24 March 2008

Book Review: The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell

The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, Abacus, London, 2001
(ppb., 279 pp., 11 pp. endnotes/references, indexed, first published by Little, Brown, 2000)

It is not often that book titles manage to raise themselves out of the dust thrown up by the noise of everyday life: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker, Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The term used by Gladwell in the title to his first book The Tipping Point has now achieved common currency. The relevance to climate change and global warming could lead one to wonder, in all seriousness, whether the concept of the 'tipping point' was itself at a tipping point, ready to tip. For many years we had been either 'on the threshold' (in control) or 'teetering on the brink' (not in control). Tipping points may be less obvious, and inferred only by subsequent analysis. Why did crime in New York City plummet in the 1980s? This is one of the examples Gladwell considers in detail, identifying that a particular set of circumstances were at a sensitive 'tipping point', and a small, highly targetted effort was able to make a massive difference. An example Gladwell does not consider concerns marine clathrates - methane hydrate held in huge volumes in ocean sediments. A small rise in global temperatures currently will do little to these clathrates. However, with global temperatures predicted to rise by four or five degrees over the next forty years, even a miniscule temperature elevation could then release vast quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, setting off a rapid escalation of further, potentially catastrophic, global warming. The ocean temperature at which methane is released from clathrates is a tipping point in terms of climate change.
Most of Gladwell's examples of tipping points are focused around human behaviour. It is easy to see why the same term is used both for physical and social processes. When a transmissible disease starts to spread, the rate of social transmission is likely to change in response to a variety of social factors, such as changes in seasonal behaviour. A viral epidemic, such as seasonal 'flu, may well pass through a tipping point, both on its way up and on its way down. At the time of writing, the much-expected pandemic 'flu epidemic based on the H5N1 bird 'flu virus has not reached a tipping point, although it is understood what that tipping point would be: the point at which the virus mutates to permit efficient human-human transmission. Gladwell considers the fashion industry and how there are tipping points in the sale of particular fashion items. He also considers Paul Revere's ride that led to the American War of Independence, analysing what what made the ride a tipping point.
Gladwell identifies both that the context must be right and that the 'contagion' is contagious, 'sticky'. He also considers that three roles are necessary for a social tipping point: connectors, mavens and salesmen. The designations are supeficially attractive and may contain more than simply a kernel of truth. However, in my view, Gladwell fails to take account of the effectiveness of the vested interests of international commerce and national politics in controlling what we buy, what we watch/read, and what we think. Indeed, his message looks as though it will be attractive to a popular culture that prizes individualism: if you are smart in some way, you can make a difference. Maybe you know lots of people (connectors), maybe you are obsessed with footware or gizmos or supermarket prices (mavens), maybe you can sell beachwear to people living in Greenland (salesmen). I thought time and again: Gladwell knows the culture for which he is writing. A society in which intellect is not fully trusted, but in which people dream of escaping both from the vista of complexity revealed by science, and from the daily tedium of humdrum graft to 'stars in their eyes' silver-bullet breakthroughs.
It is valuable that Gladwell offers plenty of evidence to support his assertions. In popular social science style, the text is made up of one anecdote after another, and includes several well-worked-through examples, albeit largely from the United States. The text is well-supported (11 pages of endnotes and references) with many references to academic books and academic papers, as well as newspaper and magazine articles, albeit largely written by Americans in the United States. This US focus should be surprising as Gladwell was born in the UK and raised in Ontario. The parochialism started to irritate me, not because I hold any anti-American prejudices, but because I started to doubt that his thesis would hold as true for other societies around the world. He does offer a Polynesian example of teenage suicide. However, by this point in the book I had started to become suspicious. How much does Gladwell know about Polynesian society? How much does he understand about suicidal ideation and pyschotherapy? Again, this should be surprising because Gladwell's mother was a Jamaican psychotherapist. Although the precise example of Polynesian teenage suicide may well be valid, I was equally sure that Gladwell was well beyond his home turf.
Academic writing does not make claims beyond those that it can defend. Academic writing considers short-comings, objections and alternative interpretations. Gladwell should be familiar with academic writing because his father, Graham, is emeritus professor of civil engineering at Canada's leading University of Waterloo, Ontario. What is absent from Gladwell's book is anything critical of his thesis, anything that may refute his ideas. At two points (crime reduction in New York City, and the spread of syphilis in Baltimore) Gladwell does rehearse alternative suggestions for what took place, but only as a rhetorical backdrop for his 'white knight' tipping point solution. It is as though, for Gladwell, there is a silver bullet to be found, a tipping point that will make all the difference. The Tipping Point is a text written to persuade and convince. Gladwell is acting as maven and salesman for his own ideas. The example he cites at which he appears to me to be weakest is when considering tobacco smoking reduction behaviour. He fails to acknowledge the emotional complexity of smoking, its multitude of meanings, the meanings associated with quitting, and the fact that much smoking reduction advertising is aimed at adults. Having a degree in history, it is far from obvious that issues of suicide and addictions are areas of Gladwell's strength. Happily, however, his text appears to be much more persuasive when it comes to the commercial advertising of fashion items to a segmented US market. About this he writes well. Indeed, his entire text is written in a style that justifiably belongs to a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine.
It would seem that Gladwell applied to his book, the sub-title of which is How little things can make a big difference, the lessons that constitute his chapters. I bought the book because I had heard of it many times and was interested to learn. The book's advertising puff reads: "The International No. 1 Bestseller", a message advertising how contagious the book is.
The concept of tipping points is important, and deserves to be explored, understood and explained more fully, and above all more rigorously. Maybe is is me who at fault in hoping for a modicum of academic scepticism and balance in a popular social science text. When all is said and done, Gladwell's book is an enthusiastic and encouraging introduction to tipping points.

