I just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is one of the most important books I've read in the past decade.
And it's worth it just for the one chapter entitled "Seven Seconds in the Bronx," an exploration of the tragic killing of Amadou Diallo on February 3, 1999. (Although I think it would be impossible to read that chapter out of context, since Gladwell's argument is a sustained and complex one that builds on its way toward that chapter.)
No one who has known me for more than five minutes is unaware that I'm a big Bruce Springsteen fan. And his reflections about that night in the song, "41 Shots," remains powerful for me. I was in New Jersey one night when Bruce performed this song and I heard hard-core fans - cops and friends of cops and friends of friends of cops - booing "The Boss." They just didn't want to hear it. Bruce's song raised questions and awareness but as analysis, his conclusion suggests blatent and conscious racism as the root cause of what happened in that seven seconds in the Bronx: "you can get killed just for living in your American skin." The argument then becomes about whether or not those cops were racists, which locks us into old arguments and probably doesn't help us to better comprehend what really happened. (In fairness to Bruce, when "the poets down here don't write nothin' at all but just stand back and let it all be" we are all diminished.)
Bottom line is that Gladwell moves way beyond that impasse to a serious and detailed analysis, suggesting that there is much to learn about the relationship between our brains and fear; the way that we take in information in the blink of an eye, and what we then do with that information. It strikes me that he gets us much closer to the truth and the closer we get to the truth the more likely we are to learn something new and to make real changes that have the potential to save lives. It's a book I have to keep thinking about, and one I commend to those who have not yet read it. Facinating stuff.
And it's worth it just for the one chapter entitled "Seven Seconds in the Bronx," an exploration of the tragic killing of Amadou Diallo on February 3, 1999. (Although I think it would be impossible to read that chapter out of context, since Gladwell's argument is a sustained and complex one that builds on its way toward that chapter.)
No one who has known me for more than five minutes is unaware that I'm a big Bruce Springsteen fan. And his reflections about that night in the song, "41 Shots," remains powerful for me. I was in New Jersey one night when Bruce performed this song and I heard hard-core fans - cops and friends of cops and friends of friends of cops - booing "The Boss." They just didn't want to hear it. Bruce's song raised questions and awareness but as analysis, his conclusion suggests blatent and conscious racism as the root cause of what happened in that seven seconds in the Bronx: "you can get killed just for living in your American skin." The argument then becomes about whether or not those cops were racists, which locks us into old arguments and probably doesn't help us to better comprehend what really happened. (In fairness to Bruce, when "the poets down here don't write nothin' at all but just stand back and let it all be" we are all diminished.)
Bottom line is that Gladwell moves way beyond that impasse to a serious and detailed analysis, suggesting that there is much to learn about the relationship between our brains and fear; the way that we take in information in the blink of an eye, and what we then do with that information. It strikes me that he gets us much closer to the truth and the closer we get to the truth the more likely we are to learn something new and to make real changes that have the potential to save lives. It's a book I have to keep thinking about, and one I commend to those who have not yet read it. Facinating stuff.
For anyone who doesn't know the Springsteen reference, here's a haunting video of the song:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kCbXkYbI6o