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Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell
8 reviews
readingthief's review against another edition
informative
fast-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Police brutality, Murder, Alcohol, and War
flickflickcity's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
fast-paced
4.0
Minor-ish spoilers?
I will note I did skip the Chanel Miller chapter because I didn’t think I could handle it spoken about at length - so I’ll have to defer to other experiences RE: that chapter but please note I didn’t read that chapter in full when reading the following.
I’ve read a lot of reviews that have been highly critical for Gladwell’s “reductive” and/or “victim blaming” approach around heinous crimes. From the parts I read, I feel like that summary could be perhaps be in bad faith. Understandable because this book contains a lot of heavy themes and even for me with the Chanel chapter… I knew I’d not be able to take anything in in a measured way because I feel so emotional about the case. In other chapters I was brought to tears over simple case facts being recalled - so it certainly took a lot of effort to look past my impulse to be enraged we were seeking to ‘understand’ varying parties with varying guilt (from perpetrators to bystanders), but I did my best and here are some initial thoughts. Certainly this book’s theory reduces social/cultural phenomena in a sense - but does so necessarily to try and find a productive way of explaining the roots of our misunderstandings, and in that provides a useful prompt for us moving forward. I felt that rather than achieving breadth, it achieved an actionable impetus for me moving forward. No, my gut response is not to let parents that disbelieve children about abuse off the hook, but I also thought about a similar responses to other reported social infractions of lesser degrees and note that most people are guilty of not wanting to believe the difficult thing especially at first. (AKA “I heard your new friend is not very nice and betrays people’s trust” “ok thanks but I’ll figure that out for myself”) The point I take is that this is a human thing, but also something we can overcome personally (e.g. understand our impulse is to disbelieve deceit and malice and try to push against it where possible in order to learn the truth), and understand broadly (e.g. people may be resistant to things because it takes longer to process that someone is deceptive/awful). Do I think that it’s all good and dandy? No. But I don’t think Gladwell does either, he just wants us to notice it. As for the reductionist arguments regarding culture impacts, I keep thinking about the AI vs the judge example. He is just taking us through one theory, not expecting us to abandon other beliefs. But when ruminating on other considerations, the prompt seems to be for us to be critical about our own statistical inability to be fully accurate with our appraisals. Not that we are all wrong, but that people are more complex - more complex than even a steady understanding of cultural nuance can understand. Considering those factors is not invalid or a waste of time perhaps, it’s just not perfect or foolproof like we may feel it is. Of course, using stats about reoffending etc is an interesting data point given the cultural contexts that *cause* those stats… but again I think if anything this text has allowed me to think and articulate these contributing factors clearer and with more confidence because I am inherently going up against the argument that these complexities make me less accurate not more, and in that sense the book has encouraged me to interrogate and feel more certain in some patterns I see and debunk others.
Anyway, even if I/you don’t agree with all of these theories about coupling, transparency etc. - it’s certainly good for thought.
I will note I did skip the Chanel Miller chapter because I didn’t think I could handle it spoken about at length - so I’ll have to defer to other experiences RE: that chapter but please note I didn’t read that chapter in full when reading the following.