***

Gladwell biographical information drawn from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell accessed 24 March 2008

14 March 2008

Green: traffic speed and climate change

When a motor vehicle (car, van, lorry) is travelling steadily at its optimum speed for minimising fuel consumption (usually between 25 mph and 50 mph), its fuel consumption is very much lower than when it is travelling fast or changing speed. I now know this for sure because my replacement car has a fuel consumption computer. I am able to see in numerical terms, the effect on my car's fuel consumption of driving style choices that I make.

During the mid-1970s, in response to massive increases in the price of crude oil imposed by the OPEC countries (and therefore causing a significant shift in the balance of trade), the UK national speed limit was reduced in order to reduce national fuel consumption. From Wikipedia: "It was reduced to 50 mph (80 km/h) in response to the 1973 oil crisis, and restored to 70 mph (112 km/h) in 1974."

In relation to the US, I found the following paragraph here:

"In the midst of an energy crisis touched off by conflict in the Middle East (see October 17, 1973), President Richard Nixon signs the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act, establishing a maximum national speed limit. No highway projects may be approved in any State having a maximum speed limit over 55 m.p.h. The Act, part of a nationwide effort to save oil, is a result of an oil embargo imposed by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that forced Americans into long lines at gas stations. President Nixon estimates the new speed limit can save nearly 200,000 barrels of fuel a day."

Were the UK national speed limit to be reduced again to 50 mph, the consequence would be a significant reduction in greenhouse gases produced by motor vehicles. Additionally, motorists would save money because they would need to buy less fuel. Lower road speeds would permit roads to carry denser traffic, thus, perhaps counter-intuitively, reducing some congestion. Further, according to the police, excessive speed is indicated in a majority of road traffic accidents. Limiting speed to 50 mph has the chance, therefore, of reducing the number of accidents, their severity and the number of casualties. (I read somewhere that reduction in the number of casualties of road traffic accidents had plateaued, and that further measures were going to be required if the numbers were to be reduced further.) Longer journey times for lengthy journeys might mean that more journeys would be undertaken using public transport, and there might be a long-overdue increase in the use of video-conferencing, and thus a reduction in the number of journeys undertaken.

To my knowledge, no-one is talking about this proposal as an option to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport. Is there a reason for this? Am I missing something? As a first step, it would seem like an obvious and relatively cheap and pain-free adjustment that could be made.

Some further thoughts:

1. The speedometer in most UK cars runs up to 160 mph. This is bizarre because the national speed limit in the UK is 70 mph, and (with the exception of Lower Saxony) nowhere else in Europe exceeds 130 kph. The unnecessary range of the speedometer dial achieves two things: I am less clear about my precise speed because the reading is always limited to a small proportion of the speedometer dial; I am always given the sense that I am driving slowly compared with the apparent potential of the car.

2. My car has the potential to travel much faster than I shall ever be legally allowed to drive it.

3. Every morning when I commute to work, an overwhelming majority of the traffic noticeably exceeds the speed limit for substantial portions of the journey.

4. Despite huge negative attention devoted by UK motorists and news media to speed cameras on UK roads, the reality is that the number of speed cameras relative to the extent of roads on which speeding takes place is pitiful.

5. Few UK cars are fitted with cruise control. The price for retrofitting cruise control is prohibitively high. Cruise control could help motorists to observe speed limits.

6. The overwhelming majority of car advertisements in the UK emphasise using cars for fun and excitement. This is not a message that is compatible with attempting to reduce CO2 emissions and traffic. Resolving issues related to climate change requires that people stop seeing their car as a form of recreation.

