I enjoy Malcolm Gladwell's writing, and often feel I come away with fresh insights into the way the world works, as opposed to how it appears to work. But I will read Gladwell with more skepticism after reading a spectacular takedown in an unlikely blog called "Ask-a-Korean." If you have followed media coverage of the July 6 crash of Asiana Flight 214 at San Francisco Airport, you have doubtless heard speculation that Korea's culture of deference to authority, a culture deeply embedded in the Korean language, played a role in the crash. This theory owes much to Gladwell, who devoted a...

21 July, 2013

[caption id="attachment_1356" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Malcolm Gladwell"][/caption] The New Yorker's Malcom Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Bink, takes on Wired editor Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and Free, in today's edition. Free is essentially an extended elaboration of [occasional Cape Breton summer resident] Stewart Brand’s famous declaration that “information wants to be free.” The digital age, Anderson argues, is exerting an inexorable downward pressure on the prices of all things “made of ideas.” Anderson does not consider this a passing trend. Rather, he seems to think of it as an iron law: “In the digital realm you can try...

06 July, 2009