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Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell
addieellicott's review against another edition
3.0
I found part of this very enlightening, and feel that it’s good to have books that make us re-examine our assumptions (about how much we can tell from body language, or the importance of context).
What brought my rating down is that Gladwell deals with some very sensitive topics - like sexual assault. He probably doesn’t handle these with as much nuance as the topic deserves. The ideas that he’s developing do have some fairly obvious applications to this issue (e.g. why victims are frequently dismissed by police) that he chooses not to explore. He also breezes over the societal drivers (mysogyny, poor sex education) in favour of a very individualist framing, where the truth probably lies with a bit of both of these explanations. Rather than exploring what that means for us as a society, and specifically for the criminal justice system, the he arrives at a very unsatisfying ambivalence and what we could do about it.
However, his framing of this topic around the Sandra Bland was well done, and very impactful. I’d recommend listening to this in audiobook form to get the full effect, including ‘Say Her Name’ as part of the soundtrack.
What brought my rating down is that Gladwell deals with some very sensitive topics - like sexual assault. He probably doesn’t handle these with as much nuance as the topic deserves. The ideas that he’s developing do have some fairly obvious applications to this issue (e.g. why victims are frequently dismissed by police) that he chooses not to explore. He also breezes over the societal drivers (mysogyny, poor sex education) in favour of a very individualist framing, where the truth probably lies with a bit of both of these explanations. Rather than exploring what that means for us as a society, and specifically for the criminal justice system, the he arrives at a very unsatisfying ambivalence and what we could do about it.
However, his framing of this topic around the Sandra Bland was well done, and very impactful. I’d recommend listening to this in audiobook form to get the full effect, including ‘Say Her Name’ as part of the soundtrack.
halthemonarch's review against another edition
3.0
I, like many others who picked this snappily titled book, expected advice on how to literally talk to people. Instead I was invited to look closely at what I think I know about the nature of truth, self, perception, and deception and envision that everyone else’s response to that is just as nuanced as mine would be.
Don’t get me wrong, in the middle there I was ready to jump in with my own choice words for passages—the recounting of the Sandusky and Brock Turner cases— that seemed to sympathize with pedophiles and date rapists. when I stood back to absorb the point, I remembered that this wasn’t an essay about not date raping people, this was an essay about how tonal missmatches, fallacies in judgement, he-said she-said and the myopia of alcohol, or just plain good old fashioned human error can lead to as gross a misjudgement of character as Chamberlain and Hitler.. or of Sandra Bland and the officer who as good as sentenced her to death. But I mean still, ick talking about blackout drinking and blood alcohol science when Emily Doe was literally unconscious and by a dumpster.
This book was so informative, I wish I could remember all of the stats and studies. It’s an info dump interspersed with graphs and pictures. I’m glad I have the physical copy so I can comb through with google and a highlighter at a later date. Ultimately the goal of this essay is to present us with these outrageous, historic, scandalous, and vague instances where communications break down or slow when dealing with all sorts of issues and that we have a tendency of giving people the benefit of the doubt when we shouldn’t, or the opposite. The juxtaposition of these stories and the elements being compared are both reasonable, and make me remember that this is the take of a white man in north america who, on the low comes off astonished that sex workers have the capacity to fear danger, and portrays Bush Jr. as a sweet lil grandpa instead of the war criminal he is. It's a useful insight into the way (this particular) sympathetic and logical white person interprets the various perceptions among a bunch of other white people (all of the friends, Hitler, Jerry Sandusky, Sylvia Plath, etc). Gladwell is unintentionally devil’s advocate for the offending parties, but he draws these seemingly damaging conclusions in a way that makes a lot of sense— We should address drinking culture and rape culture, who said we had to pick between the two? Or should we punish people with slander and jail time for simply speaking about a doubt they had or a trauma they themself experienced? Should we rely on emotional cues, vocal cues, and our gut instincts or are those subject to coercion?
In conclusion,this book annoyed me and gave me a lot to think about. Four stars! ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Don’t get me wrong, in the middle there I was ready to jump in with my own choice words for passages—the recounting of the Sandusky and Brock Turner cases— that seemed to sympathize with pedophiles and date rapists. when I stood back to absorb the point, I remembered that this wasn’t an essay about not date raping people, this was an essay about how tonal missmatches, fallacies in judgement, he-said she-said and the myopia of alcohol, or just plain good old fashioned human error can lead to as gross a misjudgement of character as Chamberlain and Hitler.. or of Sandra Bland and the officer who as good as sentenced her to death. But I mean still, ick talking about blackout drinking and blood alcohol science when Emily Doe was literally unconscious and by a dumpster.
