Teo Degas' Books & Decks

Gladwell has the talent to speak of relevant issues that affect our modern society and still make the issue engaging and fascinating.

In Talking to Strangers Gladwell uses different study cases coming from the world of politics, espionage, business, court trials, rape, and murder, among others, to extract some common denominators that explain how and why we all relate to strangers the way we do, why we are so bad at talking at strangers, at detecting blatant lies, and seeing  what we really have in front of our us for what it is.

This is an enjoyable, fascinating and complex book waved like an Irish Jersey, using different wool threads and knitting techniques to produce an unique product. Said differently, this isn't a straightforward book. Sometimes, Gladwell seems to be talking about things that have nothing to do with the subject of the book; however, if you listen attentively, you'll realise that everything being said serves to make a point.  If you aren't able to follow a path through a forest to get to destination, this book it isn't for you; this is how the book feels, so the light isn't always there, the path might be obscure and meandering, but keep walking and you'll get there.

After finishing the book I found myself noticing some of the things he comments on the book while watching the news, or talking to my brother about his coworkers, for example. What Gladwell says is really applicable to our daily life and it allows us to see ourselves with a bit of more compassion. 

I love learning new things, and this book was packed with information I knew nothing about:

• Default truth.
• Transparency myth.
• Facial Action Coding System (FADS).
• Illusion of asymmetric insight. 
• Kafka Scenario.
• Myopia theory of alcohol.
• Displacement theory.
• And much more. 

SUMMARY OF THE BOOK

We are terrible at talking and making sense of strangers and detecting lies; even judges in court cannot escape this flaw. We all make the same assumptions about strangers, use stereotypes that are rarely true, and believe that the information we gather from a personal interaction is uniquely valuable and reliable, when, in fact, it is far from it.  This is so because our strategies in dealing with strangers are flawed by three evolutionary psychological and cultural constrictions:
1/ Truth Default Theory. We depart from the assumption that everyone we deal with is truthful. We believe something about someone not because we don't have doubts about them, but because we don't have enough doubts. DTT has evolutionary advantages as prevents us from living in paranoia and allows us to have meaningful encounters and relationships. DTT becomes a problem when we are forced to choose between two alternatives, one of them likely and the other impossible to imagine; DTT buys us in favour of the most likely interpretation.
2/ Transparency Myth. We believe that we can decipher a person's nature by looking at their facial expression and paying attention to their demeanor, as we are convinced that those are a window to their soul. In other words, we believe that their behaviour and intentions are an exact match. We can largely blame literature and movies for perpetuating this belief. It's an halo effect. Blind auditions and computer decisions are usually more accurate in deciphering strangers than people. Because we tend to judge people' honesty based on their demeanor, nervous and odd people who offer convoluted explanations aren't seen as believable, and we don't do well with mismatches and social misfits.
3/ Coupling. We aren't able to understand the importance of the context in which a stranger operates, since behaviors are linked to specific circumstances and conditions. For example, some behaviours are consciously coupled to a place or circumstance, like suicide or crime.


THE NOT SO GOOD

The introduction, where  Gladwell discuses the famous meeting between Hernan Cortes and Montezuma and their misunderstanding of each other's intentions. The episode per se is really enjoyable, but the problem was a linguistic problem, a problem of translation, not a problem of not knowing how to talk to strangers. It relates to language and communication, how language and translation work. How strangers work, not so much.

The chapter on alcohol consumption and rape. Granted, most of what Gladwell says about how alcohol affects one's brain, personality and behaviour is true. However, it adds little value to the core thread of the book, and any other example would have worked better. In addition, I find confronting some of the thing he says. I side more with the statement of the raped girl, who didn't blame the alcohol for her rape,  but culture or the way some men are educated. Why do some drunk guys rape drunk girls and not others? is a simple question that can serve to debunk his fixation on alcohol. I am not saying that being drunk doesn't contribute to the problem,  but women are raped every day in countries where alcohol is forbidden and not consumed, doesn't that say something about the intrinsic nature of the problem?

Although I found all the case studies fascinating, the conclusion we get after going through all of them is really simple -- We don't know much about strangers because we are psychologically and culturally wired to be like that, so the only thing we can do is not to apply stereotypes, act with caution and humility towards strangers. What is that supposed to mean? Are there some social, sociological or psychological strategies that we can implement to improve our approach to strangers? Some ways of communication that favor or are detrimental to dealing with strangers beyond what it is said in the book? Are there cultures where people react towards strangers in ways that are wiser and more insightful? I was left wanting a bit of more digging.
 

THE AUDIBLE EDITION

This audio book is a delight to listen to. This is one of those cases when the audio book is better than the written book, and that it's an achievement in itself. 

Gladwell, who also narrates the book, is a terrific storyteller. He knows how to use his voice to read in a way that seems natural, effortless and engaging. He's passionate about what he's talking about, so you can feel the excitement in his voice. He's not an actor or a presenter, so we shouldn't forget that.

Besides, the audio book includes Gladwell's snippets of his interviews with some of the subjects or researchers mentioned in the book. The audio book also reproduces some media and archival interviews, and includes reenactments of some private court proceedings using court transcripts. 

The book chapters are connected by a tribal song. which Gladwell heard and selected himself for the book. It seems irrelevant to the book, but it's quite the contrary.

Listening to this book was like listening to a documentary. It had that sort of freshness and cinematic quality. Delightful.

Gladwell has the rare virtue of writing about mundane things with easiness, a sense of entertainment, but with an inquisitive mind. Characters, situations or historical episodes that would pass unnoticed to most of us, don't pass unnoticed to Gladwell, who is able to see underneath the surface, connect the dots, and look at things in revealing thoughtful ways.

The collection of articles in this book (originally published in the New York times) are a perfect example of this. There a few articles on business-related subjects, but I especially loved the articles related to women, especially the ones on hair dying in Post-War America, the one on the birth control pill, and the one on mammography imaging, which are simply terrific.

This is one of those books that reads well when travelling - it feeds your mind without feeling you full or heavy.