Got bored, read the latest from Malcolm 'in the middle' Gladwell: an unbearably laboured metaphor about David vs Goliath. He's waving at something interesting but not quite getting there. The idea is that as long as Goliath plays by Goliath's rules, he has to lose, because the game is built for Goliath. Gladwell doesn't take the poetic step, the spiritual one, because he can't, because he's a business writer instead of a cultural critic or poet: he ends with Goliath wondering whether he's really a giant, but the real lesson is that 'giant' is a made-up category, and it does not connote. It means only size, and entails certain abilities, but strengths and weaknesses are entirely context-dependent. They describe interactions, relationships. 'Giant' is about identity. When you think the game is one thing, a still-life, you cease to look at it truly, as a realm of interactions. As process, movement. Basic zen, of course, and also basic games theory.
Naturally Gladwell has an interest in keeping things low-key; that seems to be his temperament, but it's also one of his audience's major demands. So there's almost nothing to the article - just the straightforward observation that the only way to win the written game is usually not to play. Which is a teenage insight. 'Why don't people understand this simple thing?' he asks. Partly because he's describing, essentially, games - war, basketball, single combat. One-on-one contests. And of course his characterization of basketball is exactly as simplistic as his characterization of social networks, war, scientific research, university admissions, single combat...halfway-decent basketball teams are trained on how to beat the full-court press, and the energy of grown men flows quite differently from that of teenage girls; Gladwell's usual Tiny Little Bit of Insight doesn't even scale within the narrow domain he's discussing. Never mind that the purpose of basketball isn't, ultimately, to determine superiority - it's a symbol, a dance. He admits this in his piece, yet doesn't understand why it matters! And so his usual Big Central Metaphor is even more strained than usual, which is why the piece's language is so fucking amateurish and inelegant.
Gladwell's pop-psych tidbits and half-digested snippets of overheard math and social theory are as they've ever been: undeniably intelligent, unbearably self-satisfied, anything but courageous. He's an ad man, and bless him for taking his job seriously, but they're only ads - selling lifestyle poses and cocktail-party conversation-starters. Gimme a break.