This book was so informative, I wish I could remember all of the stats and studies. It’s an info dump interspersed with graphs and pictures. I’m glad I have the physical copy so I can comb through with google and a highlighter at a later date. Ultimately the goal of this essay is to present us with these outrageous, historic, scandalous, and vague instances where communications break down or slow when dealing with all sorts of issues and that we have a tendency of giving people the benefit of the doubt when we shouldn’t, or the opposite. The juxtaposition of these stories and the elements being compared are both reasonable, and make me remember that this is the take of a white man in north america who, on the low comes off astonished that sex workers have the capacity to fear danger, and portrays Bush Jr. as a sweet lil grandpa instead of the war criminal he is. It's a useful insight into the way (this particular) sympathetic and logical white person interprets the various perceptions among a bunch of other white people (all of the friends, Hitler, Jerry Sandusky, Sylvia Plath, etc). Gladwell is unintentionally devil’s advocate for the offending parties, but he draws these seemingly damaging conclusions in a way that makes a lot of sense— We should address drinking culture and rape culture, who said we had to pick between the two? Or should we punish people with slander and jail time for simply speaking about a doubt they had or a trauma they themself experienced? Should we rely on emotional cues, vocal cues, and our gut instincts or are those subject to coercion?
In conclusion,this book annoyed me and gave me a lot to think about. Four stars! ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
teadiprima's review against another edition
1.0
This book is the definition of had me in the first half. Im not sure that one star is totally fair but I just finished it and Im irritated so I'm going to leave it for now and possibly reassess later.
Talking to Strangers was so all over the place, covering far too many subjects for such a poorly supported yet simple through-line. Gladwell discusses police brutality, sexual assault, pedophilia, racism, alcoholism, suicide, terrorism, espionage, war... the list goes on... all as supporting information to this idea that when we interact with strangers we "default to truth" meaning we assume the best in them even when there is overwhelming information telling us we are being lied to, manipulated, etc.
I don't think this point was well supported and I am also shocked by some of the atrocities Gladwell justifies with this logic (logic that he only ever asserts as an opinion but offers no psychological evidence for).
I was especially frustrated by the several chapters of in depth descriptions of some of the worlds most known sexual assault cases followed up by a chapter about alcohol myopia, which, whether intentional or not, served as a way to dilute the accountability of sex offenders like Brock Turner.
Malcom Gladwell can be really hit or miss for me and unfortunately this one was a miss.
Talking to Strangers was so all over the place, covering far too many subjects for such a poorly supported yet simple through-line. Gladwell discusses police brutality, sexual assault, pedophilia, racism, alcoholism, suicide, terrorism, espionage, war... the list goes on... all as supporting information to this idea that when we interact with strangers we "default to truth" meaning we assume the best in them even when there is overwhelming information telling us we are being lied to, manipulated, etc.
I don't think this point was well supported and I am also shocked by some of the atrocities Gladwell justifies with this logic (logic that he only ever asserts as an opinion but offers no psychological evidence for).
I was especially frustrated by the several chapters of in depth descriptions of some of the worlds most known sexual assault cases followed up by a chapter about alcohol myopia, which, whether intentional or not, served as a way to dilute the accountability of sex offenders like Brock Turner.
Malcom Gladwell can be really hit or miss for me and unfortunately this one was a miss.
gracearmstrong22's review against another edition
3.0
I’m counting this even thought I listened to it as an audiobook (bethany look away). Had some interesting topics but pretty boring overall
jayseewhy's review against another edition
4.0
This was probably the best use of the audiobook format that I’ve come across. With recordings and re-enactments from the people and events discussed, everything had a lot of weight.
While elements of the book were quite disturbing (the chapter on terrorism and torture felt like a pleasant reprieve), I’d recommend it highly to anyone wanting to gain a better understanding of modern discourse.
While elements of the book were quite disturbing (the chapter on terrorism and torture felt like a pleasant reprieve), I’d recommend it highly to anyone wanting to gain a better understanding of modern discourse.