Malcolm Gladwell talks with Jelani Cobb about Gladwell's fascinating new book, Talking to Strangers

Malcolm Gladwell has a simple question: how should we talk to people we don’t know? But the answers are far thornier-and more fascinating-than we can imagine.
Join the celebrated, New York Times-bestselling author in a provocative discussion with Jelani Cobb about his new book, Talking to Strangers. Upending our fundamental assumptions about trust and deception, Gladwell uses case studies like the Bernie Madoff scandal, the trial of Amanda Knox and the death of poet Sylvia Plath to make a fresh, illuminating argument that our longstanding cultural assumptions about communication and familiarity are due for an update in 2019 and beyond.
Recorded Sep 27, 2019 at 92nd Street Y.
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[@Shub99]

After a very long time, a person who interviews Gladwell from a different point of view rather than someone who knows him .. far, far more interesting discussion.

[@susannunes9434]

Jelani Cobb, you are a fine interviewer. Great program

[@carolleos2801]

Malcolm Gladwell is a very interesting ,thoughtful, analytical thinker who elegantly explains complicated concepts and ideas on a number of levels while simplifying that which is being considered. He is so popular because he is fascinatingly different from so many of us in the "shallow" way we think. Carol Leos

[@pamgallagher9778]

Thank you Malcolm for your amazingly clear statement on children of Alcoholics at 57:36. As an ACOA, this is a brilliant eye opener for me at 78 years of age!

[@Osiris623]

47:12 This bit seems like crucial for all police officers to understand. Being able to read someone who is culturally different than you is huge.

[@askbob2009]

I always learn something from Malcolm...

[@stephdrake2521]

Wow ... Can Jelani read me bed time stories? I love his voice and his mind. He’s very inspirational and he knows his story. Plz Follow him people - he doesn’t hold back on the truth about the inceptions of this country and how it is ran. Great interview

[@jafrasar1]

Stephanie Drake Really amazing narrative voice..

[@pakkmann]

Interesting to hear they hadn't really met prior. The conversation seems so warm.

[@kendavis8847]

¹

[@andybaldman]

People are willing to severely distort their idea of truth, when in the presence or influence of power. It's a basic law of nature.

[@willmpet]

“You’re selected for your ability to believe in others” because there are so few liars.

[@erikaf6181]

Wish that Malcolm had read more about Kitty Genovese’s murder. The original narrative about the bystanders not helping her has been dispelled. Nobody saw her killed but those who heard a disturbance outside called the police. THERE WERE MANY CALLS TO 911. The neighbors did the right thing and the mythology of the case has lived on.

[@justgivemethetruth]

Gladwell is in his own way a masterful liar.

[@verberilesliemichealace5878]

Malcolm the curious gladwell

[@kriss2111]

Man I like the interview, the interviewer is very good.

[@verberilesliemichealace5878]

I expected Michael Lewis to do this interview

[@justgivemethetruth]

Gladwell is too competitive with Lewis from the interviews I've seen. Lewis's books are so much better and more fact based than Gladwell's. Gladwell in his own way a masterful liar who draws us in with clever stories, but ultimately they turn out to be nothing burgers, just his cocktails party conversation to pick up chicks.

[@deadeaded]

Why is this unlisted? What purpose does that serve?

[@user-ih8hk8po7q]

Run the fact/lie checker on all presidents and see what you get. Trump's lies are undignified, almost like a nod to the audience, yes audience, to bring you in on it.

[@danielh1830]

While this is a good talk, I see a lot of periods of deception by the speakers while talking about people they do not like. They're own ability for self-deception is on plan sight in front of the audience, and they don't even see it.

[@willmpet]

I think Clarence Thomas did obnoxious things.

[@kerloz4097]

The puffy porch overwhelmingly wave because trail exceptionally protect towards a jobless drawbridge. calculating, organic wall

[@andybaldman]

This is the worst of his books, and theses. Every interview is him trying to defend the woman in the cop situation, when any breathing human being can see that she did things that pissed the cop off. So if she didn't do them consciously intentionally, she was horribly self-unaware. Gladwell made a book about it, but I don't see any strong ideas here.

[@fergusanderson7985]

so your just completely overlooking the whole issue of human beings ability to read a stranger that's the science of it. the cop has to take responsibility for 'being' pissed off because he also didn't interpret the situation properly.

[@andybaldman]

@@fergusanderson7985 I agree about the cop. Part of his job is keeping his cool. There's wrong on both sides. But to somehow defend her as the 'misunderstood' one seems like pretty weak sauce. If you disobey or act flip to a cop anywhere in this country, you'll get consequences.

[@samuelmiller1936]

In the book, he struck me as really light-stepping to avoid offending a liberal audience. He provides many exculpatory explanations for the cop, he just phrases them in critical ways to make it sound like he's condemning the police. Ultimately he blames the police training and incentives, but it's far from the reaction a lot of progressive people would like. He noted that the failure to read the other person applied to both of them, I think.

[@andybaldman]

@@samuelmiller1936 That may be true in the book. I don't see as much of that in his talks like this one though. His idea has merit on one hand but is also somewhat uninteresting at the same time ('we can misread people'), but I just can't buy his analysis of this particular example. If you disobey or act flippantly to a cop anywhere in this country (even if you're a white guy like me), you'll escalate the situation. He was bad at being a cop, and she was bad at being a citizen, two wrongs. But Gladwell gets a million-dollar book deal for writing about it, so at least he has that going for him.