Malcolm Gladwell is an perpetually contrarian charlatan, which of course means he is beloved by people at the NYT and WaPo.<p>As an example of his nonsense, he was famously a shill for Big Tobacco in the 90's:
<a href="https://beyondchron.org/malcolm-gladwell-unmasked-a-look-into-the-life-work-of-americas-most-successful-propagandist/" rel="nofollow">https://beyondchron.org/malcolm-gladwell-unmasked-a-look-int...</a><p>He's also the guy that found out becoming a savant at something takes 10,000 hours.
Gladwell doesn't go into detail in this piece about what he means by holding ideas loosely, but there's probably an important distinction between (i) loose in the sense that he's open to new evidence, and (ii) loose in the sense that his understanding is not deep.<p>Gladwell's performance in the Munk debate versus Taibbi et al. illustrates that when you're in (ii), it's often hard to defend one's ideas. He came to the debate expecting to get by on platitudes, and then pivoted to some ad-hominems rather than being able to defend the merits of his ideas. Based on post-debate audience feedback, it ended up being one of the most lopsided losses in Munk debate history.
Because Tim Harford has time for him I had assumed that much of the Gladwell hating was ad hominem attacks because he's a bit of a lefty. However, the opening paragraph really is hard to comprehend.<p>Gladwell sits under a poster of Mao Zedong, one of the greatest mass murderers in history, for "no particular reason". That is literally _incredible_.
This review in The Atlantic does a good job of critiquing Gladwell's 'Tipping Point' ideas, including those in his latest book.<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/revenge-of-the-tipping-point-malcolm-gladwell/679971/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/revenge...</a>
Mr. Igon Value himself<p><a href="https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Igon_Value_Problem" rel="nofollow">https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Igon_Value_Problem</a>
An author of over-hyped books that contain just one idea, endlessly repeated and reworked into all possible variants until the reader's total boredom is achieved.
The fact that he’s idolizing Joe Rogan in the article tells you everything you need to know. Gladwell is the dictionary definition of “pseudo-intellectual.”
The process of simplifying real-life complex events into catchy MBA-compatible anecdotes, while sacrificing any sense, and factuality has been the hallmark of Gladwell's works to the extent that the whole process was nicknamed 'gladwellization', a not exactly flattering word. Every one of his fables gives that, 'aha'-experience which, upon further consideration turns into 'wait, that makes no sense'.