WELL I'm GLAD I Watched That

Malcolm Gladwell: The unheard story of David and Goliath

In this TED Talk, Malcolm Gladwell tells the story of David and Goliath, adding outside knowledge that can be applied to the story to create a better understanding of the event. His main argument in the talk is that powerful people, or "giants," are not as difficult to overcome as they seem. Gladwell touches the idea of perspective, showing how in the case of David and Goliath, a lack of understanding of the perspective of each of the men makes their actions seem to be motivated by completely different factors than once their perspectives are understood.

Gladwell analyzes the literary devices used in David and Goliath, noting how their subtlety makes the message of the story difficult to understand at first glance. Gladwell analyzes how dialogue contributes to the characterization of both David and Goliath. When offered armor to wear, David said, "I cannot wear this for I have not proved it." This hints at David's plans for combat, as he is an artillery soldier and plans to fight from a distance rather than in hand-to-hand combat. Goliath is characterized from the perspective of the Israelites as a powerful, humongous warrior. However, Goliath's dialogue reveals his weakness: Goliath has very poor vision. Goliath is incredibly vulnerable to long-range combat, so it is to be expected that in this battle, David would be victorious.

Gladwell uses a few techniques to get his audience to believe his interpretation of David and Goliath. Gladwell cites many facts to support his argument, such as the geography of the region, the estimated momentum of the rocks, and the medical diagnoses of Goliath based on the story. This is used both as logos, to be used as evidence to support more general claims, and ethos, to add to the credibility of the argument by pulling evidence from a variety of areas of knowledge. Gladwell also uses logos by the order in which he presents new information. He controls the way in which conclusions are reached, coming to multiple conclusions throughout the talk before reaching the ones that he wants the audience to leave with. This shows the audience that Gladwell put thought into this argument, not simply stopping at the first answer he was able to find. The use of pathos in this talk is minimal, as the purpose of the talk lends itself more to logical deduction and more in-depth understanding of the situation. Emotional words are occasionally used, including "terrifying," "weird," and "strange." These words are used to align the audience with the emotion that Gladwell wants them to feel, in order to make the logical progression of the talk make a larger impression on the audience. These words tend to be used before Gladwell add new information to the situation, making the emotion a signal to the audience that they do not fully understand yet what is actually happening.

I'm not completely sure why I picked this talk, but I'm glad I did. I've read a few of Malcolm Gladwell's books, and I enjoyed the way that he takes issues that seem to have one answer and analyzes them to logically find the answer that better fits the evidence. I was sure that anything involving him would be well thought out and would provide insightful revelations on the topic. I am not a religious person, so the biblical topic of the talk made me slightly nervous. I wasn't sure if most of the talk would go over my head or would focus on theology. However, I was surprised to find that the talk focused mostly on the real-life context of the story, including the culture, politics, and geography of the Levant. I like the message of the talk. I think that people tend to make things supernatural, as if they are too powerful to understand or change. It is nice to have Gladwell remind us that this we should be suspicious of this being the case.

This Has Gone Far E-Neff: Double Indemnity

#3.  Double Indemnity has been called “a film without a single trace of pity or love.” Do you agree with this statement? Think about the motivations that lie behind the actions of Walter Neff and Phyllis Dietrichson when you consider your response.

Double Indemnity is a dark movie both in its lighting and its plot. However, the two most prominent characters in the film, Walter Neff and Phyllis Dietrichson, are motivated to kill Phyllis's husband because of their love for one another. How could anyone claim that this movie doesn't even have a trace  of pity or love in it?

During the movie, we begin to learn that Phyllis is a very dark character. Her step-daughter Lola claims that she killed Lola's mother while working as her nurse. When Walter strangles her husband, Phyllis can be seen making an awfully pleasant facial expression that makes the audience uncomfortable and foreshadows her comfort with killing others. Phyllis's motivation is revealed through the movie to be solely to benefit herself, and her attitude towards others is portrayed as sociopathic. The only hint of pity, and arguably love, shown by Phyllis is when she can't shoot Walter a second time, claiming that it was the only moment at which she loved him. I would argue that this was pity and not love because she had just shot him only moments before, suggesting that she did not have much care for Walter's well-being.

There's something on the wing! The Twilight Zone,
which began in 1959, was influenced by both the film
style and the dark content of film noir, focusing on the
worst aspects of humanity and the natural world.

The definition of love comes into play when considering whether or not it was present in this movie. In its simplest form, love could be thought of as placing the interests and well-being of another person before your own. This can be seen when Walter gives a ride to Lola wen she lied to her parents about where she was going, and he kept that secret for her. He doesn't have to do this for her, and it takes away his valuable time and gasoline, but he chooses to help her anyway. However, this definition comes dangerously close to being a synonym for altruism, and doesn't seem to narrow down to what most people would consider love to be.

Often, people think of love as being irrational and something that cannot be controlled. I would argue that the thinking behind love is nonrational, and reason is not even consulted when actions are driven by love, meaning that the resulting behavior can be either rational or irrational. Walter might fall into this refined definition in his early interactions with Phyllis. He helps her with her predicament and agrees to kill her husband without much persuasion. However, helping Phyllis is not the only reason that he agrees to the plan to commit insurance fraud. Walter was making a rational decision to participate in a money-making opportunity. He could justify to himself his cold instinct to benefit himself by imagining that he was actually acting in the name of love. This allowed him to keep some sort of sanity while committing evil actions.

Overall, I would argue that there is not a trace of love in Double Indemnity, but there are instances of pity. These instances of pity are small and scarce, but they are shimmering lights of hope in a movie that paints humanity in an incredibly grim light.