Read–Outliers

I’d wanted to read Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book since hearing him interviewed by CBC’s Eleanor Wachtel in early December, so I was delighted to receive a copy of Outliers in my Christmas stocking.

Over the ensuing four days, I devoted all my spare time to turning the pages of Gladwell’s sparkling and entrancing prose. By the time I reached the final page I wasn’t disappointed so much as curious–where was the rest of the book?

Though Gladwell excels in the breezy anecdote, and he strings many together in Outliers, the narrative he creates comes off a little disconnected. What exactly does Gladwell mean by success? The healthy longevity of the denizens of Roseto, Pennsylvania? The billions of Bill Gates? The high school graduation rates for the lower class kids who form orderly line-ups at Knowledge Is Power Program schools? The lucky accident of being born around 1930, if you happen to be a Jewish, New York-based M&A lawyer ascended from garment trade entrepreneurs?

It was never clear to me how, and how broadly, the author defined success. His premise that a web of advantages and legacies backs up every sort of success isn’t exactly earth shattering. Nor is his prescription of 10,000 hours of practice for anyone who wants to excel in a chosen endeavor. Every story of success has a subtext of some combination of hard work, opportunity, luck, and talent.

Take Canadian Major Junior A hockey players, for example. Many of them are born in the early months of the year. Thanks to an arbitrary January 1 cutoff date for hockey registration, these athletes gain an early advantage. In comparison to their younger peers, their relative size, skills, and coordination help streamline them into rep and all star teams by age nine or ten. None of them make it to the majors without working their guts out.

Establishing a second hockey league for boys born in the second half of the year, as Gladwell recommends, might enhance their hockey experience and develop more elite players. What Gladwell doesn’t mention is that a second league would not lead to an expansion of NHL teams, though it might enlarge the field of candidates for the NHL draft.

Similarly, charter school and KIPP programs appear to enhance the probability of college entrance for disadvantaged students, thanks to extra hours of math instruction and homework. More math, along with summer enrichment programs, in the public schools attended by underserved kids could lead to greater numbers of them aspiring to college.

Gladwell laments Chris Langan, the uber-genius Gladwell believes was denied a university education by the “system”. But Langan is not exactly leading an unsuccessful life.

His analyses of why Asians are generally better at math, males from the American south are more honor-bound and violence-prone, and Korean Air used to have an abysmal safety record are less convincing, leaning heavily on generalization and the author’s penchant for cultural and class determinants.

One of Gladwell’s main aims in writing Outliers seems to be busting the already tired myths of meritocracy and the self-made man. Gladwell contends that success comes from culture–the qualities around, rather than in, the individual. In the end, Outliers is a reprise of the nature versus nurture argument, and it is nurture, bedecked in silky prose, rather than nature, that wins Gladwell’s heart.

Gladwell’s head is an unsolved mystery. He seems too enamored of his premise to discuss it critically, even though this would have made Outliers a more complete book. Likewise, since Gladwell seems to be such a sincere believer in the systemic determinants of success, Outliers would have been a more complete work if he had expanded more on how public policy should change to provide more pathways to excellence.