Thinking Twice: Revenge of the Tipping Point with Malcolm Gladwell

John Donvan
Hi everybody, I’m John Donvan, Open to Debate’s moderator in chief. We usually bring you rigorous debates on a wide range of topics. But as many of you know, every once in a while we’ll offer an episode that isn’t a debate, per se, but is actually aligned with one of our core themes, which is about what it means to be open-minded. So in this case we’re bringing you a conversation with somebody who is open to re-examining his own ideas. Today we have Malcolm Gladwell on the show sitting down with one of our regular quest moderators, Nayeema Raza. Nayeema, it’s all yours.

Nayeema Raza
Hi everyone and welcome to Open to Debate. I’m Nayeema Raza and today I’ll be in conversation with best-selling author, Malcolm Gladwell, about his latest book Revenge of the Tipping Point. It’s something between a sequel and a revisitation of Gladwell’s first book, written 25 years ago and titled The Tipping Point. That original was about how little things make a big difference, how they gain critical mass and tip to spread like wildfire across the culture. It was written at a time of deep optimism. A lot has changed since then and in Revenge of the Tipping Point Malcolm looks back, considering more negative wildfires, from the opioid epidemic to a teen mental health crisis and, of course, COVID-19. He examines what has changed and he touches on what he may have missed or gotten wrong in his earlier work. That idea of publicly re-assessing one’s own ideas is something we value at Open to Debate. So I’m so excited to speak to Malcolm today about what it feels like to argue with yourself. And with that, let’s get to the conversation with Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm, thanks so much for being here today.

Malcolm Gladwell
Delighted to be here.

Nayeema Raza
How are you doing today?

Malcolm Gladwell
I’m well. I’m well.

Nayeema Raza
So I love this title, Revenge, and I’d love to start with the central question that drove you to write the original Tipping Point.

Malcolm Gladwell
I was living in New York City in the early 1990s and I witnessed first hand this extraordinary transformation in the city from being one of the most dangerous big American cities to being one of the safest. That seemed to happen overnight and I, like many other people living in New York at the time, was completely baffled by how on Earth this happened. Like, what… You know, we had this expectation and when we got to New York that, uh, we were taking our lives in our hands and then we woke up one day and, uh, nobody was worried about crime anymore. And I, I just found that absolutely fascinating.

Nayeema Raza
And I wanna get to that because this idea, uh, your explanation for how crime was resolved in New York City actually has evolved in this time. Um, and so we’ll get to the broken windows theory in a me- in a moment. But first, what motivated you more recently to update it, um, beyond, you know, maybe a book deal?

Malcolm Gladwell
(laughs) Well, it was the 25th anniversary of my… of the original Tipping Point and originally I thought I would just kind of update it. But then I got really interested in this idea that, you know, when people write sequels they tend to write them right after the… you know, you do, you do version one, then you do version two.

Nayeema Raza
Right.

Malcolm Gladwell
Rarely have I seen a sequel that was written a quarter-century after part one and I thought that was kinda fun, that… and interesting to, to look back on something over the passage of time. And I also realized that I had been… many of the ideas that I had played with in the original Tipping Point were things that I… were themes I had returned to again and again and again d- over the course of my writing. And so this was a good opportunity to kind of sum up a lot of that rethinking. You know, for example, every one of my books has had a, uh, a section where I deal with the idea that we are constructed by our… influenced heavily by our environments in ways that we don’t realize. I’m, I’m not very int- I have never been very interested in looking at human beings from the inside out, I’ve always been interested in looking at us from the outside in. And I started that kind of outside-in perspective with Tipping Point and I, I feel like I’ve kind of been arguing with myself about what it… what does it mean to be influenced by your environment ever since. And so this was a good time to kind of take stock of that idea.

Nayeema Raza
And I love that word you use as well, “play”. You use that word a lot in your writing, you’re… uh, it’s, um, this idea of not holding anything too dear, I think. This idea of, of being able to, like clay, reshape ideas and reformulate concepts over time. What, what do you changed more in the last 25 years? The world or yourself? Or which level of change surprised you most and mattered most for reconsidering the book?

Malcolm Gladwell
Well, uh, God, it’s hard to choose between and the world.

Nayeema Raza
(laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
Uh, the world (laughs), the world’s, uh, the world’s changed a bit. I mean, I, I, I, I have the best perspective on the changes that have happened in myself, of course, as all of us do. So maybe they’re more… it’s more striking to me, um, the ways in which my thinking has evolved. I’ve… I’m a lot less… I feel like 25 years ago I was someone who was easily captured by a, an interesting idea. And now I’m a little more wary of those ideas. I feel like 25 years ago I was someone who was less interested in story and character and now I tend to approach a lot more, uh, I approach issues much more from the perspective of the, of the people involved with the stories. I’m much more interested in narrative as a-

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
… as a way of understanding things and as a way of reaching people with ideas, um, that’s much more central in my work than it was 25 years ago. And I’m also probably… I think I was a lot more optimistic, as someone in my 30s, than I am now.

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
Um, I’m a little more chastened by the world, um, as what you would, you would expect someone in their 60s to be.

Nayeema Raza
(laughs) One of those things that… I’m, I’m sorry to hear that. [inaudible

] but, uh, but that makes sense because usually-

Malcolm Gladwell
You’ll get, you’ll get there.

Nayeema Raza
Oh (laughs).

Malcolm Gladwell
You’ll get there.

Nayeema Raza
Hopefully not too soon.

Malcolm Gladwell
It’s a long way off for you. But yeah. Trust me.

Nayeema Raza
Um, but I do… Uh, because this book really does look back, I mean, uh, uh, at some less hopeful epidemics and some less hopeful wildf- wildfires that have spread in, in our more recent times. Um, versus the original book which looked at really some optimistic notes, including, as you mentioned, crime.

Malcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.

Nayeema Raza
And how that had changed in New York City.

Malcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.

Nayeema Raza
Um, now, one of the things you revisit, not in the pages of this book, but in a recent podcast episode, is how wrong you were in, in your original work about the broken windows theory of crime. Um, I’d love you to break that down with us, starting maybe with what was the broken windows theory?

Malcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.

Nayeema Raza
What was the theory of crime that, that, uh, prevails in The Tipping Point? And then we’ll, uh, we’ll get to what’s changed since then and what you’ve learned since then.

Malcolm Gladwell
Yeah. So broken windows was an idea that was a really big deal in the ’80s and ’90s. And it was an epidemic theory of crime. Um, that’s why I was attracted to it because I’m… I was very interested in The Tipping Point in applying the epidemic model to human behavior. And broken windows theory said that small changes, small indices of disorder have long… have major longterm consequences, that serious crimes arise out of minor crimes.

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
That if you create an environment where you tolerate a broken window, somebody peeing on the street, someone jumping a subway turnstile, someone, someone smoking weed in public, what you are doing is you are essentially telling people who are interested in, uh, more serious crimes that, “All bets are off. Go right ahead. No one’s in charge.” Right?

Nayeema Raza
Right.

Malcolm Gladwell
And so it was a kind of… The way that the New York City Police Department interpreted that was that, if we want to, uh, stop serious crimes like murder, rape, you know, you name them, we’ve gotta start by cracking down on small crimes. And that led to this policy of stop-and-frisk, which was the signature policy of the New York City Police Department, um, through 2013.

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
Um, from, from the, from the ’90s for the next, uh, 20 years. They inaugurated this policy of saying, “The police cannot be indifferent to things that are happening on the street.” They have to be proactive. And if they see some young kid walking down the street and they think that kid’s got a gun on ’em or they think that kid has drugs they should stop that kid, frisk that kid, and send a clear message to every other young kid out there that New York City’s not gonna, uh, stand quietly by while guns and drugs are being, um, carried through the streets. That by the… by 2011 or 2013 the New York City Police Department is stopping 700,000 young people a year on the streets of New York. And it was the consensus position of an extraordinary number of people in New York, myself included-

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
… that that’s why crime went down so dramatically in the city. And, um, that’s what I wrote about in The Tipping Point.

Nayeema Raza
Right.

Malcolm Gladwell
I said… I didn’t write… I t- I said, “Look, it, it may sound Draconian and it may sound like, you know, uh, there may be some side effects here.” But if you wanna s- crack down on big crimes, you gotta crack down on little crimes, right?

Nayeema Raza
Right. So what makes you update it? What makes you update that thinking?

Malcolm Gladwell
In 2012, uh, there was a, uh, a lawsuit, uh, filed against the City of New York, um, that s- that argued that stop-and-frisk was unconstitutional. A federal judge ruled in favor of that suit. And stop-and-frisk went from 700,000 stops a year to a negligible amount, less than 50,000. Everyone, myself included, said, “Oh my God. Crime’s gonna go back up.” Right? And it didn’t.

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
Crime then fell even further. In fact, New York went through a second, even more extraordinary crime drop, between 2013 and, and, and the p- and the beginning of the pandemic. And that second drop caused me to say, “Wait a second, it couldn’t have been stop-and-frisk ’cause we took away stop-and-frisk and crime fell again.”

Nayeema Raza
Right.

Malcolm Gladwell
Right? It had to have been something else. That was the moment where I had to revisit, uh, my previous position.

Nayeema Raza
So you’ve said that you think everyone should be required to re-examine what they did 25 years ago. Uh-

Malcolm Gladwell
Yeah.

Nayeema Raza
In practice, what was the experience like for you? Could you be your own editor? Or did you find yourself sometimes making excuses for your past self?

Malcolm Gladwell
Well, it takes a while. So, you know, uh, a good question to ask me was… would be, if we learned in 2013 that the theory of broke- or, or d- or the… if we learned in that period, 2013 to 2019, that the theory of broken windows was wrong, stop-and-frisk was a mistake, why didn’t I s- put my hand up and say, “I was wrong-”

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
… “back then?” And the answer is because it’s hard to admit you’re in error. Because I wasn’t, I wasn’t thinking about correcting myself because I wasn’t making a habitual practice of going through the evidence that I had used previously. Um, I can give you all kinds of excuses about why I didn’t do it right away. But the bottom line is, it’s not something we do, uh, naturally or intuitively as human beings. I think what we do is we, we just assume we were right and we keep go- keep on going and moving forward. I think you have to make a deliberate practice out of revisiting your positions. And I didn’t get to it until 2024, right?

Nayeema Raza
Right.

Malcolm Gladwell
And that’s, you know, that’s on me. That is a second mistake. My first mistake was to think, when I wrote The Tipping Point, that I had the answer when in fact all we had was kind of very preliminary observation. My second mistake was taking too long to revisit my first mistake (laughs), right?

Nayeema Raza
Indeed. Well, we appreciate you acknowledging those mistakes. We’re gonna take a quick break, but when we come back we’ll have much more to discuss with Malcolm Gladwell. I’m Nayeema Raza, this is Open to Debate.

John Donvan
You’re looking for more debates to listen to, visit our website opentodebate.org. Over the years we have covered everything, from whether people should eat meat, to whether Ukraine should be a member or NATO. You can also find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter, every week we bring you context on the debates we’re doing and additional information and links to articles. And we update you on what’s to come for our program.

