Update on Malcolm Gladwell's book "Talking to Strangers"
- Thread starter francofan
- Start date
Actually I'm saying that you and those of your ilk are insane. Gladwell and Tavaris are making money off you less fortunate
Just to be clear, you are claiming there are now enough "crazy people" who believe an injustice was done that it would be worth the WSJ's while to pander to them for subscriptions?
Huh.
I thought we were a lunatic fringe?
Keep fighting this losing battle. You look dumber every day.
Assuming what you are saying is true (I haven’t seen any interviews with Gladwell personally), it would be for the same reason that people don’t use Joe’s full statement that began “With the benefit of hindsight”. It doesn’t fit the desired outcome.
I think he (Gladwell) thinks that Jerry is innocent, but was told by his publishers not to say it in his book. The WSJ article calls him out on that (they basically say if you read the footnotes to the chapter, it is shocking Gladwell doesn't suggest his innocence in the chapter).
Furthermore, in some interviews, he absolutely says "I don't know if Jerry is guilty".
Obviously, taking the position that Jerry is innocent is not a popular one and probably would result in people refusing the consider the other points that Gladwell is more sure about (e.g. Paterno, Curley, Schutz, Spanier are all free of wrongdoing).
That is not at all what I heard him say during his interview with Ziegler. I heard him say he was not going to get into whether he was guilty or not.
Largely clearing coach Paterno is an understatement, and he described Spanier as a good decent man.
Make it up as you go.
If you mean TV interviews ok since you used the word “seen,” but there was an extensive radio interview linked at the start of this thread that imo is definitely worth listening to.
I haven’t listened to any Gladwell interviews either. Are you referring to the interview with Ziegler? I haven't really been able to listen to him for a few years now. His presentation makes it not worth the effort.
Nope. That's not the way that memory works. You remember the trauma surrounding the incident but incidentals like the date aren't stamped into your brain.
You're probably right! I bet the PSU coed, who got the pictures of Mike's junk sent to her, doesn't remember that date either.
That doesn't mean he didn't say it in an interview, on the record.
FWIW, Gladwell does 90% of the talking in his interview with Ziegler. John is pretty well behaved (he only raises his voice once). It is honestly worth listening to.
So, you prefer to weigh in completely uninformed rather than even partially?
You, of course, are not susceptible to such things. Source that agrees with you is correct, and source that does not agree with you is wrong. That certainly qualifies as a balanced view.
Hindsight is 20/20. Imo he said absolutely nothing wrong.
I believe he went on to say something like his actions would have been different. There is nothing wrong/bad about that.
If I invested in Toys r Us and 1 year later it found itself in bankruptcy, I suspect I might not have bought the stock.
Life is littered with such circumstances.
You can hear him defend JVP and C/S/S on Bill Simmons podcast. Is that mainstream enough for you?
Go to minute 49:00
https://www.theringer.com/the-bill-...ades-sandra-bland-donald-sterling-joe-paterno
Here's a hint, nothing will ever be mainstream enough for him.
I’m not sure what you are referring to here. Is it listening to Ziegler? I prefer not to listen to him because I find him grating to listen to. Same reason I don’t listen to Journey or Styx when I want to listen to music.
Ok, then. Back on page 4 of this thread, Franco was nice enough to compile a bunch of key quotes from the interview. Care to comment on any of those direct, on the record quotes from Gladwell?
True, on his podcast Ziegler called Gladwell out on his statement from the book that he finds some conclusions of Ziegler’s unconvincing. Zig asked Gladwell for a specific example and Gladwell dodged the question. Ziegler concludes that Gladwell likely included that statement in his book so he can cover his ass if someone ever accuses him of endorsing one of Ziegler’s more politically incorrect statements. I think he’s correct.
Simmons blew right through that...I don't think he even referenced it...just tried to change the subject to something else when Gladwell brought it up. Interesting that a sports commentator would spend more time on Cuban spies than on Paterno.
It's considered too toxic. Very, very few people have the cojones to actually talk honestly about this topic.
Anytime a person uses the word “ilk” you can wager that person is an arrogant jackass. In fact, it’s usually just confirmation of a previously held (and well founded) belief.
But it's weird he wouldn't even argue with him about it. As soon as it was brought up he tried to go to another subject in the book. Strange, especially when you're filling an hour and a half on this.
