I dunno, Malcolm Gladwell. I think I might be done. I thought "outliers" was way too riddled with inaccuracies, along with being a fundamentally flawed premise. For instance, I don't understand how he can tell the story of Bill Gates and try to argue that it was merely circumstances that allowed Bill Gates to become who he is today. For some reason he acts as though Gates was the only person with access to a computer at that time- although he has proved that it was a rare circumstance, there were say, at least a couple hundred other kids with the same opportunities. and that he can actually write into his book that Gates would sneak out from his house most nights in high school so he could use a computer lab at a nearby university that had an opening between 3 and 6 in the morning, and not notice that THAT takes a one in a billion person, blows my mind. He's ignoring facts that he has written into his own book.
Also, the book is ridiculously anecdotal. For instance, when he is talking about immigrant Jews who went into textiles, and whose kids then became lawyers. If he's going to argue that it was the circumstances not the person, then how come all of the Jews who immigrated to the Lower East Side didn't end up in the exact same position? What about the people who didn't start their own companies? The same reason they were left out of the Gates chapter- because if you include all the people in similar situations who didn't turn out the same, you destroy your fragile thesis.
By far the worst chapter, or the one that upset me the most, was about how Asian people are good at math because they worked in the rice paddies. Way to explain a stereotype with a very offensive stereotype. First of all, way to conflate all Asian people. Second of all, in any of those countries not all of the people, not even all of the peasants, are farmers! Like, what? I just don't even understand how he could publish this chapter. I'm sure there are so many other reasons that could serve as better explanations for why people in those Asian countries scored better on math tests. And then beyond that, he sticks with the American fearmongering idea that because Asian people tend to score better on math tests, they are smarter and more successful. He should have at least spoken to educators or critics of the education systems in these countries, who I'm sure would have pointed out that their education systems overemphasize number crunching, teaching few leadership or creative skills. Basically, i thought it was an unbelievably superficial explanation of a complex issue, not too mention reenforcing many of the stupidest American ideas about "Asia."
The book basically exemplified everything that is wrong with trying to understand deeply complex societal issues, especially regarding minorities, by coming up with glib answers that increase distance between different types of people, precluding the ability to understand another person as part of modern society.