Nayeema Raza
Welcome back to Open to Debate, I’m Nayeema Raza here with Malcolm Gladwell, talking about his latest book Revenge of the Tipping Point. Let’s continue the conversation. So, so Malcolm, when you eventually do write this book you don’t go about it by, you know, a proclamation, a declaration, a foot- or footnoting of your original work. You instead say you started with a bit of a blank page.

Malcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.

Nayeema Raza
New questions. Why that process?

Malcolm Gladwell
Well, I realized, you know, that if you’re interested in epidemics-

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
… and, and in thinking about, um, social epidemics and the epidemic model as a way of explaining human behavior, you know, two extraordinary thing happened in the interval between my first book and my… and the sequel, Revenge of the Tipping Point. Um, one is the opioid crisis, you know, one of the most extraordinary and catastrophic public health events in the history of this country. I mean, to this day I, I do not understand why we’re not talking about the opioid crisis every day. We’re at, we’re at over 100,000 deaths a year from opioid overdoses in America.

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
To put that in perspective, the Vietnam War was 60,000 American deaths over, what, 10 years. Uh, that’s six months of the opioid crisis, right? And the Vietnam War caused the country to turn upside down, governments to fall, like, it reshaped our American society. Opioid crisis is, like, infinitely more catastrophic source of kind of deaths, particularly among young people. Um, and then the other thing, of course, was COVID.

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
Um, we had this pandemic that caused the entire world to stop functioning for a while. So I thought, “What… you know, two incredible kind of case studies in epidemics have happened in the intervening 25 years, what an opportunity to kind of start over and kind of rethink the way these things, these epidemics work.”

Nayeema Raza
Right. But, you know, I think about it as kind of, “A tree falls in the forest.” Um, I’m wondering about this c- idea of if your examination makes a difference, a dent outside of yourself? You know, once an idea, like broken windows, tips and spreads, can it be actually put back in a bottle or cleansed from a culture?

Malcolm Gladwell
I think it does. You know, sort of… Uh, one of the most interesting, to me, chapters in t- Revenge of the Tipping Point is the chapter on, uh, gay marriage. And what’s interesting about the marriage equality fight is that it… No one who was involved in that, none of the activists involved in that battle thought that it would happen as quickly as it did. They were all… They, they endured years and years and years of defeat after defeat after defeat. It seemed like the country, instead of warming to their cause, was turning their back on their cause. You know, in 2004, 2005, if you asked somebody in that movement how long it would take to win public acceptan- for gay marriage, they were thinking 30, 40 years. And it didn’t happen that way, it happened really dramatically and suddenly. By, I don’t know, 2015 the fight was over. I mean-

Nayeema Raza
Right.

Malcolm Gladwell
… public just… So I was tryna figure out, that’s really k- kind of astonishing that a, a change about something as fundamental as whether straight people wanna share their most cherished social institution with gay people, happened in a, you know, in a, uh, almost like in a blink of an eye, right?

Nayeema Raza
Right.

Malcolm Gladwell
What that suggests is that the, the stories we tell each other, um, about who we are and what we believe and, um, what we’re willing to accept, are far more volatile-

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
… than we realize, that we really do… We really can change our minds about things and we’ll do it relatively quickly. Um, so long as the right conditions are in place.

Nayeema Raza
And, and I wanna get to what those circumstances are. And in the case of gay marriage, uh, you take a look at common culture, uh, uh, the TV show Will & Grace being a critical moment for the examination of, of gay marriage and really the role of storytelling. Um-

Malcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.

Nayeema Raza
You compare in your book the… uh, you don’t lament it, though I kind of lament it, this decline of common culture. Um, you talk about a s- uh, a show like M*A*S*H, which almost 50% of the American viewing audience watched the finale of. Um, you know, exceeding, say, the Super Bowls of the time. Um, versus Big Bang Theory, which was, uh, the 2010s great hit, um, and had fewer than 5% of Americans watching that. What does this decline of common culture mean for the reconsideration of ideas? And for the ability, even, to debate ideas amongst ourselves?

Malcolm Gladwell
Well, uh, yes, there has, there has been this kind of marked decline in common experiences. So if you think about, across the board, I mean, think about it, 50 years ago in America if you were in church on a Sunday morning you could be reasonably sure that an overwhelming percentage of Americans were also in church at exactly that same time on Sunday morning, right? When you went home and you watch the news you could be reasonable sure that an overwhelming majority of American households were watching the news at exactly the same time, maybe even exactly the same program. I mean, or one of three major networks, right? And when you watched a television show like M*A*S*H or The Mary Tyler Moore Show or whatever the great shows were of that era, and you went to work the next day you knew that you could talk about them. Because you could assume everyone was… watched them as well. That’s gone away. Um, uh, we have some things we have in common now like politics, we have in common. And maybe one really interesting theory as to why politics has become such an extraordinarily divisive and present phenomenon, I mean, we debate… we seem to care more about it and debate more about it than we did 50 years ago. Is that it’s one of the few shared experiences we have now, right? Sporting s- some sporting events, some pop- like, you know, Taylor Swift and politics.

Nayeema Raza
Yeah. Some culture.

Malcolm Gladwell
Some culture.

Nayeema Raza
(laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
But not a lot.

Nayeema Raza
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, I believe, yes.

Malcolm Gladwell
Yes, Taylor Swift and Travi- Kelce. Yeah. Sum, sum it up.

Nayeema Raza
(laughs) Uh, but does… Uh, but those conversations are not happening in the same spaces. I mean, one of the most interesting things about this election is just the fragment… it was the zenith of kind of the fragmentation of the media environment that-

Malcolm Gladwell
Yeah.