I think that's because he knows Gladwell is smarter than he is and he will lose the argument, which might put him in the "awkward" position of having to admit he's wrong about Paterno/C/S/S. Easier for him to ignore the topic.
Here is what franco posted (since you apparently are too lazy to go back to page 4 of this thread):
"
Here are some of the key quotes that Gladwell said in the interview:
- “There is no way Joe Paterno even belongs in this conversation. Everyone should agree he was treated shamefully and that his good name needs to be restored.”
- “I am ashamed to be part of a society which tried to put Graham Spanier in prison.”
- “We were way, way, way, way too quick to come to judgement about the Penn State leadership and on Joe Paterno, and way too quick to think that Mike McQueary’s account is cut and dry when, in fact, it’s not.”
- “Joe Paterno, Graham Spanier, Tim Curley, and Gary Schultz were the victims of a moral panic. It was crazy.”
- “The prosecution behaved egregiously in this case and continues to behave egregiously.”
- “The Freeh Report (conducted on the case on behalf of Penn State by former FBI Director Louis Freeh) is a whole other pile of crap.”
- The prosecution’s current date (their second official stab at it after originally incorrectly claiming it was March 1, 2002) for the McQueary episode, February 9, 2001, is “bullshit.”
- The news media’s total lack of curiosity in the real story of the “boy in the shower,” whom Gladwell correctly identifies in his book as then 13-year old Allan Myers, is “bizarre.”
- As for Sandusky’s guilt, Gladwell cautiously says, “I don’t know. The public should know that this is murky… This case is shrouded in doubt.” He adds that in reality it is, “the polar opposite of the Larry Nassar case,” when it has been portrayed by the media as very similar.
- In the news media, “There is kind of a group mentality that takes place in these cases, at least in the beginning.”
- “My hat is off to you John. I admire what you have done and I encourage others to look at it and reach their own conclusions… I think you are going to live to see at least some measure of vindication.”
I just re-read the points. They seem fair to me.
Again, I have never said that I am 100% certain that he is guilty. Some of his behavior is 100% aligned with behavior that a pedophile would engage in but I can’t say for sure that he is a pedophile. The biggest issue I have had with people on here is with those that are certain that he is not in light of these pedophilic behaviors.
Again, I have never said that I am 100% certain that he is guilty. Some of his behavior is 100% aligned with behavior that a pedophile would engage in but I can’t say for sure that he is a pedophile. The biggest issue I have had with people on here is with those that are certain that he is not in light of these pedophilic behaviors.
I am not certain. But in the court system, certainty of innocence is not the requirement. Reasonable doubt is enough to acquit.
I don’t know what else to tell you. He went through the court system and reasonable doubt was not found by a jury of his peers. Start a trial of a man accused of sexual assault of children with his admitted showering alone with children- including after agreeing to never do so again-, blowing raspberries on the bellies of unrelated boys, holding unrelated boys up to the shower head to rinse off, being found in an otherwise empty gym behind some wrestling mats with a boy and you are going to have a difficult time finding not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Certainly you can see where they would find that, right?
Not if there was a fair trial and the jurors approached it with an open mind. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get a fair trial in these types of cases.
And in another podcast he says he is unsure if Sandusky is guilty. Your point is????
Not arguing here, just curious. Do you think the following could possibly explain Jerry's behaviors?
Had Sandusky testified, he could have explained the aspects of his behavior that some parents and even some children found “creepy.” He had spent much of his youth living on the second floor of a recreation center managed by his father, himself a charitable man who cared about helping underprivileged children. Jerry had wanted to emulate him in every way. In Art Sandusky’s facility, communal showers and prankish romping after exercise had been routine. The roughhousing had been play, but it had also offered a heartening, asexual token of solidarity between athletically inclined men and boys. Even Jerry’s most unsettling practice, squeezing the knees of a boy passenger in a car, was inherited from his father. It meant something like “Don’t forget that you can rely on my support.” As Jerry’s son Jon, now Director of Player Personnel for the Cleveland Browns, has commented,
[My father’s] whole picture of the world was stuck in the 1950s and 1960s, with no concept of what was politically correct or what is taboo nowadays…. To him, horsing around in the shower, snapping towels or throwing soap wasn’t out of the realm of normality…. But people’s view of the world is different now…. I don’t think he really understood that.
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