I’ve read a lot of reviews that have been highly critical for Gladwell’s “reductive” and/or “victim blaming” approach around heinous crimes. From the parts I read, I feel like that summary could be perhaps be in bad faith. Understandable because this book contains a lot of heavy themes and even for me with the Chanel chapter… I knew I’d not be able to take anything in in a measured way because I feel so emotional about the case. In other chapters I was brought to tears over simple case facts being recalled - so it certainly took a lot of effort to look past my impulse to be enraged we were seeking to ‘understand’ varying parties with varying guilt (from perpetrators to bystanders), but I did my best and here are some initial thoughts. Certainly this book’s theory reduces social/cultural phenomena in a sense - but does so necessarily to try and find a productive way of explaining the roots of our misunderstandings, and in that provides a useful prompt for us moving forward. I felt that rather than achieving breadth, it achieved an actionable impetus for me moving forward. No, my gut response is not to let parents that disbelieve children about abuse off the hook, but I also thought about a similar responses to other reported social infractions of lesser degrees and note that most people are guilty of not wanting to believe the difficult thing especially at first. (AKA “I heard your new friend is not very nice and betrays people’s trust” “ok thanks but I’ll figure that out for myself”) The point I take is that this is a human thing, but also something we can overcome personally (e.g. understand our impulse is to disbelieve deceit and malice and try to push against it where possible in order to learn the truth), and understand broadly (e.g. people may be resistant to things because it takes longer to process that someone is deceptive/awful). Do I think that it’s all good and dandy? No. But I don’t think Gladwell does either, he just wants us to notice it. As for the reductionist arguments regarding culture impacts, I keep thinking about the AI vs the judge example. He is just taking us through one theory, not expecting us to abandon other beliefs. But when ruminating on other considerations, the prompt seems to be for us to be critical about our own statistical inability to be fully accurate with our appraisals. Not that we are all wrong, but that people are more complex - more complex than even a steady understanding of cultural nuance can understand. Considering those factors is not invalid or a waste of time perhaps, it’s just not perfect or foolproof like we may feel it is. Of course, using stats about reoffending etc is an interesting data point given the cultural contexts that *cause* those stats… but again I think if anything this text has allowed me to think and articulate these contributing factors clearer and with more confidence because I am inherently going up against the argument that these complexities make me less accurate not more, and in that sense the book has encouraged me to interrogate and feel more certain in some patterns I see and debunk others.
Anyway, even if I/you don’t agree with all of these theories about coupling, transparency etc. - it’s certainly good for thought.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Police brutality, Suicide attempt, and War
fkshg8465's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
1.0
I may be one of the few people who really dislike Malcolm Gladwell. Why do I keep trying to read Malcolm Gladwell's books? Ugh. I should really ban him from my reading list. He's a great storyteller, but to me, that's all he is. I find him lacking in critical thinking and full of biases in his writing. I find this dangerous because other people may go I may be one of the few people who really dislike Malcolm Gladwell. Why do I keep trying to read Malcolm Gladwell's books? Ugh. I should really ban him from my reading list.
He's a great storyteller, but to me, that's all he is. I find him lacking in critical thinking and full of biases in his writing. I find this dangerous because other people may go along without giving it much thought, precisely because he is a great storyteller. I'm so frustrated by his conclusions that have little or no basis. I'm sure he researched everything, and presenting facts is fine, but when he draws conclusions on those facts without backing any of it up or without having demonstrated any logic behind it, I get mad.
I find him dangerous because he leads people to his conclusions without room for doubt when he uses words like, “obviously” to jump to a conclusion that may or may not be logical and in some cases are clearly biased by western outlooks (I see it as the equivalent of mental grooming). In one chapter, he shows a picture of a face he thinks is clearly angry, but in actuality, it can be just as easily interpreted as a confused or frustrated face. Yet, because his standards of correctness is his own interpretation, and because the rest of the argument as based on it, the critical logic falls apart for me.
I also hated that he put rape on trial. Women and victims have a hard enough time being believed, and with his dangerous way of presenting, he’s now given people more reasons to doubt.
One of my own triggers is the police epidemic in the US, and I didn’t appreciate his past treatment of this topic in the other books I’ve read by him, especially because he’s half Black. He seemed to lack sensitivity, and it angered me. He did better in this book, but I hated his treatment of trying to understand Brian Encinia from page one. I admit my own anti Gladwell biases popped up over and over again while reading the book and that it probably was a better book than it felt like for that reason. I only read this book because it was on a must-read list. Never again. Even if just to preserve my own mental health. This man triggers me more than the topics in his books. Henceforth, he’s banned from my future reading list!along without giving it much thought because he is a great storyteller. I'm so frustrated by his conclusions that have little or no basis. I'm sure he researched everything, and presenting facts is fine, but when he draws conclusions on those facts without backing any of it up or without having demonstrated any logic behind it, I get mad. he uses the same examples from book to book. Where’s his originality??
