The Tipping Point

Posted by Ty Fischer on Mar 10, 2009 1:22:49 PM
March 10, 2009
 
 I just finished Malcolm Gladwell’s intriguing book called The Tipping Point.  If you have not read it, it is definitely worth your read. It is all about the necessary conditions for epidemics. By epidemics, however, is does not just mean diseases (although he includes some interesting studies on disease). Epidemics occur when an idea or a product or a practice becomes extremely influential, trendy or effective. He studies everything from a rash of suicides amongst young men in
Micronesia
(no kidding) to the drastic decrease in crime in

New York City

. He tries to draw out common principles and comes up with three: 

 
  1. Epidemics start when the right few people get involved in an idea or movement. These people are Mavens (the group I understand least, but seem to be helpful people who have a deep field of knowledge in a particular arena), Connectors (who tend to spread the word throughout their vast networks) and Salesmen who get people to buy into an idea.
  2. Epidemics spread when ideas or practices are “sticky” or easy to remember, mind catching and effectively communicated.
  3. Epidemics finally spread when the context of the idea, product or practice makes the idea palatable and palpable.  
As someone in a movement that would like to see it grow, I was interested in his take. I think that there are things that can help our school, classical Christian education and maybe even churches in this book. It leaves you with a lot to ponder. (After you read this book, you will also get angry whenever you see some types of ads aimed at getting teens to stop destructive behaviors because he proves, fairly effectively, that they do not and will never work.)
 

There are also some things that are very frightening. First, there is no moral compass in this book. The principles are simply there. They can be used by the wicked and the righteous. You get the feel that man can be and might need to be manipulated. So, it sort of smacks of sophistry—giving away power to control life without a necessary connection to virtue. I was terrified, however, of the chapter on children’s television. It was astonished me how much study, time and effort is being put into making TV addictive to children. There is a slew of Ph.D.s from our finest schools sitting and watching the pupils of children left in a room with toys. The TV show is good if it can capture and hold their attention. The show or segment is deemed best if it captures the most of them most fully. This is all done to convey learning—or at least it was in the shows that he mentioned. I have my doubts. First, TV is a tool of entertainment. It does not do learning well, or even if it does it gives children very wrong ideas about learning—and very tiny attention spans. Second, anything known on Sesame Street is, no doubt, known to Madison Avenue. The techniques of the educator are, no doubt, being employed by the salesman and the purveyor of bright and shiny overpriced, cheaply made toys…and your children are, no doubt, at their mercy. Just watch their pupils.