7. The points I have made above impact on the daily lives of ordinary people. I suspect that many people are willing to make token efforts to mitigate climate change, provided that they are not required to change how they live their life. I believe that climate change is orders of magnitude bigger than the majority of people are appreciating. Token efforts sound to me like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. Until people realise that real change needs to take place, across a range of lifestyle issues, such as the speed at which they drive their cars, CO2 emissions are not going to fall.

Beatrice 16 May, 2008 15:11 commented...

Yes, you're absolutely right about deckcahairs on the Titanic. I think people just cannot cope with the enormity of the implications of runaway climate change and so refuse to accept it is real. There are some interesting articles about on the psychology of climate change denial eg this one by George Marshall:http://www.ecoglobe.ch/motivation/e/clim2922.htm

Postscript
Whilst what I have written above sounds a little like pious polemic, I believe it sufficiently both to have reduced my driving speed to 50 mph where the speed limit is 70 mph, and to have changed my driving style so that I accelerate only slowly and, within the limits of safety, brake as little as possible. It has taken a while to drive more sedately, detaching myself from the frantic impatience of other motorists. I sometimes resort to singing "I feel pretty" - it helps.

12 March 2008

Why I do not call myself a conservative

I describe myself as a liberal person. I am happy to be described as very liberal. I was recently challenged to be clear about what I mean by liberal in contrast with conservative.

Phenomenology
As a counsellor, I recognise that everyone constructs their world, the world, in their own, unique way. I do not believe that there is a correct way to understand the world. I am happy to admit that there are more and less functional ways to understand the world. For example, to believe that the moon is made of cheese may be imaginative, but is probably inaccurate. If, like Wallace and Grommit, one were to visit the moon in the hope of finding hunks of Wensleydale cheese lying around, the chances of coming away disappointed are high. I believe that many people are ignorant about many aspects of the world about which they hold views, and just as many people make only pitiable attempts (if any) to find out the facts. In this sense, therefore, the uniqueness of their construct is based on ignorance and prejudice. However, even were this not the case, every person would still have a different life story, a different set of experiences, a different collection of interests, giving them a different way of describing the world: a childless couple who are career-focused is likely to describe the world differently from a single-mother with five children; a white, male, middle-aged Surrey stockbroker is likely to describe the world differently from a young North African woman living in the banlieux of Paris; a dairy farmer in New Hampshire is likely to describe the world differently from a personal escort in Tokyo. As a counsellor, I would be unable to make a value judgment about the relative superiority of any description of the world. I believe that this position marks me out as liberal. To me, a conservative person is someone who considers either that there is a correct view of the world, or considers that their own view of the world has greater validity than the views of other people.

Family
In the UK, the Conservative Party identifies itself as party that upholds family values. What this position refers to, however, is a narrow view of family: a man, married to a woman, with a number of children born within that marriage. Ideally there will also be grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins and nieces in an extended family. There is something very 'blood' about this. There is also an 'ideal', from which many depart.

I am not an uncritical fan of the family. My family of origin fitted this narrow, 'ideal', view, and was dysfunctional and abusive. Dysfunctionality and abuse are also significant aspects of the family experience of many people who I have counselled. I have a preference for a Lilo and Stitch view of family: "Family means nobody gets left behind" even when the family consists of two sisters and an alien. For me, family consists of the people we live amongst, the people who frequent (albeit 'virtually' in some cases) our lives, the people we choose. Within my own extended family there are half-people, step-people, adopted people. There are marriages, divorces, second marriages, and cohabitees. There are 'aunties' and 'uncles'. There are straight people and gay people. There are Canadian, French, Monagesque, German and English/Welsh people. I celebrate this diversity, and reject the notion of an 'ideal'. I guess that on a significant plank of Conservative Party policy, I fall well outside the boundaries of their core support.

Nationalism
It is usually the case that conservative people feel and express a sense of national pride. In the context of a world of nation states, this national pride often expresses itself as nationalism (pledging allegiance to the flag, singing Rule Britannia or La Marseillaise) or nationalistic aspirations (the separatist/secessionist agendas of the Scottish National Party [Scotland], the Vlaams Blok/Belang [Flanders], Lega Nord [northern Italy]).

