Malcolm Gladwell Versus Ayn Rand

More on Malcolm Gladwell's  Outliers: The Story of Success

When I was in my early teens I secretly stayed up very late one night to watch The Fountainhead simply because I was a Gary Cooper fan. At that point in my life I had not heard of Ayn Rand and found the movie laughably silly. For those who don't know the story, Howard Roark is an architect hired to design "Cortlandt Homes", a huge housing project. Long story short: when the financiers motivated by budgetary concerns start "cutting corners" in Roark's opinion, he uses dynamite to blow up the half-finished project. Never-mind anyone else. The investors didn't count. The workers who relied on the project for their paychecks didn't count. The businesses supplying construction materials didn't count. Ditto for the families planning on moving there after completion.

Nothing mattered but Roark's huge adolescent ego.

I was about 12 or 13 and completely appalled by his behavior.

Atlas Shrugged is a similar story. In it a group of scientists and tycoons decide in equally petulant fashion that they will "simply take their ball and go home", when society refuses to capitulate to their capricious demands. So what happens? Well, according to Ayn Rand everything in the world grinds to a halt. In her bizarre world view, no replacements are available amongst the rest of humanity to rise up to the occasion and take over from the cry-babies who have gone home in a snit.

So, here's some food for thought based on Gladwell's latest book, Outliers: The Story of Success. Do successful men and women grow up in a vacuum before unleashing their greatness upon the world? In other words, was Ayn Rand correct about the great not owing anything to society as a whole for their individual success? Think Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead. Or are the so-called "greats" products of their society and the opportunities afforded to them by it?

Here's Gladwell's thinking on how hockey stars emerge over time:

Consider, for instance, those hockey stars. Relying on the work of a Canadian psychologist who noticed that a disproportionate number of elite hockey players in his country were born in the first half of the year, Gladwell explains what academics call the relative-age effect, by which an initial advantage attributable to age gets turned into a more profound advantage over time. Because Canada’s eligibility cutoff for junior hockey is January 1, Gladwell writes, “a boy who turns 10 on January 2, then, could be playing alongside someone who doesn’t turn 10 until the end of the year.” You can guess at that age, when the differences in physical maturity are so great, which one of those kids is going to make the league all-star team. Once on that all-star team, the January 2 kid starts practicing more, getting better coaching, and playing against tougher competition—so much so that by the time he’s, say, 14, he’s not just older than the kid with the December 30 birthday, he’s better. The solution? Double the number of junior hockey leagues—some for kids born in the first half of the year, others for kids born in the second half. Or, to apply the principle to something a bit more consequential (to non-Canadians, at least), Gladwell suggests that elementary and middle schools put students with January through April birthdays in one class, the May through August birthdays in another, and those with September through December in a third, in order “to level the playing field for those who—through no fault of their own—have been dealt a big disadvantage.”

Then there's the question of why so many Asian students excel at mathematics:

And then there are the math geniuses who, as anyone can’t help noticing, are disproportionately Asian. Citing the work of an educational researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, Gladwell attributes this phenomenon not to some innate mathematical ability that Asians possess but to the fact that children in Asian countries are willing to work longer and harder than their Western counterparts. That willingness, Gladwell continues, is due to a cultural legacy of hard work that stems from the cultivation of rice. Turning to a historian who studies ancient Chinese peasant proverbs, Gladwell marvels at what Chinese rice farmers used to tell one another: “No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich.”

Here are a few more highlights from Gladwell:

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell posits alternative theories for how successful people got to where they are.

Bill Gates
As a kid growing up in Seattle in the late sixties and seventies, Gates had extensive access to a state-of-the-art computer lab, the likes of which very few in his generation would know anything about until years later.

The Beatles
In the early years, when they took up residency in the clubs of Hamburg, Germany, they had to play very long sets, in a wide variety of styles, forcing them to be creative and excel at experimenting.

Chinese Students
They work much harder at their studies and exhibit greater patience in problem-solving than their American counterparts thanks to their cultural legacy of long days toiling in rice paddies.

Youth Hockey Players
Kids born in the early months of a year are put in the same league as kids born later in the year, a slight edge in physical maturity that gets compounded over the years into a decisive advantage in skill.