Nayeema Raza
… people are, are self-selecting into their own echo chambers, into their own, um, platforms. And social media and algorithms allow that, you know, uh, resistance of confrontation, uh, more perhaps now than ever. Uh, what does that mean for the kind of work you’re doing in this book? This kind of work of re-examining ideas?

Malcolm Gladwell
You’re absolutely right that the decline in common culture makes these kinds of… you know, I, I have those two chapters in the book about these sudden reversals in public opinion. They are both the result of the common culture that existed through the 1990s or so in America. The fact that we had a m- a real mass media. Uh, so that’s gone away. Um, that just means… So the job of kind of forming a new consensus around ideas I think is a little harder now. I don’t think it’s impossible. You know, one thing I think about the rise of social media is, is it’s really early in the life of these media forms.

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
We had… Television, you know, becomes this incredibly powerful social force 30 or 40 years into it’s life, right? It really starts to kind of assert itself in the 1970 and, and ’80s. Well, you know, television’s invented, you know, 40 years before that. Um, radio becomes a really, really powerful transformative social force, in a meaningful way when… I guess probably during the Depression. Uh, well, that’s, you know, well into the lifespan of that technology. So, I mean, I would say that we’re still trying to under- t- trying to kinda feel our way through the way in which we’re gonna be using social media. So I would… Some part of me thinks, “Let’s wait before we make up our minds about what, uh, common culture looks like, uh, in the future.” Uh, but there’s no question that it has greatly complicated the task of anyone who’s interested in mind-changing.

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm. Uh, it, it, it was striking to me that how little you mentioned social media in this book. I think you mentioned it once-

Malcolm Gladwell
I don’t.

Nayeema Raza
… in passing, as the W- uh, you know, what was on the WHO’s social media or Facebook once in passing, uh, in the context of the, the, uh, teen mental health crisis. Uh, so why? Because you think it’s took early to consider it? Because this is a very fast moving technology. I mean, uh, it’s-

Malcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.

Nayeema Raza
… uh, you know, um, it’s come into the hands and, and spread, I think, faster than television or, you know, broadcast even.

Malcolm Gladwell
Yeah.

Nayeema Raza
So is it possible you’re missing something, Malcolm, here?

Malcolm Gladwell
I mean, of course I’m missing something.

Nayeema Raza
(laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
I did not think… I was just being… Um, I was being my kind of, um, trollish self.

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
And I just didn’t think, “Did the world really need another book that would… that had, uh, two chapters on Twitter and Facebook and why they’re the end of-”

Nayeema Raza
(laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
… “mankind?” I sorta feel like if you want a perspective on that, there’s-

Nayeema Raza
Yeah.

Malcolm Gladwell
… tons of places to look.

Nayeema Raza
Yes, you do tackle this idea though of super-spreaders in the book. Um, uh, and, and maybe just define quickly what a super-spreader is.

Malcolm Gladwell
So, uh, one of the kinda general principles of epidemics, social epidemics and epidemics of disease, is that it is often the case that they are asymmetrical, that the work of spreading any kind of idea or virus is done by a very, very small percentage of the population who are in some way fundamentally different from the norm. So, uh, in my first book, The Tipping Point, um, I talk about the law of the few, which is this idea, right?

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
And I return to it in this book because I think that one of the ways in which the world has changed over, um, the last 25 years is that those dynamics have become even more pronounced.

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
So that, uh, we’re now talking about the law of the very, very, very few, right? And COVID is this classic case study of this, if… One of the things we began to realize, right, late in the pandemic was that the average person was not meaningfully spreading the virus at all. That the virus is really being spread in a very, very s- small number, on a very, very small number of occasions by very, very small fraction of the infected population. That, you know, one in every 100 people was producing virus, uh, you know, that were 100 or 200… at 100 or 200 times the rate of everybody else. And it was that person who was spreading COVID. And that when we think about s- stopping the spread of the virus we had to be talking about that person and not the rest of us. And that’s a kind of really, really socially problematic difficult, politically inconvenient, whatever principle to wrap your head around.

Nayeema Raza
In an age of social media it seems that, and I am gonna make you consider it, which you’d done in the book, um, uh, how do you think of super-spreaders? You know, in this election, for example, is Donald Trump a super-spreader? Is Joe Rogan? Is Elon Musk? Who is the most, uh, effective?

Malcolm Gladwell
Well, one of the things we know from looking at, uh, information online, is that information online is massively asymmetrical in exactly the way that I’ve been talking about. I think, uh, 30% of, uh, content on, on… in social media is considered toxic and is generated by 3% of users.

Nayeema Raza
Hm.

Malcolm Gladwell
Um, 80% of fake news comes from .1% of social media users, right? These are… That’s the definition of a super-spreader, right? A tiny, tiny fraction of the population is playing a hugely outsized role in spreading a certain kind of, um, idea, uh, you know, meme, idea virus, whatever you wanna use. So these dynamics absolutely are playing out online. And, uh, you know, there’s, there’s any number of les- there’s all, all kinds of good lessons from that. One is that, um, to understand why, for example, disinformation might spread online you need to be… have an incredibly focused lens.

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
Right? The majority of us are not implicated in that, uh, in that process. Uh, but the, the w- the second, and really, really hopeful lesson is that you can’t look at online information and draw the conclusion that we are hopely divided as a nation or we are, as a nation, in the thrall of, uh, disinformation and fake news. No, no, no, most of us are fine, right? All this stuff, this toxic stuff, is being spread by a tiny fraction of people, we need to keep that in mind. It’s not your neighbor across the way who is, you know, a kinda malignant force online. No, it’s one dude somewhere in a basement along… you know, who’s kind of having a, a massively magnified effect on the public discourse. So we need to keep that in mind that what we’re observing… social media has the effect of making marginal voices seem mainstream.