More liberal people, on the other hand, appear typically at least more skeptical about, and often even hostile towards, expressions of nationalism. In the UK at least, liberal views and politics are more likely to be associated with internationalism and expressions of support for supranational organisations such as the United Nations, the European Union, the European Court of Justice, the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights. In Israel, as I understand it, the conservative people are keen to strengthen the borders they have delineated, whereas the more liberal people tend to look towards dialogue with the Palestinians and neighbouring states (although I am sure that the situation is much more complex than I am suggesting here). In the United States, as presented on news and current affairs programmes on television and the radio in the UK, the 'Neo-Cons' do not trust the United Nations, dislike the idea of US military personnel being tried in an international court, and appear to be indifferent about the effect of the US economy on global warming and climate change (that is impacting on the entire world); whereas "Since leaving office, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. He created the William J. Clinton Foundation to promote and address international causes, such as treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS and global warming." (Wikipedia: Bill Clinton), and Al Gore has become internationally famous for the high profile movie he presented against cavalier industrialisation at the expense of the world's climate An Inconvenient Truth.
... (to be continued)

Immigration
Conservative people typically have such a strong sense of belonging to a land that they usually appear to believe they have a right to exclude others. It is not hard to find conservative people talking about 'foreigners' who 'take our jobs and houses', and call for elected representatives to enact exclusionist immigration policies. Although at the extreme end of conservatism racist and xenophobic sentiments are easy to encounter, such attitudes do not characterise conservatism, which instead typically prefers that people 'live where they belong'. When conservative people have gone to live in a different country it has traditionally been as colonial superiors. Of the 270,000 'Brits' (hideous term) who live in Spain (as of January 2006), many make little attempt to integrate far into Spanish culture, perhaps not even learning more than the basics of the language, but instead choose to live in British enclaves in Alicante, Malaga, Murcia and Almeria, with their shops retailing British brands.

Liberal people, in contrast, tend to thrive in diverse, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic environments, grasp the necessity, for themselves and others, of economic transhumance, migration and emigration, recognise the necessity of accepting refugees and asylum seekers into more stable society, and value the resulting infusion of cultural energy.

Law and Order
Conservative people typically believe that there has been a decline in moral values leading to tensions in society - views expressed eloquently in the UK during the 18th (e.g. Hogarth), 19th (Victorians), 20th (the courtroom trial of Lady Chatterly's Lover, Mary Whitehouse, 'Back to Basics' [a Conservative Party campaign]) and now 21st centuries. A decline over the past three centuries should now have us in hell! Which, of course, is the picture that the conservative UK press would have us believe. For conservative people, the remedy is that there should be more police officers to enforce civil order and that punishment for transgression of civil order should be more severe (e.g. Conservative Party 'Short Sharp Shock' policy).

Liberal people tend to desire the liberalisation of society and its values so that fewer people are seen as being close to, at, or beyond the margins. The Liberal reforms of the early 20th century, under Campbell-Bannerman and Lloyd George (the foundations of the welfare state in the UK), and the introduction by Leo Abse (Labour) in 1967 of legislation to decriminalise homosexual acts between consenting men, are examples of this liberalisation. During the 1992 Labour Party conference, Tony Blair attempted to appeal to both the liberal and conservative wings of potential Labour Party voters by using the slogan "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" Liberal people are more likely to be interested in restorative, rather than retributive, justice, and are more likely to recognise the faults of imprisonment.

Money, wealth and property
That there is a divide between conservative and liberal people regarding attitudes towards money, wealth and property appears to be both self-evident and complex. The much misquoted biblical aphorism that the love of money is the root of all evil might offer a signpost. It is hard to imagine that many of the people who work in the upper levels of the banking, insurance and finance sectors of the City of London, or hew at the rockface of the Manhattan "goldmines", celebrate the same socio-economic analysis as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Examining the Times 'rich list' for 2006 regarding personal donations to political parties, of the top 31 most generous donors, 24 donated to the Conservative Party (approximately £7,000,000), 5 donated to the Labour Party (£1,455,000), 1 donated to the Liberal Democrats (£129,798), and 1 donated to the Scottish National Party (£100,000). The list also shows loans to political parties - Conservatives: £12,650,000; Labour £7,800,000. From these figures it is easy to conclude that the people with a considerable amount of money are more likely to donate some of it in support of Conservative/conservative values.

Monarchy, aristocracy, nobility, honours and hierarchy
Conservative people in the UK tend to be in favour of the British monarchy, whereas liberal people are less predictable about the extent to which they take an interest in and support the British monarchy. I have been a lifelong republican (not in the US sense of Republican), and dislike any attention being given to the Windsor family or the ceremonial roles carried out by an hereditary head of state. Several countries (Ireland, Germany, Greece and Israel) manage to elect a non-executive head of state, just as all UK universities manage to appoint a Chancellor.

Titles and hereditary peerages belong to a world of long ago. Although still important in the seventeenth century, the world of being born into a social station in life was already starting to dissolve, in part hurried along by the Civil War, but also ironically by the enclosures, which moved farm hands off the traditional pastures, and into the more egalitarian towns and cities. Whilst it is still required that commoners bow/curtsy to the aristocracy, about which conservative people are likely to be happy, compared to 350 years ago, Britain is a much more egalitarian country, about which liberal people are likely to be happy.

Relation to land

... (to be continued)