THE LAMEST VIRTUE

 Recently I've discovered audio books on YouTube by Malcolm Gladwell, specifically Talking to Strangers and Outliers. I really enjoyed the books and Gladwell's different perspective and felt like I learned some things, but I had not been familiar with his writing before the algorithm brought his books to me. 

It matters to me who I am listening to, so I looked up Gladwell's reputation ... on Twitter. Not surprisingly, there was a spectrum of opinions stretching all the way from "brilliant" to "idiotic". 

This disturbed me. I don't want to waste time listening to an idiot. 

One tweet linked to a Daily Beast article about the Beatles (whom Gladwell discussed briefly in Outliers). In that article, the Daily Beast author describes Gladwell as " the halo-haired New Yorker pop intellectual whose simplistic, feel-good summaries of contemporary research on trends (The Tipping Point) and decision-making (Blink) have transformed him into a corner-office icon who can command $80,000 per speech on the corporate lecture circuit". 

He's a "pop" intellectual? His insights are "simplistic" and "feel-good"? What's wrong with me that I didn't recognize this for myself? 

When I stopped to reflect, though, I recalled one of my major lessons from 2020: You can't necessarily believe any individual's take on any other person's reputation. Because fallen people LOVE to run other people's reputations into the ground, given half a chance.

(And YES, I did this myself a few days ago when I wrote about Craig Groeschel - whom I have never met and know precious little about. I am one of those fallen people.) 

So I concluded that I could continue to listen to Gladwell in good conscience, especially since I certainly do not believe everything I see or read or hear anymore anyway. And this morning I was especially heartened to hear an interview of Gladwell which contained the following exchange:

Interviewer: You really enjoy contradicting yourself. (This was a friendly jab.)

Gladwell: I do, yeah. 

Interviewer: Why?

Gladwell: Well, I'm more worried about not contradicting myself. I would be very concerned if I were still saying the same things today as I was saying ten years ago. That would strike me as being deeply problematic.

Interviewer: Why?

Gladwell: I would like to think that my current self is a good deal more interesting and thoughtful than my ten-years-before self. I've never attached any stigma whatsoever to contradiction. Consistency is surely the lamest of all human virtues.

That is profound. (Especially for a "pop intellectual"!)

Gladwell is giving himself an opening for changing his mind. And he is extending the same courtesy to everyone else. 

Today's American culture ... and America's Christian culture ... could use a strong shot of Gladwell's recognition of people's ability to grow and change and think differently over time.