I find him dangerous because he leads people to his conclusions without room for doubt when he uses words like, “obviously” to jump to a conclusion that may or may not be logical and in some cases are clearly biased by western outlooks (I see it as the equivalent of mental grooming). In one chapter, he shows a picture of a face he thinks is clearly angry, but in actuality, it can be just as easily interpreted as a confused or frustrated face. Yet because his standards of correctness is his own interpretation, and because the rest of the argument as based on it, the critical logic falls apart for me.
I also hated that he put rape on trial. Women and vocations have a hard enough time being believed, and with his dangerous way of presenting, he’s now given people more reasons to doubt.
One of my own triggers is the police epidemic in the US, and I didn’t appreciate his past treatment of this topic in the other books I’ve read by him, especially because he’s half Black. He seemed to lack sensitivity, and it angered me. He did better in this book, but I hated his treatment of trying to understand Brian Encinia from page one. I admit my own anti Gladwell biases popped up over and over again while reading the book and that it probably was a better book than it felt like for that reason. I only read this book because it was on a must-read list. Never again. Even if just to preserve my own mental health. This man triggers me more than the topics in his books. Henceforth, he’s banned from my future reading list!
He's a great storyteller, but to me, that's all he is. I find him lacking in critical thinking and full of biases in his writing. I find this dangerous because other people may go along without giving it much thought, precisely because he is a great storyteller. I'm so frustrated by his conclusions that have little or no basis. I'm sure he researched everything, and presenting facts is fine, but when he draws conclusions on those facts without backing any of it up or without having demonstrated any logic behind it, I get mad.
I find him dangerous because he leads people to his conclusions without room for doubt when he uses words like, “obviously” to jump to a conclusion that may or may not be logical and in some cases are clearly biased by western outlooks (I see it as the equivalent of mental grooming). In one chapter, he shows a picture of a face he thinks is clearly angry, but in actuality, it can be just as easily interpreted as a confused or frustrated face. Yet, because his standards of correctness is his own interpretation, and because the rest of the argument as based on it, the critical logic falls apart for me.
I also hated that he put rape on trial. Women and victims have a hard enough time being believed, and with his dangerous way of presenting, he’s now given people more reasons to doubt.
One of my own triggers is the police epidemic in the US, and I didn’t appreciate his past treatment of this topic in the other books I’ve read by him, especially because he’s half Black. He seemed to lack sensitivity, and it angered me. He did better in this book, but I hated his treatment of trying to understand Brian Encinia from page one. I admit my own anti Gladwell biases popped up over and over again while reading the book and that it probably was a better book than it felt like for that reason. I only read this book because it was on a must-read list. Never again. Even if just to preserve my own mental health. This man triggers me more than the topics in his books. Henceforth, he’s banned from my future reading list!along without giving it much thought because he is a great storyteller. I'm so frustrated by his conclusions that have little or no basis. I'm sure he researched everything, and presenting facts is fine, but when he draws conclusions on those facts without backing any of it up or without having demonstrated any logic behind it, I get mad. he uses the same examples from book to book. Where’s his originality??
I find him dangerous because he leads people to his conclusions without room for doubt when he uses words like, “obviously” to jump to a conclusion that may or may not be logical and in some cases are clearly biased by western outlooks (I see it as the equivalent of mental grooming). In one chapter, he shows a picture of a face he thinks is clearly angry, but in actuality, it can be just as easily interpreted as a confused or frustrated face. Yet because his standards of correctness is his own interpretation, and because the rest of the argument as based on it, the critical logic falls apart for me.
I also hated that he put rape on trial. Women and vocations have a hard enough time being believed, and with his dangerous way of presenting, he’s now given people more reasons to doubt.
