Wayne > Recent Status Updates

It's eye-opening to see how Madeline Miller views the Greek myths from Circe's perspective, i.e. a woman, so engrossing and thought-provoking of all that has been lost in the history of publishing by being prevalently led by men. As if we are clawing our way out of the cave from rebirth thanks to these new interpretations and envisioning of the classic story while a the same time creating a new wonderful story.

My main issues with that being that I find the characterization jarring in this day and age. Why make that choice in gendering all prostitutes? It detracts more than momentarily from the point that the profession and behavior in this case is tied to a place. Which itself is an intriguing and fascinating aspect of this theory of coupling in behaviors he’s digging into.

Here Gladwell slips into a very paternalistic and sexist view when discussing prostitution. Was it because the study he’s referencing only found female prostitution? Or is it just an innate sexist generalization of sex workers, that they must be women?

“The easiest way to make sense of a sex worker is to say that she is someone compelled to turn tricks—a prisoner of her economic and social circumstances.”

Aha! He does address how “repression” and the pursuit of repressed memories is controversial, but it’s by way of an * note and then end notes. Likely because it’s such a distraction from the driving narrative. Curious how this will resolve...

Then we get to the Sandusky case study, on pg 116 where he describes how a child psychologist, who is “a believer in the idea that victims of sexual abuse sometimes bury their experiences...” but then goes on to assume this is accurate. I was reminded of ideas Kurt Andersen’s Fantasyland raised, having me question the legitimacy of this framework of psychology as fundamentally flawed. I hope he addresses this.

For example, on pg 63, on the road to driving his argument towards how folks rely on a default to truth, he ignores that the investigator was also blinded by his own sexist ideas and behavior, or perhaps he isn’t ignoring them, so much as he himself has the same issue? Carmichael’s description of Ana Montes is so loaded with his own distraction of her attractiveness which Gladwell seems to ignore.

Malcolm Gladwell has a talent for using a cliffhanger type build and stair step interweaving of related, but seemingly unrelated, compelling stories or mysterious to drive the reader to his conclusions.

I do get skeptical sometimes that he gets a little caught up in his existing belief in his idea, that colors his own ability to perceive problems in the ideas that perhaps deserve more attention.

tear the bandaids off

Hold on through the beginning.