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
That is its function, as presently constructed, right? You, you gotta keep that in mind when you draw inferences from social media.

Nayeema Raza
And do you think of yourself, Malcolm, as a super-spreader? Because, uh, you obviously have a huge following. And according to The Economist, I think have sold 23 million copies of your books in North America alone.

Malcolm Gladwell
I mean, it’s hard to say. I, I don’t s- think that in my books I am someone who is actively trying to win converts to a particular perspective. I think of myself as someone who’s simply trying to start conversations. So if I am a kind of super-spreader it’s with a different intention than, um, an influencer or someone spreading fake news, right?

Nayeema Raza
Right. Uh, I do… One of the things I find really remarkable about your work is your ability to, uh, to synthesize these concepts, to distill them down to these ideas, you know, 10,000 hours, the law of the few, now the law of the third. Do you worry that those pneumonics, those… that… those ideas they’re so sticky, um, and memorable that they can kinda become cement and become hard to reconsider?

Malcolm Gladwell
I don’t think so. I mean, I think there’s a trade-off here, right? One is that I can write about… you know, I obviously think about my dad who was a, a theoretical mathematician, who wrote for an audience of, I mean-

Nayeema Raza
(laughs) Theoretical mathematicians?

Malcolm Gladwell
… he wrote books… Yes. (laughs)

Nayeema Raza
Yes. (laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
Tiny, tiny, tiny-

Nayeema Raza
That large-

Malcolm Gladwell
In order to understand my father’s books you had to have an IQ north of 100 and whatever it was, 70.

Nayeema Raza
(laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
Uh, uh, uh, a s- a deep background in, you know, uh, in vibration theory and-
Nayeema Raza (27:36):
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
… inverse, you know, problems. And, um, and an appetite for enormous complexity, right? So you, you know, the trade-off… He, he made a trade-off, he was… he narrowed his audience to a tiny, uh, um, as tiny as possible (laughs)-

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
… in order to… Uh, and, and on the other hand, on the other side of the equation, he was free to be as nuanced and complicated and sophisticated in his ideas as possible, right?

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
I’m interested in the opposite trade-off, right? I’m interested in having a broad audience, but I understand that if I wanna have a broad audience and reach lots of people, I ha- I can’t be like my dad. I can’t, right? I can’t just be, you know, talking about ideas in the most sophisticated and nuanced way possible.

Nayeema Raza
Of course.

Malcolm Gladwell
So you have to be aware, all of us who are in the world of ideas, play with that trade-off and we strike a balance somewhere between complexity and reach. And, uh, I have, you know, I have placed my, um, optimal balance somewhere on that continuum. You placed it somewhere different, I suspect, I don’t know. Um, everyone does, you know, that’s… if we’re in the business. So I sort of think that, um, uh, I would say, in answer to your question, yes. (laughs)

Nayeema Raza
(laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
That… Yeah. I think-

Nayeema Raza
Yes.

Malcolm Gladwell
You know-

Nayeema Raza
Yeah.

Malcolm Gladwell
… I’m somewhere on that continuum. Um, and if you… you know, other journalists may wanna be somewhere else, um, and I accept the fact that like every other journalist does, I accept the fact that I have, I’ve gotta… if I’m gonna live with the upside of where I land, I’ve gotta also be honest about the downside.

Nayeema Raza
Um, last question here. Uh, you talk about this idea of overstories in the book.

Malcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.

Nayeema Raza
I found it so powerful, this idea that, uh, overstories is something you describe… Let me read a quote from your book, “An overstory is the upper layer of foliage in a forest. And the size and density and height of the overstory affect the behavior and development of every species far below the forest floor.” You go on to say, “It’s not something explicit that’s drilled into every inhabitant, the overstory is made up of things way up in the air. In many cases, outside of our awareness.” So this idea, uh, I found it so amazing, these stories we tell ourselves but we forget that we tell ourselves. And they turn out to be very powerful. I’m curious if you think the United States, this country that, you know, um, has just gone through an election, a country that we read is polarized more, does it have an overstory? Can, uh, can something of that scale have an overstory?

Malcolm Gladwell
Oh, yeah. I think… In fact, I think of the overstory of America as, as int- uh, as as powerful as ever. Um, we, we don’t… You know, I am an immigrant to this country.

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
I suspect your family are-

Nayeema Raza
Uh, yes.

Malcolm Gladwell
… at some point?

Nayeema Raza
I’m firstborn, yes.

Malcolm Gladwell
You’re firstborn? Yeah. Okay. So, um, I have a… I have, you know, a ton of cousins in-

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
… in Long Island who are immigrants to this country.

Nayeema Raza
Right.

Malcolm Gladwell
Um, why do we come here? Well, we c- came here for a reason, right? Because, uh, there, there was a story that was being told about America that we believed in and beckoned us, right?

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell
That it was, uh, it was the land of opportunity. I still think that. I think that’s the most important and powerful story this country has. That story is intact.

Nayeema Raza
Thank you, Malcolm. Uh, we have to take a quick break, but when we return we’re gonna invite in a few outside voices to ask you some questions as well. This is Open to Debate, I’m Nayeema Raza. And we’ll be right back.

Welcome back to Open to Debate. I’m here with Malcolm Gladwell and we’re gonna get to some additional questions askers. The first is gonna be coming from Philadelphia. Julia M. Klein is a Philadelphia-based cultural reporter and critic and a contributing book critic at the Foreword. Um, so Julia, welcome. Thanks for being with us.

Julia M Klein
Hi, everybody.

Nayeema Raza
What is your question for Malcolm?

