VABALOG

Gladwell ja Gladwellist

Malcom Gladwell’i nimi peaks Vabalogi lugejatele tuttav olema, sest tema artiklitele on varemgi olnud põhjust viidata, kuid kuna mees on hakkama saanud uue raamatuga, siis pälvib ta ka tavalisest rohkem tähelepanu. Just värskest raamatust “Outliers” näib olevat inspireeritud ka tema värskeim artikkel, mis ilmus New Yorker’is, kus ta üritab vastata küsimusele, kas edukamaks osutuvad suuremaid takistusi ja vastuolusid ületanud inimesed (tavaliselt vaesuses üleskasvanud) või on olukord tänapäeval kardinaalselt muutunud:

According to Carnegie, “It is not from the sons of the millionaire or the noble that the world receives its teachers, its martyrs, its inventors, its statesmen, its poets, or even its men of affairs. It is from the cottage of the poor that all these spring.”

Today, that interpretation has been reversed. Success is seen as a matter of capitalizing on socioeconomic advantage, not compensating for disadvantage. The mechanisms of social mobility—scholarships, affirmative action, housing vouchers, Head Start—all involve attempts to convert the poor from chronic outsiders to insiders, to rescue them from what is assumed to be a hopeless state. Nowadays, we don’t learn from poverty, we escape from poverty, and a book like Ellis’s history of Goldman Sachs is an almost perfect case study of how we have come to believe social mobility operates.

Gladwell ei vea alt ka seekord ja pakub temale omaselt välja huvitava idee, mida rikastab huvitavate lugude ja mõtlemapanevate tähelepanekutega. Ei midagi väga erilist, kuid piisavalt kaasahaarav, et kord lugema asudes ka lõpuni lugeda.

New York Magazine’is ilmus aga samuti vaid mõned päevad tagasi huvitav portreelugu Gladwell’ist, mille autor üritab lahti harutada Gladwell’i edu aluseid sealjuures peatudes tema esimesel raamatul, põgusalt ka  varasemal karjääril, kuid eelkõige sellel, kuidas Gladwell’il on läinud pärast esimese raamatu ilmumist.

Igati tänuväärt on artikli autori poolt ka Gladwell’i kriitikute väljatoomine, kes on tõenäoliselt mõjutanud ka värskeima teose stiili:

The bigger criticism of Gladwell is not that he’s unoriginal but that he’s unserious—that he takes substantive academic work and applies it to frivolous things (epidemiology and Hush Puppies, anyone?). While such an approach may endear him to business elites, it often infuriates cultural and political ones. Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, has said, “What Gladwell is marketing is nothing but marketing—the marketer’s view of the world. But that view of the world is, I’m afraid, idiotic.” The judge and legal scholar Richard Posner, in a scathing review of Blink for TNR, complained that it was “written like a book intended for people who do not read books.” Meanwhile, Carlin Romano, the influential literary critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, used his review of Blink to give its author a hazing and an ultimatum: “Gladwell, one fears, has come to his own tipping point, or—to be fuddy-duddy—fork in the road. This way, guru. That way, serious writer.”

Gladwell’i värskeimast teosest annavad aga hea ülevaated Slate’i raamatuklubi arutlused, mis alles käivad.


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