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chelso 's review for:
David and Goliath: The Triumph of the Underdog
by Malcolm Gladwell
Yeah. I did not like this book. It earned the second star, because I sort of like disliking this book. It was a book about a lot of things and nothing all at once. I listened to it on audiobook and that may have decreased the appeal even further.
I feel like this book had too little research or examples for some pretty big-pictures conclusions. Granted, maybe in the actual book format there are more footnotes, or a way to track how he comes to the conclusions. Everything just felt very anecdotal.
Some of the issues I had with his conclusions include: his views on affirmative action, the conclusion regarding treating the kids, and the potentially dangerous implications when discussing the civil rights situation.
His conclusion that affirmative action is setting up for failure discounts a few things I find important to include in the conversation. The big beef I had with it, it he is assuming the students are not doing as well because of the fact they are unable to keep up with the higher tier school, but completely ignoring that fact that it could be due to flat out discrimination. A correlation does not indicate causation. I also would like to know more about the professor he got the data from and how it was collected. I would further argue that his conclusion that maybe it isn't a good idea to send minority students to 'better' schools is short-sighted. For me, if his theory is correct they just flat out are having troubling keep up, than we should create better systems to support these students- not just re-affirm the systematic oppression that already exists.
Next, I had an issue with his conclusion that if this doctor did not use these extreme and somewhat awful tactics, than a cure would never have been found. That absolutely cannot be proven. Again, I feel like it is very small minded. It may have taken longer, or been different, but I think time and time again I have learned that the end does not justify the means. Although Descartes furthered knowledge about animal anatomy, I do not believe it was worth the expense of vivisection. I do not have enough information about these particular kids Gladwell speaks about in his book, it seems like that could be a very personal decision made by the family whether or not it would be 'worth it'.
Also, I have reservations with the way the civil rights story was presented. I feel like it simplifies the movement in general to essentially somewhat questionable tactics of the leaders trying to get children hurt for the media. I think he is accurate that it played an element- but the way it is expressed in the book did not sit well with me. I felt like he was pro deceptive tactics like we see in fictional works like [b:World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War|8908|World War Z An Oral History of the Zombie War|Max Brooks|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386328204s/8908.jpg|817] and [b:Mockingjay|7260188|Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)|Suzanne Collins|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358275419s/7260188.jpg|8812783], where collateral damage is essentially encouraged for strategy.
So ultimately, I feel like Gladwell encourages limited thinking. I think he is trying to demonstrate that he thinks out of the box, but I felt like it came across as short-sighted. I do not want to rely on correlations or that the end justifies the means, I just don't want to rely on this type of thinking. I believe there are better solutions.
I feel like this book had too little research or examples for some pretty big-pictures conclusions. Granted, maybe in the actual book format there are more footnotes, or a way to track how he comes to the conclusions. Everything just felt very anecdotal.
Some of the issues I had with his conclusions include: his views on affirmative action, the conclusion regarding treating the kids, and the potentially dangerous implications when discussing the civil rights situation.
His conclusion that affirmative action is setting up for failure discounts a few things I find important to include in the conversation. The big beef I had with it, it he is assuming the students are not doing as well because of the fact they are unable to keep up with the higher tier school, but completely ignoring that fact that it could be due to flat out discrimination. A correlation does not indicate causation. I also would like to know more about the professor he got the data from and how it was collected. I would further argue that his conclusion that maybe it isn't a good idea to send minority students to 'better' schools is short-sighted. For me, if his theory is correct they just flat out are having troubling keep up, than we should create better systems to support these students- not just re-affirm the systematic oppression that already exists.
Next, I had an issue with his conclusion that if this doctor did not use these extreme and somewhat awful tactics, than a cure would never have been found. That absolutely cannot be proven. Again, I feel like it is very small minded. It may have taken longer, or been different, but I think time and time again I have learned that the end does not justify the means. Although Descartes furthered knowledge about animal anatomy, I do not believe it was worth the expense of vivisection. I do not have enough information about these particular kids Gladwell speaks about in his book, it seems like that could be a very personal decision made by the family whether or not it would be 'worth it'.
Also, I have reservations with the way the civil rights story was presented. I feel like it simplifies the movement in general to essentially somewhat questionable tactics of the leaders trying to get children hurt for the media. I think he is accurate that it played an element- but the way it is expressed in the book did not sit well with me. I felt like he was pro deceptive tactics like we see in fictional works like [b:World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War|8908|World War Z An Oral History of the Zombie War|Max Brooks|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386328204s/8908.jpg|817] and [b:Mockingjay|7260188|Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)|Suzanne Collins|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358275419s/7260188.jpg|8812783], where collateral damage is essentially encouraged for strategy.
So ultimately, I feel like Gladwell encourages limited thinking. I think he is trying to demonstrate that he thinks out of the box, but I felt like it came across as short-sighted. I do not want to rely on correlations or that the end justifies the means, I just don't want to rely on this type of thinking. I believe there are better solutions.