The rhetoric of Malcolm Gladwell's work represents that of the "new historicism" in literary studies, which emerged in the 80s.
There is a common style to these works:
-- They start with a startling and interesting anecdote, and, basically, tell a story.
-- They leverage finding from various articles.
-- They use a lot of argumentative ju-jitsu. For example, when the author is going to basically attempt a kind of whopper, they will admit that there are some failing to the argument. The rhetorical tic for Greenblatt is to write: "To be sure . . ." to make the reader feel that, yes, there are other opinions, but I'm kind of right. Then they go barreling ahead with a highly contentious argument.
For Greenblatt and the literary historians who write about the past: Their claims are rarely falsifiable. Sometimes other scholars will say that the new historicists are "wrong," but it is not uncommon for the critics' basis for their own claims to be equally frail.
If you asked Greenblatt, he might not claim that what is describing is "true," but, rather, "good to think with." For the past, maybe that's reasonable.
But:
Gladwell is almost always talking about the present, and making claims that should be testable with a robust experiment. Very frequently, he will cite incredibly thin research (as Chris Chabris notes).
I think this is the essential problem:
Gladwell's style is OK if you can't really test the hypothesis (new historicism).
But if you're talking about the here-and-now, you have to answer to a higher standard of argumentation.
The rhetoric of Malcolm Gladwell's work represents that of the "new historicism" in literary studies, which emerged in the 80s.
There is a common style to these works:
-- They start with a startling and interesting anecdote, and, basically, tell a story.
-- They leverage finding from various articles.
-- They use a lot of argumentative ju-jitsu. For example, when the author is going to basically attempt a kind of whopper, they will admit that there are some failing to the argument. The rhetorical tic for Greenblatt is to write: "To be sure . . ." to make the reader feel that, yes, there are other opinions, but I'm kind of right. Then they go barreling ahead with a highly contentious argument.
For Greenblatt and the literary historians who write about the past: Their claims are rarely falsifiable. Sometimes other scholars will say that the new historicists are "wrong," but it is not uncommon for the critics' basis for their own claims to be equally frail.
If you asked Greenblatt, he might not claim that what is describing is "true," but, rather, "good to think with." For the past, maybe that's reasonable.
But:
Gladwell is almost always talking about the present, and making claims that should be testable with a robust experiment. Very frequently, he will cite incredibly thin research (as Chris Chabris notes).
I think this is the essential problem:
Gladwell's style is OK if you can't really test the hypothesis (new historicism). But if you're talking about the here-and-now, you have to answer to a higher standard of argumentation.