One of my own triggers is the police epidemic in the US, and I didn’t appreciate his past treatment of this topic in the other books I’ve read by him, especially because he’s half Black. He seemed to lack sensitivity, and it angered me. He did better in this book, but I hated his treatment of trying to understand Brian Encinia from page one. I admit my own anti Gladwell biases popped up over and over again while reading the book and that it probably was a better book than it felt like for that reason. I only read this book because it was on a must-read list. Never again. Even if just to preserve my own mental health. This man triggers me more than the topics in his books. Henceforth, he’s banned from my future reading list!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail
cartermon4's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Police brutality, and Murder
Moderate: Racism and War
Minor: Deportation
Audiobook was an interesting experience- added audio and sounds make it more involved.antireading's review against another edition
1.25
I feel as though Gladwell ignores other factors to the discussions he brings up, most especially race, gender, and their intersections. He drills down everything to miscommunication but doesn't bring up the fact that many are predisposed to not wanting to be truthful in communication with women, with Black people, etc. It is not JUST because of policing practices that Black people get pulled over, but it is because of a bias against them and the communities that are over-policed. It felt like he was oversimplifying a lot.
The section on Jerry Sandusky and Brock Turner was gross. He treated CIA operatives who invented torture tactics with more care than victims of rape. He seemed to outright disbelieve the victims of Sandusky and chalk up Turner's rape to a "miscommunication" due to alcohol. He calls most sexual harassment on college campuses miscommunications due to alcohol and hazy rules of consent, while also acknowledging that 1 in 5 female college students report being sexually harassed. He also says the problem is equally with the men raping and the alcohol. Alcohol is a large chunk of the book for no apparent reason as it doesn't tie into the main Sandra Bland storyline like other issues do at the end. I wasn't interested in hearing excuses for a man raping an unconscious woman, but apparently, women should have known better.
The medium of an audiobook was interesting as Gladwell aimed to make it a high-quality podcast. That fell short when I had issues understanding snippets of the audio from various types of recording equipment, age of recordings, accents, and speeds of talking. I found myself just drowning out those snippets, especially when listening in the car, as the jumpiness of quality was too distracting. I feel like the description, while it technically does describe what happened, didn't really feel like the book as I was getting into it. It was very much interconnected stories but I thought those points would be briefly brought up, not dedicating whole chapters to it.
The section on Jerry Sandusky and Brock Turner was gross. He treated CIA operatives who invented torture tactics with more care than victims of rape. He seemed to outright disbelieve the victims of Sandusky and chalk up Turner's rape to a "miscommunication" due to alcohol. He calls most sexual harassment on college campuses miscommunications due to alcohol and hazy rules of consent, while also acknowledging that 1 in 5 female college students report being sexually harassed. He also says the problem is equally with the men raping and the alcohol. Alcohol is a large chunk of the book for no apparent reason as it doesn't tie into the main Sandra Bland storyline like other issues do at the end. I wasn't interested in hearing excuses for a man raping an unconscious woman, but apparently, women should have known better.
The medium of an audiobook was interesting as Gladwell aimed to make it a high-quality podcast. That fell short when I had issues understanding snippets of the audio from various types of recording equipment, age of recordings, accents, and speeds of talking. I found myself just drowning out those snippets, especially when listening in the car, as the jumpiness of quality was too distracting. I feel like the description, while it technically does describe what happened, didn't really feel like the book as I was getting into it. It was very much interconnected stories but I thought those points would be briefly brought up, not dedicating whole chapters to it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Suicide attempt, Murder, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, War, and Classism
Minor: Child death and Vomit
sidekicksam's review against another edition
2.25
A re-read of a book I read back in 2020, after the pandemic caused both a lot of isolation and division. People were literally keeping their distance, interacting less with strangers, but the summer of '20 also had some very painful revelations and awakenings for the race and equality discussions.
Reading it again, I feel refreshed in the theories he outlines in the book. The 3 problems we have when encountering strangers (defaulting to the assumption that people can be trusted; thinking people's feelings always match their appearance and our inability to judge correctly whether someone is lying or the mismatch is happening; and that context is vital but also underappreciated) are a few that kept me curious, thinking and will stay with me in the back of my mind in encounters with strangers. Interesting food for thought and definitely contemplations that will stay with me.