So the question is then: Are the successful truly independent of the society within which they grew up or do they owe their success, at least in part, to the benefits, attitudes, and advantages it bestowed upon them?

Read the entire article, Why Success Is More Circumstantial Than Personal.

Who is right? Malcolm Gladwell or Ayn Rand?

Comments

[MrBabyMan]

Ayn Rand

[Jeff Garcia]

The answer is Malcolm Gladwell is correct here.

[Jason Mraz]

Howard Roarke

[thrill]

While the Ant could not have gathered his winter stores unless circumstances had provided material to gather, the Grasshopper would not have survived without the Ant's *effort* - but the Ant would live quite well without the Grasshopper.

[Ayn Rand Fan]

This is total bullshit. You obviously don't get Ayn Rand and Positivist Philosphy.

[Caprinardo Delirio]

You obviously don't get Ayn Rand and Positivist Philosphy.
-

I think you meant to say "Objectivist" not "Positivist".

LOL!

[Peter Ireland]

"Howard Roarke"

Good catch, Jason.

For some strange reason I always refer to him as Adam.

I fixed the mistake.

[Scott Horsely]

Be sure to play BioShock if you like Ayn Rand... great game, great art, great exploration of Rand.

Plus, then you don't have to actually read Rand, who couldn't write her way out of a wet paper bag. Poor Ayn, all those good (or at least interesting) ideas squirming about in a wet paper bag like puppy fetuses.

[Ycombo With Cheese]

Nerd fight starting. Keep it down, guys!!!

I think Rand's books are wonderful, but I also must say that this is the case where you have to separate messenger and the message. As far as fiction books go, author doesn't need to be successful - that's fiction, men! - they don't have to be doers at all.

[Ycombo, Hold the cheese]

Wow, you're misrepresentation of Rand is astounding.
They are both right, but I would argue that it's silly for Gladwell to propose "The solution:..." when there is no problem.

[Nickhac]

I agree with the other comments, you totally missed the point of Ayn Rands writing.

This makes your comparison totally flawed.

Nice provocative article though :)

Also was good to see some preview of Malcolm Gladwells new content.

[Zededarian]

There are plenty of things to criticize in Ayn Rand's novels, and there are even more things that are just plain untrue, but you could at least accurately represent what she wrote.

I don't know what the movie was like, but in the book, Rand considered Roark justified in leveling the housing project because the government was in breach of contract. Keating, acting for Roark, had obtained a contract stating that the buildings would be constructed exactly as designed, but the government did what governments do and a variety of pet projects got added into the plans, driving up the cost, which was then lowered again by cutting key architectural components (although costs remainder higher than in the original design). In the book it was posited that no courts could bring the government to justice for political reasons, so Roark took justice into his own hands. Many people would still see this sequence of events as immoral on Roark's part; there's no need to dress it up.

Similarly, in Atlas Shrugged, Rand presented the situation as businessmen refusing to give in to government's capricious demands, rather than the other way around. The prime movers left because their businesses were being nationalized to varying degrees, their property was being confiscated and given to other people, and the government was telling them who they could or could not fire, what they could or could not build, etc. Once again, many people would view abandoning society in this situation negatively, and the question of whether others would step up to take up the reins of business remains open. All you win by misrepresenting the book is dismissal from people who've actually read it.

On an entirely different note, I think that arguing backward from the traits of exceptional people is bad logically. I'll use your hockey example to show what I mean. You're examining the very right end of the bell curve. So, for example, imagine a ridiculous world where your skill in hockey can be quantified in points. Imagine if inborn ability can give you up to 90 points, and working hard can give you up to 10 points. The top few dozen players out of a million would probably all have scores of 99 or 100, meaning they would have worked really really hard (possibly because they were born in the first half of the year). That DOESN'T mean working hard is more important than innate talent.

Of course, I don't think that's true. My own anecdotal observations suggest that most sports are more about hard work than talent, at least past a certain threshold of each. But your logic doesn't show that.