Julia M Klein
Well, I was, I was interested in following up, uh, on the political question that you were just discussing. I wonder if, um, what ideas in the book might help us understand the results of the recent election. Can you define or pinpoint the tipping point that might have inspired the shift towards Republicans and Donald Trump?

Malcolm Gladwell
I mean, I don’t know. Uh, (laughs) I’m reluct- I’m always reluctant to kind of weight in on American politics. Um, um, I would, uh, I would much rather asked that question two years from now or five years from now or 10 years from now when we have some, uh, perspective. So, uh, I don’t know. I will, I will only say this to, to the point that, uh, that I was making in my conversation with Nayeema, that, uh, we are in this particular moment in our, in our culture where the voices of a very small number are magnified. Um, and that the, uh, you know, uh, the popular culture has moved from these kinds of large consensus based institutions to these s- um, fragmented voices. So, uh, working through the logic of that strikes me as being, uh, a kind of fruitful way of, of, of understanding what happened. But beyond that, I don’t… I’m gonna duck that question, is that okay? I’m Canadian.

Nayeema Raza
(laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
Don’t… I don’t… Why do I…

Nayeema Raza
Um, do you have another question that, uh, would love to ask, uh, Julia? If there’s something else that you had in mind for Malcolm?

Julia M Klein
Sure. What have you learned from your critics, who have seemed to have multiplied over the years?

Malcolm Gladwell
Have my critics multiplied? I feel like they’ve always been there.

Nayeema Raza
(laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
(laughs) Um, no book of mine has ever been well reviewed. So I sort of feel like, “Uh, same.” Uh, what have I learned from them? Well, you know, there’s, there’s, you know, there are many different kinds of critics. There are those who, uh, I feel like are not in, um, in good faith and those who are in good faith. And one of the things that I heard at the beginning of my career that I try to respond to is I, I feel like, um, at the beginning of my career I heard a lot of criticism about the way I used evidence. That I was being overly selective in my use of social science evidence. And, um, over reliant on, uh, certain, uh, perspectives. And so what I’ve done, if you look at the course of my writing over the years, I have responded to that. Um, my books are f- far more, um, I’m far more careful, I think, in the way I used social science now. I’m… The, the ideas, the arguments that I’m making are far less reliant on social s- science, um, sources. And I feel I’m, um, a little more careful in which ones I choose to highlight.

Um, I’ve t- I don’t… Whether I’ve been successful, that is for others to say. But I have absolutely learned. Um, I think I was… I had a… Uh, in the beginning of my career, um, I was like, uh, I, I was a little bit of a social science fanboy and I was a little too un- uncritical in the way that I embraced some of those ideas. And I feel like I’m a little bit more savvy, uh, now as a result of listening to criticism.

Nayeema Raza
Thank you so much, Julia, for that question. Uh, our next question comes from someone else who’s, uh, reviewed your book. And, uh, um, I, I find it hard to believe every book of yours has never been reviewed well, Malcolm. Is that really true?

Malcolm Gladwell
If you could find… If you can find a positive-

Nayeema Raza
(laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
… review of one of… any one of my books in any major publication.

Nayeema Raza
(laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
I will give you $10.

Nayeema Raza
Our next question comes from Andrew DeMillo of the Associated Press. Uh, Andrew is the Capital Correspondent for the AP’s Little Rock bureau. Uh, Andrew, welcome.

Andrew DeMillo
My question was this, uh, your, your book, uh, you d- you did something that politicians don’t do often, which is, uh, admit mistakes or admit things that you want to revisit. Uh, what would you recommend to politicians and public policy, uh, officials on… who are reluctant to do that, who are reluctant to admit mistakes or revisit, uh, decisions that may have been mistakes.

Malcolm Gladwell
Uh, s- super interesting. I’ve always been puzzled by this. So why is it that we are… we judge politicians in particular so harshly when they make mistakes, right? So this is a dumb example, but I spend a lot of time listening to sports podcasts. And people who are, like, are weighing in on basketball or football, if they… you know, they were a big fan of somebody coming outta college. Guy gets drafted number two, turns out to be a bust. And no one has any problem with, you know, ESPN’s major college basketball analyst saying, “I thought so-and-so was gonna be great and he was, and he wasn’t, right? Why did I go wrong?” And, uh, it’s fine. Like, and in the business world, you know, C- CEOs stand up all the time and say, “We made an error, we…” you know, and there… Uh, it’s considered to be part of the learning process.

There’s something about politics that is allergic to that kind of honesty. And I wonder whether this is… I’m of the opinion now that it’s all in the politicians’ heads. That they greatly overstate the kind of consequences of saying, “I was wrong,” right? They think they have to give some long, complicated side. So they think it’s gonna… They, they worry about being accused of being, uh, you know, uh, waffling on an issue or flip-flopping. There’s all these sort of terms. But in fact, all of us change our mind about things all the time, that all of us… you know, in fact, if you think about our closest relationships, when your spouse or partner admits they were wrong on something, wh- how do you feel? You generally feel relieved or happy or, like, you think it’s about growth, right? And they do the same for you if it’s a real relationship. So I think politicians need to just, you know, get real with themselves and understand that sometimes the best answer to a question is, “I was wrong, now I know better. Uh, I’m gonna try not to make the same mistake again.” And then just wa- end the question, just like, “That’s it.” That’s all you need to say. And I think people will be happy with that.