That being said, I am uneasy with some of the examples Gladwell decided to explore to prove his points. I already had some question marks during my re-read, but after reading multiple 1-star reviews (which have gained 1,000+ likes) on the first page, I'm seriously reconsidering whether this book is good enough to be read on its own (without the accompanying guide/reviews to also challenge the examples given).
To use cases of rape and child molestation and trying to explain away the motives of witnesses or even instigators of the crimes is just... what? Why would you invalidate experiences of trauma instead of exploring the faulty assumptions on which we make errors (the cases of the Cuban spies in the CIA were much more compelling I think).
Example: Brock Turner raping a passed out drunk girl on campus is explained away by their (mutual) excessive drinking and misinterpeted signals - I have never had to explain to any of my boyfriends that no means no (and that if I don't wake up or respond that is also a big fucking NO).
Not taking the prejudice of race into consideration when discussing Sandra Bland's case, but explaining it away to miscommunication... especially with police brutality against Black people blowing up in the media in recent years, it's just harrowing.
I'm happy I don't just read books but also review them, because I may not have gotten further in my evaluation than 'whoo interesting material' without re-evaluating also the icky (and blatantly wrong) bits.
Read it at your own volition, but do heed my warning.
Reading it again, I feel refreshed in the theories he outlines in the book. The 3 problems we have when encountering strangers (defaulting to the assumption that people can be trusted; thinking people's feelings always match their appearance and our inability to judge correctly whether someone is lying or the mismatch is happening; and that context is vital but also underappreciated) are a few that kept me curious, thinking and will stay with me in the back of my mind in encounters with strangers. Interesting food for thought and definitely contemplations that will stay with me.
That being said, I am uneasy with some of the examples Gladwell decided to explore to prove his points. I already had some question marks during my re-read, but after reading multiple 1-star reviews (which have gained 1,000+ likes) on the first page, I'm seriously reconsidering whether this book is good enough to be read on its own (without the accompanying guide/reviews to also challenge the examples given).
To use cases of rape and child molestation and trying to explain away the motives of witnesses or even instigators of the crimes is just... what? Why would you invalidate experiences of trauma instead of exploring the faulty assumptions on which we make errors (the cases of the Cuban spies in the CIA were much more compelling I think).
Example: Brock Turner raping a passed out drunk girl on campus is explained away by their (mutual) excessive drinking and misinterpeted signals - I have never had to explain to any of my boyfriends that no means no (and that if I don't wake up or respond that is also a big fucking NO).
Not taking the prejudice of race into consideration when discussing Sandra Bland's case, but explaining it away to miscommunication... especially with police brutality against Black people blowing up in the media in recent years, it's just harrowing.
I'm happy I don't just read books but also review them, because I may not have gotten further in my evaluation than 'whoo interesting material' without re-evaluating also the icky (and blatantly wrong) bits.
Read it at your own volition, but do heed my warning.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Police brutality, Murder, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and War
caiskel's review against another edition
This book is interesting although it is different than I expected after reading the summary. I enjoy learning about psychology and there were some interesting points made in the book that will stick with me. But boy. This book is dark. Graphic descriptions of terrible things. I just had to stop.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Torture, and War
okiecozyreader's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
4.5
The audio for this is the way to go. Gladwell has actors and live footage reading scripts, which I would think has to make it more interesting to listen to.
This book starts with a court case of a black woman, Sandra Bland and a cop who interrogated her after a minor traffic infraction, sending her to jail where she committed suicide.
He says, in the introduction:
“There are bad cops. There are biased cops. Conservatives prefer the former interpretation, liberals the latter. In the end the two sides canceled each other out. Police officers still kill people in this country, but those deaths no longer command the news. I suspect that you may have had to pause for a moment to remember who Sandra Bland was. We put aside these controversies after a decent interval and moved on to other things.