Another thing that should complicate your analysis is the fact that executive function has a heritable component. Executive function is basically the ability to work hard and focus; it can be measured in very young children (one famous test is to ask them to stand still and see how much time passes before they move), and it's a better predictor of academic performance years later than IQ. Your patience, dedication, etc. are as much a part of you as your IQ, and both IQ and executive function have hereditary, developmental, and social components.

Of course, I'm not entirely sure how this conflicts with Ayn Rand's views. She's concerned largely with great men, not how they became great, and you'll notice that most of her good characters came from good families and work harder than the evil characters. I don't thing Dagny Taggart slept more than 4 hours a night for most of Atlas Shrugged.

[Ycombo With Cheese]

As one who's read all of Rand's works, I think he's not too far off in his summation of her works.

Which of her books have you read?

[Howard Roark]

So what the hay is this blog about?

[Lance]

# Full name: Wayne Douglas Gretzky
# Born: January 26, 1961

[Scott Horsely]

It's about buying and selling companies, AFAIK.

[Scott Horsely]

Lance,

Huh?

[Scott Hansen]

Randinistas!

A question.

Did Roarke have the moral or legal rights to destroy the development after the owners changed the design?

[Don McArthur]

Alan Greenspan once sat at Rand's fee in her NY apartment. That's all you need to know.

[Scott Hansen]

And look at the mess he got us into. Didn't he apologize last week to the nation?

[Ycombo Deluxe]

Read the NYmag article. You'll find that Gladwell argues the exact same point that you just made. Except for the "people at the top" argument, because I know a lot of people from wealthy families who still work incredibly hard. I think there are lazy people in every class.

[Michael]

Reading that blog reminded me of the Joe the Plumber story. At first he comes on like some big Randian success story with attacks on Obama's tax cuts for the bottom 95% of Americans.

Then it's gradually revealed that he is making far less than he claimed and would benefit from the cut.

Then we find out that he's not a licensed plumber.

And that he owes back taxes.

Finally, we discover that his family was on welfare twice and benefited from it.

Yet, Joe insists on pretending to be this great autonomous Randian hero.

[John Galt]

Has anyone ever stopped to ask what if Roarke was in a reality a crappy architect and the investors had every right to drop his design?

[John Galt]

Here's another interesting point from Gladwell: The research over and over again points to just one thing: 10,000 hours of practice.

take the case of Bill Gates. Gladwell cites a body of research finding that the “magic number for true expertise” is 10,000 hours of practice. “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good,” Gladwell writes. “It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” Gladwell shows how Gates accumulated his 10,000 hours while in middle and high school in Seattle thanks to a series of nine incredibly fortunate opportunities—ranging from the fact that his private school had a computer club with access to (and money for) a sophisticated computer, to his childhood home’s proximity to the University of Washington, where he had access to an even more sophisticated computer. “By the time Gates dropped out of Harvard after his sophomore year to try his hand at his own computer software company,” Gladwell writes, “he’d been programming practically nonstop for seven consecutive years. He was way past 10,000 hours.” Yes, Gates is obviously brilliant, Gladwell concludes, but without the lucky breaks he had as a kid, he never could have had the opportunity to fulfill the true potential of that brilliance.

[Bypasser]

And Vista was the result.

[Stephanie]

Thank you. Enjoyed this. If you like malcolm Gladwell's work, don't mess this

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/90/open_gladwell.html

The Accidental Guru

[Ayn Rand Blows]

Is it any coincidence that all of Ayn Rand's "heroes" are whiny petulant little bizzatches who run home as soon as the other kids refuse to play by their rules?

[Laure Chipman]

What exactly are the "capricious demands" of the scientists and tycoons in Atlas Shrugged? I must have missed that part. Were they like Van Halen, demanding certain colors of M&Ms in their dressing rooms? Is wanting to be allowed the freedom to do your job considered a "capricious demand"?

[me]

Ayn Rand hands down. As a Cuban-American i know all too well the poison of entitlement. I LOVE AMERICA!! I recommend anyone who has doubts about the effectiveness of socialism to visit Cuba...not tourist-appoved Cuba but beyond. It is a failure!!! Healthcare is deplorable...that is for all who are not tourist, military or officials. My uncle...RIP would need us to send him diabetes medication because it was unavailable in Cuba. CUBA IS A PRISON. A STAGNANT WASTE OF A COUNTRY. So to all those who feel a certain romanticism towards socialism... UP YOURS!!! You are the kind men that LOVE to be led by other men!