Nayeema Raza
Um, I, I have, uh, actually a follow-up to that, a pushback to that, which is there’s something particular about politics. I mean, CEOs often get ousted by b- boards when they make mistakes, especially big ones. And there’s something unique about politics where there’s someone who wants your job in waiting, you know? And it’s the highly competitive environment. Don’t you think there’s some pressure that’s particular to our politics that, um, that makes it hard to update our opinions and-

Malcolm Gladwell
Well, of course it’s hard. Uh-

Nayeema Raza
Yeah. Or… But what makes it different, like makes that analogy imperfect or metaphor imperfect of-

Malcolm Gladwell
I don’t, I don’t kno- I’m n- uh, I don’t buy it. I mean, I’m open to, you know, uh, uh, uh, you’re absolutely right that the… that there is a set of expe- of social expectations that surround politicians that are slightly different than people in other positions of leadership. Uh, however, um, so it’s not gonna be super easy ever to say, “I was wrong.” Um, but, you know, um, I’m struck by how infrequently anyone even tries that strategy, right? How do we know it won’t work? No one ever tries it, you know?

Nayeema Raza
Yeah.

Malcolm Gladwell
What… Uh, you know-

Nayeema Raza
(laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
… uh, uh-

Nayeema Raza
It’s just lie, lie, lie. Yeah.

Malcolm Gladwell
I would like to see some empirical evidence of this is losing strategy. So what we’re saying is, it is somehow worse for a politician to say, “I’ve learned from the evidence and my own behavior and I now think there’s a better way.” That’s worse than simply sticking to your guns when you’re, when your policy is disastrous? Like-

Nayeema Raza
Right.

Malcolm Gladwell
Uh, I don’t, I don’t understand why that would be the case.

Nayeema Raza
And, and I’m making no excuses for politicians here. In fact, I, I do, uh, advocate for more honestly, especially in an era that rewards authenticity in social media, we have not moved toward that at all in our politics it seems. Um, thank you so much. Uh, uh, I don’t know, Andrew, if you have any other questions?

Andrew DeMillo
Yeah. Um, if you don’t mind one more, uh, political, uh, related question. Y- yeah. There’s been a lotta hand wringing and kinda second guessing about polling heading into the election this year. Given, you know, your… the type of research you do, and not just with, uh, political polling, but generally, are problems polling, uh, and concerns about responses, that type of thing, uh, what kinda impact does that have on the type of research and the type of work that, that you do?

Malcolm Gladwell
Yeah. Well, it’s funny ’cause I, I, I… in my book, Blink, uh, my second book I talk a lot about the difficulty of figuring out what people believe, both le- both because, um, they don’t always tell you what they believe. And secondly, they don’t always know what they believe. People’s stated responses are often very different from their, their… And I use the example in that book about an extraordinary number of incredibly successful television show when they’re… when they, when they take the, the pilot and they show it to a test audience. The audience says they hate it. And, uh, the audience doesn’t actually… what, uh, uh, [inaudible

] sh- and the show goes on to be this massive success. Seinfeld, for example, like terrible reviews, right? And the explanation for that is that when people say they hate something it means one of two things, “I actually hate it,” or, “It’s so new and different I don’t know what I think about it,” right? And that they… Both, both those diametrically different emotional responses come out the same way, “I hate it,” right? That just means that when people report on their beliefs, social science has told us for years, we need to be careful.

And I think pollsters have gotten into this weird position where they just think that their, their profession is immune from one of the fundamental rules of human behavior, right? They think… You can actually ask somebody how they’re gonna vote in a highly contested election and they’ll tell you exactly… They’ll give an, an, uh, a precise and meaningful prediction. Well, uh, uh, who, who said that was… Whoever said that was possible, right? I mean, why are we surprised when it turns out it doesn’t work? I’m, I’m much more stunned when the polls are right than when the polls are wrong, right? I never thought this was a project that was ever gonna work out well, particularly when…

And we have these indices… You know, there’s something called the Bradley affect. When Tom Bradley, who was a, a African American who was the first, um, uh, mayor of, uh, Black mayor of, uh, Los Angeles, um, first time he ran he was way ahead in the polls, lost dramatically. Then he was way ahead in the polls to be governor of California, lost dramatically. And it was something called the Bradley effect, which is that when it comes to a Black candidate votes lie. They say they like the candidate and they actually don’t. Hello! Why is this hard, right? So anyway, I, I, I think this is a useful reminder that human beings are very complex. And, um, a lotta pollsters should go back to school and take psychology classes.

Nayeema Raza
Um, thank you very much, Malcolm, for that animated answer. And thank you, Andrew, for your questions, appreciate it.

Malcolm Gladwell
Thank you, Andrew.

Nayeema Raza
(laughs) Um, our last questioner is Emily Stewart, a senior correspondent at Business Insider. Emily, welcome.

Emily Stewart
Hi, thank you. So a lot of this has been kind of talking about things that took you 25 years to revisit. Is there something that you are thinking about now, something in this book that you think, “Maybe I should be revisiting that already. And maybe I didn’t get that quite right.” Or is there something that you are really sure that you are right about right now?

Malcolm Gladwell
Well, there’s nothing I’m sure I’m right about right now. Uh, one thing I have learned (laughs) in my many years is that you should never, ever, ever, ever think that you’re, um, uh, have that degree of certainty. Uh, what did… Uh, so I guess you’re asking, of all the things that I believe at the moment, which do I think are the most speculative? And, like, what would I like it to be? Well, I’m, uh, I’m, I mean, I’m, I am in the… One of the things that happened to me in the last 25 years is that I’ve become a parent. And I have, in the course of becoming a parent, revisited just about every belief I once had (laughs) about me, what it means to be an effective parent (laughs). Um, so that’s sort of, you know… Actually, I’m, I’m joking. But I’m actually [inaudible

] deadly serious about this. Um, you know, I think the thing… the mistake I m- made was to think of the influence of a parent on a child as being far more, um, considerable and predictable than it actually is. Actually think, now that I’m a parent, that, like, aside from, like, being kind and feeding them and, and, you know, keeping them away from scary things, is just not a lot of… You don’t have a lot of influence. Like, they’re their own creatures.

