Speakers and Selfishness

Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Blink and The Tipping Point, spoke last night here at Crimson, and I enjoyed it quite a lot, even though I'd read some of the same stories in his books. He's a slight African American man, dressed in very casual clothes last night, with a generous mop of springy afro curls that made me think "sproing!" several times during the talk.

Gladwell, who is a writer for the New Yorker, spoke about unconscious bias and jury trials, starting out with the story of the first female trombone player in the Munich Symphony, who only got the job because there'd been a screen put up at the auditions (for a completely different reason). His point was that biases operate within us without us realizing it, and so in a jury trial, allowing people to see or hear the defendant and (unconsciously) react to his or her race or gender or appearance, was an unreliable method of determining someone's guilt or innocence. We should put up a screen, he suggested, and decrease the amount of information juries receive. (Some studies show we have better judgement when we have less information, such as the study showingn that ER doctors make more accurate diagnoses of heart attacks when they are forced to consider only 4 factors instead of the patient's entire medical and family history.)

It's an interesting suggestion, and no one in the audience was openly derisive of it, in part because his ultimate point was not that putting up a screen was the best and only solution, but that there is evidence of terrible bias in the criminal justice against black defendants (particularly in sentencing black defendants on drug charges versus white defendants), and we should do something about it.

Gladwell is an anecdotal writer, and not terribly interested in the nitty gritty of the studies, so he gets slammed a lot (and probably rightly so) for extracting points from various sociological studies that wouldn't stand up to rigorous analysis. As a speaker, he was funny and engaging; knowing that he wasn't a sociologist or criminologist or lawyer, he didn't try to get into the nitty gritty of his arguments or suggestions, often taking refuge in the tried-and-true, "That may be true. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try." I can respect that, actually. If there's problem, you gotta try to fix it, no?
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Selfish?

Disclaimer: This may be a very unfairly titled section, and I'll admit up front that I am writing somewhat out of pique. I admit it! hk is only human, after all, and sometimes she gets annoyed/hurt/irritated by humanity.

I am friends (I think) with Elegancia, a very elegant woman in my class who has been very hard to get to know. She always dashes out of class the moment it is over, and sometimes it's so she can review for the next class, but other times, I don't know. It's like she can't just hang out and relax.

Elegancia and I were in a class together last term, and would meet briefly before class sometimes to talk about the reading. And this term, we're in two classes together. We share one of those classes with Sally, who today proposed we get together and review next week for the final. I agreed, and then Elegancia walked over and Sally asked her if she wanted to join.

She thought about it for a moment, clearly thinking about what to say, and then: "No." We must have shown surprise on our faces, because she quickly said, "I would love to, but I have to start studying for my other class, and that's going to take up a lot of time." She then asked if we'd figured out some point from class that was unclear, and I (rather coolly, I admit) said we'd probably figured it out. She murmured that maybe we could explain it to her sometime. And then she asked what time it was, and dashed away.

So me and Sally will meet next Monday, and that'll still be good for us, I think, but I wonder about Elegancia. My immediate reaction was kinda, "Whoa! Way to shut us down!" Elegancia, Sally and I have hung out a couple times this semester; we're not BFF, but it's not like we're utter strangers, either.

Hers was not an entirely unexpected reaction, because I've observed that Elegancia doesn't necessarily like to talk over the things we're studying (for example, we've sat silently next to each other before the start of class, going over our notes instead of talking with each other about the content), and I assume it's because she gets more out of studying the material by herself rather than talking it over with others.

But I wonder also if it's not the overachiever syndrome. You know -- where the subject has never failed at anything, wants to keep it that way, has extremely high standards for himself, is extremely structured, and, yes, doesn't really do anything for anyone else that doesn't benefit him. I mean, I'm like this to a certain extent, but age and experience has mellowed me out, and I try to accommodate friends and guests the best I can. Elegancia, however, has been in school all her life, and from several conversations I've had with her, isn't the type to bend her personal standards (for herself) in order to accommodate others. Which, again, could be said of me as well (just ask my ex), but everything and everyone on a spectrum, you know?

Okay, yeah, I don't really have a point to make here, and I have to go running now (to keep my own damn internal and regulated schedule), but ... I don't like it when people aren't generous! I think that's my point. I wouldn't want to live Elegancia's elegant life (and no one's asking me to, I know) because I think it an impoverished way of living. I don't have much ambition (at least in terms of becoming famous or well-known), so I guess it's not as much of a sacrifice to me to deviate from my self-imposed standards. I guess it's more pleasant for me to hang around people who feel the same.

So there's a question for you. Where do you draw the line between maintaining and staying true to your own standards, and bending or breaking those standards for the benefit of others? I know I have high standards for myself. Am I really doing enough for others that I'm not being a hypocrite here? Hm.