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Talking to Strangers ( Malcolm Gladwell)

  • Writer: Michael Wrede
    Michael Wrede
  • Aug 29, 2020
  • 3 min read

Updated: Sep 13, 2020

I finished this book on 8/14/2020. It was my second Gladwell book and it was great.


Quick Recap:


The book starts with the story of Sandra Bland, and then build-ups stories that explain each aspect of the story of Sandra Bland. He explores suicide, policing, break downs in communications. The book is about why we are so bad sometimes at translating someone's actions and words.


Lessons Learned:


1) Why can't we tell when a stranger in front of us is lying?


Gladwell uses the example of the mountain climber, a spy who tricked the US as a double spy. My favorite example is the story of Neville Chamberlain and his failed appeasement of Hitler. It's a story that is known in. history as an enormous failure. However, I had no idea that Hitler and Chamberlain had actually met in person multiple times. Chamberlain believed he had connected with Hitler and that by seeing him in person he had seen into his real ambitions. Here's the quote I like the most from this chapter: "Yet all the extra information Chamberlain Gathered from his personal interactions with Hitler didn't help him see Hitler more clearly. It did the opposite." He goes on to explain how Churchhill didn't trust Hitler, but not because he had met him in person, but principally from the fact that he didn't. Meeting people in person can actually blind us from the truth rather than help reveal it. This extends to Judges who decide bail. A computer can do a better job than a judge because seeing the person in front of them can actually bias them towards the wrong punishment. Gladwell also explains this in relation to Montes, a Cuban spy who the US read completely wrong even after having evidence. We at the end of the day are bad at reading people because our expectations are off.


2) Advantage of Believing


"The advantage of human beings lies in assuming that strangers are truthful."

Gladwell talks about the Bernie Madoff case and the one man who unveiled it all. He had been talking for years about the case. One thing though that Gladwell mentions is the social costs to be the questioner. The reason why we allow ourselves to be deceived and accept most as truthful is that's how we build our communities and the benefits of just believing are enormous. This is why when things go wrong like the Sandusky Case and the Larry Nasser case its usually after many years that they finally get exposed. We default to truth and in most cases this is good. We want people to do that, but in cases where the flaws are demonstrated we wish we had a skeptic, but that doesn't recognize the importance of our default to the truth.


3) Not being able to judge someone


In the Amanda Knox case, the investigators assumed she was guilty by her mannerisms and attitudes. They had Knox pegged all wrong. She was shy and awkward, but they perceived her behavior as being someone who didn't care and must have killed her roommate. We think we can look into someone's eyes and understand their feelings; their thoughts. However, it's been proven that is incredibly difficult


4) Coupling


This a concept that I have heard before, but Gladwell's explanation of it is so simple. Suicide many perceive to be an act of complete will. When we take away someone's method of suicide, they will still find a way. For example, in the 1960s one of the leading causes of death in England was a stove. Once they got rid of the stove's fatality, the number of suicides in England dropped. Suicide is as much about the means as it is about the will. Many like to think suicide is only about a person's mental health and instability. We fail to see the importance of context in which the stranger is operating. Having a gun in your house makes you more likely to kill yourself. Same as the stove, it made people more likely to kill themselves because they had a method. So instead of looking at the stranger, we sometimes have to look at the world they live in.






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