[Ayn Rand Blows]

Here's more on Rand if you have never read her works.

"Rand's morality was a perfect fit for the age of the celebrity billionaire. She conjures a world where the CEO is Messiah, where the sign of the Cross is replaced with the sign of the dollar, and where hideous penis-proxies like Trump Towers are the pinnacle of human achievement. In her novel Atlas Shrugged, the world's billionaires - the Ted Turners and Donald Trumps - go on strike in protest against the "insane regulations" and "exorbitant tax" handed down from Washington D.C. The country quickly regresses into anarchy, with businesses collapsing, food distribution networks falling apart, and America becoming a wasteland - until finally the grateful populace welcomes back their economic Overlords and promises to never again pester them with wild notions like taxation or regulation.

Rand's extremism is often indistinguishable from parody. In an episode of The Simpsons, baby Maggie is despatched to the Ayn Rand School For Tots, motto: Crying is Futile. The headmistress explains that babies are not allowed bottles because "When a baby reaches for a bottle, she is saying 'I am a leech!' Our aim here is to develop the bottle within." But is this more comic than the actual decision of the Ayn Rand Institute to picket Bill Clinton's summit discussing how to increase volunteerism in the United States, on the grounds that unpaid voluntary work is an "unforgivable act of altruism"? Is it more ludicrous than that fact that when Rand died in 1982, her body was laid out beside a six-foot tall floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign?"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-last-person-on-earth_b_173535.html

[Ayn Rand Blows]

More on Ayn Rand: And - again like the rest of the American right - she finds it impossible to imagine a clash between the interests of the super-rich and the rest of society. While Rand is (rightly) appalled when the state kills people, she considers businessmen taking risks with the lives of ordinary people or government bureaucrats to be actually heroic. In Atlas Shrugged, the heroic Nat Taggart "murdered a state legislator who attempted to revoke a charter granted to him" and (ho, ho) "he had no trouble with legislators from then on." And that's not all: "He threw down three flights of stairs a distinguished gentleman who offered him a loan from the government." Anybody who tries to impose regulations to protect ordinary workers is "a louse." This is partly because she really does seem to see the rich as more deserving of life than the poor. She refers to the rich as "really alive," while ordinary people are described variously as "savages," "refuse," "inanimate objects," "imitations of living beings." Who cares if the Ubermenschen take risks with these creatures? Who needs regulation?

[Ayn Rand Blows]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/12/stephen-colbert-loves-ayn_n_174204.html

Watch the Colbert video on Ayn Rand.

[Craig Wyngard]

Ayn Rand reminds me of the quote by John Kenneth Galbraith:

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

[Just a simple man]

For those that have read and understand her works: am I the only one that finds it laughable that each and every criticism against Rand is a near verbatim copy of the whimpering of the so-called "entitled" found in Atlas Shrugged? "We are all our brother's keeper" and "We are all socialists now" one from the fictitious past, one from our own near past... and both the same, "give me what you have because you have it and I don't and I want it and you can always make more."

And even more pathetic are those who would try to detract from a successful businessman by saying that he "owes" society something because he had opportunity. Would you have us believe that there were not at least 5 other children living nearby, going to the same school, with the same convenient availability/access? By your reasoning, those other children should have all been as successful as Gates. Go ahead, tell me that there were no other children living near Gates with the exact same opportunities. Then tell me how he deceived and threatened them into not trying to achieve something... no, go ahead... I'll wait...
You can't. Because lack of success does NOT mean lack of opportunity, no matter what your blowhard little lefty professor says.
Never mind. It is useless to reason with the irrational. Believe what you will. I have it on good authority that the takers lose in the end. Be sure you are on the *ahem* "right" side.

Adieu

[Dusty]

Why did Ayn Rand feel that assholes needed big long winded books to justify their assholeness? Why not just be an asshole and not worry about it? My hunch is that they know deep down inside that they are acting like assholes. By the way, Matt Taibbi's new book Griftopia completely eviscerates this horrid little cult leader and her stooges.