Um, and it’s made me think that a lot of the kind of parental advice business is just kind of, um, hokum. It’s, like, we’re just pretending. Parents spend enormous amounts of time pretending that their influence is much more important, um, than it actually is just to make themselves feel better about the job of parenting. But in fact, um, that’s… I think we’re lying to ourselves. Um, uh, that, um, kids are their own little autonomous units. Um, so that’s one thing that I have had, had reason to… I think I was… at various points in my life had made the mistake of handing out advice to parents and I would take it all back. Um, uh, what’s another thing that I would… I’m likely to be wrong about? Um, uh…

I mean, there’s so many. S- I mean, and in my podcast I’ve taken so many outlandish positions over the years (laughs) that, that it’s probably a lot, it’s probably a long list. I was thinking about one this morning, which was I did a whole bunch of things about how I thought that lotteries were a better way of picking leaders than elections. And, um, if somebody were to do… You know, what we don’t have in that is a large scale study of whether that’s actually true. I would love… One of the things that’s… might be true, but I would love for us to have a couple of major elec- election cycles to be replaced by lotteries just to figure out whether we would get a better k- leader out of that po- po- I like a bunch of really selective schools just for, like, for five years to switch to a lottery system and see whether their… they, they get a better class of… a better group of students. Um, and if I’m wrong… I could be wrong. Maybe it actually is better to have an election or choose… have an admission system and that I should retire my infatuation with lotteries. But I’d love to find that one out. Like, that seems like a good one to, to, to, uh, to investigate.

Nayeema Raza
All right. Harvard, if you’re listening.

Malcolm Gladwell
Exactly.

Nayeema Raza
(laughs) Um, thank you very much for your question, Emily, appreciate it. So just as we wrap up, I’m curious, Malcolm, you’ve talked a lot about how you’ve reassessed your i- own ideas and you’ve talked about two things that I love. Like, one is the, is the impact of time and change and the need for that. Not… you know, there’s a, there’s a thirst to examine this election result and you’re saying, “Hold on a minute.” Um, the other is the way in which we, we tell ourselves stories or we can very, uh, quickly glibly… I don’t know if that’s the r- right word, but fliply change our minds on, on important topics. Are there, are there things that make that more possible? Love… You gave the example of relationships. I mean, love makes that possible it seems. Um, personal change. But what, what do you think is a way that for people listening, uh, they could test their own, uh, certainty about idea or, or encourage themselves to be more-

Malcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.

Nayeema Raza
… conscious of the way in which they’re changing their minds or making up their minds?

Malcolm Gladwell
Well, just to be… I mean, I think we need to be clear about that there is a distinction between values and ideas. And I think it’s really easy to confuse the two. That, um, I am not, as a human being, the sum total of my ideas. I am the sum total of my values, right? And I can change every one of my ideas tomorrow and that does not fundamentally change who I am, as long as I keep my values intact. And, and this was the lesson that my dad, I think, taught me ’cause he was someone who was absolutely sure about his values. Um, he was someone who, uh, he, you know, he believed in fairness, he believed in, uh, God, he believed in… Uh, he believed that every person need to be, you know, regardless of who they were, should be treated with respect. I could go on, he had really, really rock solid values. But his ideas were, like-

Nayeema Raza
(laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
… you could convince him of anything. Uh, he, he-

Nayeema Raza
(laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
… he would… Just, just did not think of… And I think that’s a really… When I talk about why is it hard for politicians to admit that they were wrong about something, because they’re not admitting they were wrong about their values. They should articulate their values clearly and say, “I am never gonna back down on this.” But they should say, “My ideas are separate and when evidence changes I will, I, I promise you I will change my mind about those kinds of things.” And if you can keep that distinction alive, I think it does become a lot easier to change your mind.

Nayeema Raza
Right. Yeah. Not just alive, but make it more attractive, more compelling in fact to do that, see that as a value to imbue. Um, that’s lovely to hear about your father. Do you think we’ll be back here in 2049 with a new one? Like a Tipping Point with a Vengeance? Is that, is that the play on (laughs)…

Malcolm Gladwell
If I’m still around.

Nayeema Raza
(laughs) I hope you will be.

Malcolm Gladwell
[inaudible] I’m an old man. I, I, uh… (laughs)

Nayeema Raza
(laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
I don’t think you’ll want me on the show when I’m in a wheelchair-

Nayeema Raza
(laughs)

Malcolm Gladwell
… and, like, dribbling [inaudible].

Nayeema Raza
All right. Thank you so much, Malcolm, for joining me today. Again, the book is Revenge of the Tipping Point. I’d also like to thank Julia, Andrew, and Emily for joining me and asking questions. And also say thank you to you, the audience, for tuning in to this episode of Open to Debate.

We are Open to Debate. As a non-profit working to combat extreme polarization through civil debate, our work is made possible by listeners like you, the Rosenkranz Foundation, and supporters of Open to Debate. Our CEO is Clea Conner. Lia Matthow is our chief content officer. Elizabeth Kitzenberg is our chief advancement officer. This episode was produced by Jessica Glazer and Marlette Sandoval. Editorial and research by Gabriella Mayer and Andrew Foote. Andrew Lipson and Max Fulton provided production support. The Open to Debate team also includes Erik Gross, Gabrielle Iannucelli, Annalisa Cochrane, Rachel Kemp, and Linda Lee. Damon Whittemore mixed this episode. Our theme music is by Alex Kliment. I’m your guest host today, Nayeema Raza. We’ll see you next time on Open to Debate.