Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world.
Day 16 of the 28 Day Self-Growth Plan
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell
This one went on my TBR list after I finished the summary. I may not ever read it in its entirety, but I put it on there anyway as a reminder that, should the opportunity present itself, I am going to read it.
First, let me acknowledge a slight bias towards Malcolm Gladwell. I enjoy his work. I understand and acknowledge the criticism – he is a storyteller not a scientist – and I read his work with that understanding. But I still read his work. I don’t think his lack of scientific credentials precludes him from being able to understand, interpret, and relay that information in digestible ways to interested readers.
I understand his context and do not hold him accountable to an alternative context.
Which, interestingly enough, is the basis for Talking to Strangers (okay, so even I am a little smirky about how that segue just kinda wrote itself).
For all the reasons discussed yesterday, I haven’t read much Gladwell lately. Honestly, I knew nothing about this 2019 publication until the summary. And it struck me as so intuitively interesting that I almost wrote about all the things it made me think about and take a break from the 28 days.
But I really want to get through these 28 days.
I understand that I can do what I want. I understand that I have the permission to be flexible. I totally get that sometimes life just does what it does and you have to pivot.
I get it.
I also know that my choices in this matter are not life or death. I also know that there is no deadline for ideas, there is no commerce in this work, there is no customer to please, no order to fill, no bills to pay.
In other words, making an allowance for this diversion of course is simply indulgent and without discipline. Saying “no” to that is the better option. Continuing, finishing, that’s the higher good here. It is the option I rarely choose when confronted with something interesting. I always have good intentions of correcting course, and sometimes I do. But, more often than not, it’s a rabbit hole and I chalk up yet one more “little project” that never quite got to see its shiny bow of completion.
So instead, I am going to just do what I do here in my space and hope it doesn’t so put you off that you never come back (yeah – all 12 of you).
These are things in the summary that made my brain light up:
In order to have a good interaction with a stranger, hostile or friendly, we need to make an accurate assessment of their context.
…it helps to know that there is so much about [strangers] we do not know. This allows us to caution ourselves and avoid the temptation of making judgments based on our own worldview.
The illusion of asymmetric insight makes us convince ourselves that we know others better than they know us and that we have insights about them that they lack
The same people who claimed that the [word completion] exercise had no meaning were now passing judgment on strangers based on their word completion exercises. None of them seemed remotely aware that they had been caught in a contradiction. Pronin described this phenomenon as the “illusion of asymmetric insight.”
We judge others using standards we are not willing to hold ourselves up to.
We do not behave, in other words, like sober-minded scientists, slowly gathering evidence of the truth or falsity of something before reaching a conclusion. We do the opposite. We start by believing. And we stop believing only when our doubts and misgivings rise to the point where we can no longer explain them away.
Part of what it means to get to know someone is to come to understand how idiosyncratic their emotional expressions can be
But the requirement of humanity means that we have to tolerate an enormous amount of error.
Maybe it is just me and my current state of feels that has these ideas touching all the parts of my brain. Maybe it is my inability to large scale disgust. Maybe it’s the levels of sad created in me by the flippant treatment people give themselves and others. Maybe I just need more coffee. Whatever it is, this idea of context, humility, grace just hits me right in the “YES!”
I listed all these things just in case I find it in me to come back to the moment where I thought digression would be a good idea. If I do decide to come back, maybe this small road map will be enough to put me back in the headspace to contend with all these different ideas.
But if it isn’t, allow me to attempt to shorthand my high points and forgive me if I fail in the eloquence department.
2020 has been different for everyone. In fact, folks look at me a little crazy when I say I am not really mad it; I haven’t had a terrible year. Sure, the year has been different. I think it goes without saying that there have been some devastating factors…
At this moment I realize I risk coming off disinterested and cold in my honesty. It is in this moment I typically start exhaustively explaining myself so that I will not be misunderstood. I am not doing that today. If you chose to read it that way, that’s on you – I know who I am, and you obviously don’t. I’m happy to have coffee and allow us both to get to know each other a little better.
…I think it goes without saying that there have been some devastating factors. I do not stick my head in the sand, create alternate realities where they do not exist, or downplay their significance. I am not avoiding harsh realities.
So too am I not allowing difficulties to easily change who I am as a person. “Easily” is pretty important as I understand there are some unavoidable shifts and there are potential events that are monumental enough to remodel.
But I will not allow the changing face of the world to change the way I face people. Correction, I will not allow the changing face of the world to cause me to…nope, no correction. I meant what I said.
I have worked pretty hard to take people in their context – the whole of their context. Doing it any other way is a disservice to both them and I.
Example (and this has come up more often recently as broad sweeping assumptions and hard lines of judgement have become more common): I had a conversation with one of the kids. They were super distraught that “such disrespectful people” filled their foray into the larger world. Upon further conversation, this judgement was based primarily on the lack of “sir” and “ma’am” being used consistently.
This is not a respect issue. This is a context issue. I explained that the common use of “sir” and “ma’am” is a cultural ideal. There are wonderful people all over the planet that have never used the courtesy because to them, it is unknown and/or irrelevant. Their idea of respect is not wrapped up in this particular idea, but in wholly different ideals. If we used that one characteristic to decide the integrity of a person, we will misjudge. That error is on the one passing judgement, not the one being judged.
And therein lies a greater truth. When judgements are passed, it is often more a statement of the -ing person, not the -ed.
My brain is becoming full of frustration. My heart is becoming heavy with inability. I so much want to say the thing that will alter the ideas of those who look to find fault, look to judge, look to be angry, thirst for the feeling of indignation.
But I don’t have it. I can only commit to not indulging in it.
