training the soldiers to lie but rather hold off as long as possible.

The greatest piece of information that came out of this chapter is showing how torture and ways of extracting information from people will not always provide the full story. Many studies show, when under pressure, most people cannot recall the events of what they are being asked correctly, if at all. This highlights the question of whether we should trust someone who has been tortured, because they may not even know what they are saying and could be fabricating a story.

Chapter 10

This chapter begins where we started with the topic of Sylvia Plath and brings up two ideas/concepts. These two are the concept of coupling and suicide. Both go hand in hand, however, coupling can be used for almost any event that happens around us.

Going back to chapter one we learn of Sylvia Plath and her suicide because of her being coupled to the idea of clean suicide. Which was clearly evident in her poetry.

This story is what brings in suicide and how coupling relates to it.

I’ll propose a question: If someone wants to commit suicide with a specific method of execution and we take this away from them, are they merely going to find another way to do it?

The answer is complicated, but we also have some insight into this answer. By reasoning of coupling, the answer to this question would be no. There are clear statistics showing that by removing a method of suicide from many homes (specifically carbon monoxide) rates of suicide plummeted for years. It was not only the fact that these people wanted to do it, but that it was so easy and didn’t affect their image (gunshot). Other reasons compound this idea, as it was more women who would commit suicide this way due to the fact that it would not deform their features and it would preserve their body.

These are the things that we don’t too often think about, and they definitely control a lot more than we understand.

Chapter 11

Now that Gladwell has introduced coupling and the idea of suicide, he can now evaluate another place where coupling was found. This chapter was to really enforce the idea and show that coupling is not just found in one situation.

Gladwell explores the Kansas City Police experiments. This series of experiments was conducted by the Kansas City Police Department to find what was causing the most crime in their city and what was going to stop it. Come to find out that there is a lot to do here with coupling. People were not necessarily committing crimes because they wanted to but rather because of their location and being coupled to the idea of crime in their city. Gladwell then explains how the police used this idea to show that removing that one “bad corner” on the street could significantly decrease crime rates. One would think they would just move over to the next street over, but they don’t. They were strongly coupled to that location.

Gladwell also cleverly places this chapter just before coming back to the story of Sandra Bland to enforce the idea of the police and the power they hold over the public.

Chapter 12

We now come back to the story of Sandra Bland and her story of being pulled over by the police.

This is such a powerful story because she was just a young girl being pulled over for something so small. One could say that the reason she was pulled over was caused by the police officer. The power of this story fully illuminates the idea of talking with strangers. The whole interaction that takes place between Sandra and the police officer is a spectacle. She was afraid of him, and he was afraid of her.

Ultimately this final chapter comes back to the idea of the police and the first interactions that we have with people. This is a special topic right now, as we are having lots of issues with policing in its current state. The issue is not only the cops as people but rather how they are trained to handle situations (Kim Potter). Coupling is heavy in lots of these situations and should be considered. There are lots of reasons for something to be happening and allows you to have a greater understanding of what might be going on. In the case of Sandra Bland, the officer Brian Encinia was a holy fool and even though this woman was telling the truth and trying to calm down, he just couldn’t believe anything she was saying.

For our own protection it is easier to blame the stranger and not default to the truth. This is exactly what Brian Encinia did with Sandra Bland. However, not considering all the information, like the case of Amanda Knox, has dire consequences and can ruin someones life.

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Final Thoughts

Malcolm Gladwell produces some great literature and always finds a way to present it in such an interesting way. The interconnected stories that all cumulate to a final powerful ending will never cease to interest me.

I would definitely recommend people to read this book to not only understand themselves more but the people around them. I think we as people all need to take a step back and realize there is a lot more going on inside the heads of those that are around us. We as a society are only now starting to understand mental health of those around us and how our actions affect them. This book has definitely made me take a step back to look at what is around me. I would suggest that after reading this you try and find what in your life is coupled with something. Why do you have good grades if you’re in school? Why do you go to the gym? Why do you eat a certain way? Life around us is so interesting and there is never just one reason for something.

Aren’t we all just strangers?