SLAYING GIANTS
Underdogs are not always underdogs and advantages are not always advantages, Malcolm Gladwell reveals
In David and Goliath, his fifth book in what has become a star-making career, New Yorker magazine writer Malcolm Gladwell ( The Tipping Point, Blink, Outli
ers, What the Dog Saw) dazzles his way into the cerebral cortex of long-held beliefs and assumptions, electrifying the brain and edifying the mind as he goes. So much so, that by the end of the book it’s quite possible the reader will wonder if up is really down or if the sun actually sets in the west. Such are the persuasive skills Gladwell routinely exhibits in his writings for The New Yorker, where the Canadian has been on staff for 17 years.
What he tries to convince us of in this latest offering is that underdogs are not always underdogs, advantages are not always advantages, and disadvantages are, well, you get the picture. As can be expected, his arguments are never less than fascinating and always thought-provoking, assisted by gripping narrative examples. Take the old story of David and Goliath; Gladwell turns it on its head: Yes, Goliath is a behemoth; yes, David is a lowly, scrawny shepherd; and yes, the smart money will be on Goliath. But as Gladwell ably demonstrates, money isn’t very smart.
Goliath, to succeed, needs to fight in close combat, where his strength can prevail. David, on the other hand, needs no such thing. He is an expert slinger and has no intention of getting close. Why? Because, as Gladwell points out, “an expert slinger can kill or seriously injure a target at a distance of up to two hundred yards.” Suddenly, it’s advantage David, and as we all know, he wins.
“We have,” writes Gladwell, in summing up the moral to this story, “a very rigid and limited definition of what an advantage is. We think of things as helpful that actually aren’t and think of other things as unhelpful that in reality leave us stronger and wiser.”
This plays out with class size. The instinctive response to this controversial topic is the smaller the better, right? Wrong. What Gladwell found is that smaller is academically better up to a point, after which it becomes detrimental. To illustrate his point, he utilizes what is called the inverted-U curve, which has three parts. On the left side of the curve, where, in this case, there would be, say, 40 students in a class, doing more to reduce class size is better. In the middle though, you’ve reached the optimum amount of students and reducing that number from, say, 25 to 20 students won’t make a difference. And on the right side of the inverted-U curve, too much cutting has been done, the class size is too small, and students perform poorly.
“Twelve is . . . too intimate for many high schoolers to protect their autonomy on the days they need to,” Gladwell writes, “and too easily dominated by the bombast or bully, either of whom could be the teacher herself. By the time we shrink to six bodies, there is no place to hide at all, and not enough diversity in thought and experience to add the richness that can come from numbers.”
In another fascinating section — and the entire book is full of eyebrow raising moments, all laid out in deceptively simple, even folksy, prose — Gladwell convincingly shows that it is better to be a Big Fish in a Small Pond than a Small Fish in a Big Pond. Meaning, if you are brainy enough in math and science to get accepted at both Harvard and another less prestigious school, but not brainy enough to dominate your field, you should probably go to the less prestigious school. For one thing, you will be less likely to drop out in frustration. For another, a study he cites shows that when it comes to hiring, “the best students from mediocre schools were almost always a better bet than good students from the very best schools.”
And on he goes, shooting down this theory and that belief, and doing so with elegance and enthusiasm. The Nazis failed to conquer Britain, he writes, because dropping bombs on London empowered its people; severe punishment for modest crimes causes more crime; and maybe being born with dyslexia isn’t such a bad thing. It’s all very counterintuitive and absorbing and bound to be another bestseller.
Further proof that Gladwell himself is a publishing goliath. Or maybe that should be David.
James Macgowan is a frequent contributor to The Star’s book section.