I don’t want to move on to other things.” P7
He goes back and forth between this case and several others. Hitler, Cuba, Larry Nasser, Amanda Knox, Chanel Miller, Sylvia Plath, and several case studies to try to understand why it is difficult to understand strangers. He uses ideas like the Friends Fallacy - that we try to gauge people by their facial expressions and we often get things wrong because people don’t often display how they feel. Instead, it takes more careful understanding of people to discern why they are acting the way they act.
—
“
But to start, I have two questions—two puzzles about strangers— “ intro
“Puzzle Number One: Why can’t we tell when the stranger in front of us is lying to our face? “ Ch 1
“…try to answer one of the biggest puzzles in human psychology: why are we so bad at detecting lies?” Ch 3
Ch 2
“The people who were right about Hitler were those who knew the least about him personally . The people who were wrong about Hitler were the ones who had talked with him for hours.”
“Puzzle Number Two: How is it that meeting a stranger can sometimes make us worse at making sense of that person than not meeting them?”
Chapter 3
If I can convince you of one thing in this book: let it be this: Strangers are not easy.
Chapter 4
That’s the consequence of not defaulting to trust. If you don’t begin in a state of trust, you can’t have meaningful social encounters.”
Chapter 5
“But defaulting to truth is not a crime. It is a fundamentally human tendency.”
We think we want our guardians to be alert to every suspicion. We blame them when they default to truth. When we send a person like Graham Spanier to jail, we send a message to all of those in authority about the way we want them to make sense of strangers - without stopping to consider the consequences of sending that message.
Chapter 6
Folk psychology is the kind of crude psychology we gain from cultural sources, such as sitcoms. But that is not the way things happen in real life.
Transparency is a myth - an idea we’ve picked up from too much television and reading too many novels where the hero’s “jaw dropped with astonishment,” or “eyes went wide with surprise.”
The unobservables create noise not signal.
Advantage that the judge has over the computer [by seeing the person] isn’t really an advantage
But the requirement of humanity means that we have to tolerate an enormous amount of error. That is the paradox of talking to strangers. We need to talk to them. But we’re terrible at it…
Ch 8
“…we nearly always miss crucial clues in the moment.”
Chapter 9
“The right way to talk with strangers is with caution and humility.”
Chapter 10
“…poets have far and away the highest suicide rates - as much as five times higher than the general population. Something about writing poetry appears either to attract the wounded or to open new wounds…”
“We do not understand the importance of the context in which the stranger is operating.”
Ch 11
“Coupling teaches us the opposite. Don’t look at the stranger and jump to conclusions. Look at the strangers world.”
“There is something about the idea of coupling - of the notion that a stranger’s behavior is tightly connected to place and context - that eludes us. It leads us to misunderstand some of our greatest poets , to be indifferent to the suicidal, and to send police officers on senseless errands.”
Ch 12
“How many drugs did the North Carolina highway patrol find with those 400,000 searches? Seventeen. Is it really worth alienating and stigmatizing 399,983 people…”
“Yet at this most necessary of tasks we are inept. We think we can transform the stranger without cost or sacrifice, into the familiar and known, and we can’t.
To assume the best about another is the trait that has created modern society. Those occasions when our trusting nature gets violated are tragic. But the alternative - to abandon trust as a defense predation and deception - is worse.”
There is no perfect mechanism for the CIA to uncover spies in its midst, or for investors to spot schemers or frauds, or for any of the rest of us to peer, clairvoyantly, inside the minds of those we do not know. But what is required is restraint and humility. …
“… makes the task of reading others all but impossible. There are clues to making sense of a stranger. But attending to them requires
care and attention.”
“Because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, what do we do when things go awry with strangers? We blame the stranger.”
This book starts with a court case of a black woman, Sandra Bland and a cop who interrogated her after a minor traffic infraction, sending her to jail where she committed suicide.
