If someone calls you the 'most influential thinker of the iPod generation' (OBSERVER) is it a blessing or a curse?
I'm sure Malcolm Gladwell takes it as a compliment, and I'm certain it's meant as one. Being called the most influential thinker of a generation is no small feat. You've got to hand it to Gladwell, THE TIPPING POINT and BLINK were reponsible for the new trend of social psychology publishing.
THE TIPPING POINT in particular actually delivered on its own argument by setting off a domino effect of similar books. Gladwell, in the (irritating) parlance of our times, is surfing the zeitgeist. In fact, he is the zeitgeist, and will probably predict his own demise. It's this quality that leads to him being cast as a Messiah-type intellectual figure by the liberal-minded broadsheet press (OK, the GUARDIAN and the OBSERVER).
But just how great the greatest thinker of a generation is depends on the generation. And this is the so-called 'iPod generation'. Ah. The generation that can't sit still and listen to an entire album, who can't concentrate on more than one thing for more than five minutes, that can't actually tolerate complex and involving ideas. Who wants to be the most influential thinker of this generation?
It's telling that Gladwell's research techniques mirror the function of the iPod Shuffle. Tim Adams wrote in his OBSERVER interview: 'a couple of times a year, he [Gladwell] tells me, he spends a day in the periodicals section of the New York Public Library just scanning through several hundred medical and psychological journals, looking for patterns, seeing what new ideas might have anecdotal resonance. In his own terminology, in this way, he 'thin-slices' academia, and trusts his nose for the prime cuts.'
It's not Gladwell's fault he's leading the pack in a vacuous world, he deserves all the credit he gets. In fact, with his new book OUTLIERS just published, once again he's enacting his own argument, that success and achievement is an incongruous balance of talent, background, hard work and lots of luck. This is hardly revelatory, and I hope he doesn't become too comfortable in his Greenwich Village/cafe latte/NEW YORKER mould.
I'd like to see him break free and run for the hills, and take the 'iPod generation' to the wilderness with him.
