Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know

Eduardo Santiago reviewed Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell

Review of "Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know" on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

A lot of good material, well presented, but what an unsatisfying ending. I got the feeling that Gladwell has let his (excellent) podcasting skills bleed into his writing: "Setup setup setup. Rhetorical questions? Pithy one-liner--in its own paragraph. Repeat." It mostly worked, possibly because the book is short, but was grating at times and I think it diminished his impact somewhat.

The material, as I said, is very good: on how bad humans are at detecting lies, and he takes that into intriguing directions, zigging and zagging along seeming tangents but it's always clear where he's going -- he's developing a case, showing us the building blocks and letting us put them together. It's just that, at the end, it feels like a (sorry) cop-out. He takes on the brutal U.S. police system but basically just ends on a tut-tut note. (Admittedly, this was published in 2019, and the social …

A lot of good material, well presented, but what an unsatisfying ending. I got the feeling that Gladwell has let his (excellent) podcasting skills bleed into his writing: "Setup setup setup. Rhetorical questions? Pithy one-liner--in its own paragraph. Repeat." It mostly worked, possibly because the book is short, but was grating at times and I think it diminished his impact somewhat.

The material, as I said, is very good: on how bad humans are at detecting lies, and he takes that into intriguing directions, zigging and zagging along seeming tangents but it's always clear where he's going -- he's developing a case, showing us the building blocks and letting us put them together. It's just that, at the end, it feels like a (sorry) cop-out. He takes on the brutal U.S. police system but basically just ends on a tut-tut note. (Admittedly, this was published in 2019, and the social conversation has taken a new tone since then). I was also disappointed that he doesn't even touch on the links between gullibility and religion. (Then again, that would've hurt sales).

Three point something stars. I tried really hard to round up to four, flipping through it over and over, rereading choice parts, skimming gestalt of particular sections, but I can't justify the bump. Please don't let that discourage you from reading it: I still recommend it. It was informative and entertaining and thought-provoking. Just... ultimately unsatisfying.

Biggest takeaway: I want to read Timothy Levine's [b:Duped|46168432|Duped Truth-Default Theory and the Social Science of Lying and Deception|Timothy R. Levine|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1560072441l/46168432.SX50.jpg|71125637].

Sean "Sharky" McMains reviewed Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell

Review of "Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Very much enjoyed this. Gladwell is an endlessly interesting and thoughtful guy. He plays a little fast and loose with his conclusions at times, but there's so much interesting scenery along the way that I seldom find myself minding at all. And some of that was very useful in making sense of some of the friendships I've had in the past that have developed in unexpected ways. Very much worth reading.

Pentapod reviewed Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell

Review of "Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know" on 'Goodreads'

1 star

I have enjoyed Gladwell's previous books, although with a few reservations such as his lack of female examples and comprehension of the female position. But, taking everything he says as just applicable (or at least studied) for men, they're an interesting read.

This one is a look at how communications break down - how human beings "default to truth" and require extraordinary evidence to be convinced that someone is lying, and why most of the time this behaviour keeps our society moving smoothly. He also looks at how people's actions and behaviour can conflict, sending mixed messages, and causing misunderstandings and tragedies. So far mostly so good, it's a bit superficial but interesting summary of some of the research out there.

HOWEVER, he completely lost me in his final conclusions. At the end of the book, Gladwell concludes it's for the best that most people "default to truth" when interacting …

I have enjoyed Gladwell's previous books, although with a few reservations such as his lack of female examples and comprehension of the female position. But, taking everything he says as just applicable (or at least studied) for men, they're an interesting read.

This one is a look at how communications break down - how human beings "default to truth" and require extraordinary evidence to be convinced that someone is lying, and why most of the time this behaviour keeps our society moving smoothly. He also looks at how people's actions and behaviour can conflict, sending mixed messages, and causing misunderstandings and tragedies. So far mostly so good, it's a bit superficial but interesting summary of some of the research out there.

HOWEVER, he completely lost me in his final conclusions. At the end of the book, Gladwell concludes it's for the best that most people "default to truth" when interacting with strangers and that this approach is vital to our social compact. And the specific examples he uses to illustrate this? Pedophiles and rapists who go unconfronted and unconvicted for years. We should, he argues, be more forgiving of the people who were told about their behaviour but chose to ignore it and thus allowed it to continue, because they were just upholding the social contract by "defaulting to truth". WTF?

Our current society isn't some perfect system that needs protecting and maintaining with no changes for any price. Who benefits from the status quo continuing? We live with a status quo where children, women, and minorities are not believed when they report abuse. Society as it "defaults to truth" (especially when truth is spoken by prosperous white men) is working fine for men, a group of which Gladwell is a part, but there is definitely room for improvement on behalf of everyone else. Gladwell could have used this book to identify ways that we can work to improve our innate biases, now we know about them. Ways the justice system and other areas of authority could implement checks and balances to ensure that our human bias towards truth is not resulting in the abuse of children and the rape of girls and women. But no ... not a word of that. Just a conclusion that Oh well, overall it's mostly okay so those people suffering should just accept it's for the good of society.

Once again, W T F.

I can't believe editors actually published this book as is.

Jill reviewed Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell

Review of "Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know" on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

This book just felt like a cash grab. It featured multiple controversial news stories and then tried to straddle the fence and blame everyone involved for the terrible things that happened. At no point did he offer any practical solutions to help us navigate a world full of people we don't know.