He says, in the introduction:
“There are bad cops. There are biased cops. Conservatives prefer the former interpretation, liberals the latter. In the end the two sides canceled each other out. Police officers still kill people in this country, but those deaths no longer command the news. I suspect that you may have had to pause for a moment to remember who Sandra Bland was. We put aside these controversies after a decent interval and moved on to other things.
I don’t want to move on to other things.” P7
He goes back and forth between this case and several others. Hitler, Cuba, Larry Nasser, Amanda Knox, Chanel Miller, Sylvia Plath, and several case studies to try to understand why it is difficult to understand strangers. He uses ideas like the Friends Fallacy - that we try to gauge people by their facial expressions and we often get things wrong because people don’t often display how they feel. Instead, it takes more careful understanding of people to discern why they are acting the way they act.
—
“
But to start, I have two questions—two puzzles about strangers— “ intro
“Puzzle Number One: Why can’t we tell when the stranger in front of us is lying to our face? “ Ch 1
“…try to answer one of the biggest puzzles in human psychology: why are we so bad at detecting lies?” Ch 3
Ch 2
“The people who were right about Hitler were those who knew the least about him personally . The people who were wrong about Hitler were the ones who had talked with him for hours.”
“Puzzle Number Two: How is it that meeting a stranger can sometimes make us worse at making sense of that person than not meeting them?”
Chapter 3
If I can convince you of one thing in this book: let it be this: Strangers are not easy.
Chapter 4
That’s the consequence of not defaulting to trust. If you don’t begin in a state of trust, you can’t have meaningful social encounters.”
Chapter 5
“But defaulting to truth is not a crime. It is a fundamentally human tendency.”
We think we want our guardians to be alert to every suspicion. We blame them when they default to truth. When we send a person like Graham Spanier to jail, we send a message to all of those in authority about the way we want them to make sense of strangers - without stopping to consider the consequences of sending that message.
Chapter 6
Folk psychology is the kind of crude psychology we gain from cultural sources, such as sitcoms. But that is not the way things happen in real life.
Transparency is a myth - an idea we’ve picked up from too much television and reading too many novels where the hero’s “jaw dropped with astonishment,” or “eyes went wide with surprise.”
The unobservables create noise not signal.
Advantage that the judge has over the computer [by seeing the person] isn’t really an advantage
But the requirement of humanity means that we have to tolerate an enormous amount of error. That is the paradox of talking to strangers. We need to talk to them. But we’re terrible at it…
Ch 8
“…we nearly always miss crucial clues in the moment.”
Chapter 9
“The right way to talk with strangers is with caution and humility.”
Chapter 10
“…poets have far and away the highest suicide rates - as much as five times higher than the general population. Something about writing poetry appears either to attract the wounded or to open new wounds…”
“We do not understand the importance of the context in which the stranger is operating.”
Ch 11
“Coupling teaches us the opposite. Don’t look at the stranger and jump to conclusions. Look at the strangers world.”
“There is something about the idea of coupling - of the notion that a stranger’s behavior is tightly connected to place and context - that eludes us. It leads us to misunderstand some of our greatest poets , to be indifferent to the suicidal, and to send police officers on senseless errands.”
Ch 12
“How many drugs did the North Carolina highway patrol find with those 400,000 searches? Seventeen. Is it really worth alienating and stigmatizing 399,983 people…”
“Yet at this most necessary of tasks we are inept. We think we can transform the stranger without cost or sacrifice, into the familiar and known, and we can’t.
To assume the best about another is the trait that has created modern society. Those occasions when our trusting nature gets violated are tragic. But the alternative - to abandon trust as a defense predation and deception - is worse.”
There is no perfect mechanism for the CIA to uncover spies in its midst, or for investors to spot schemers or frauds, or for any of the rest of us to peer, clairvoyantly, inside the minds of those we do not know. But what is required is restraint and humility. …
“… makes the task of reading others all but impossible. There are clues to making sense of a stranger. But attending to them requires
care and attention.”
“Because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, what do we do when things go awry with strangers? We blame the stranger.”
Content Warnings
Moderate: Alcoholism, Rape, Suicide, Police brutality, and War
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