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.
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.
While I certainly wouldn't have chosen this video, I found your analysis really interesting and well put together. I think that it's really cool that he was able to make his story not only about the religious component, but introduce another perspective. The fact that we can relate really old stories and the ideas of people from all points in history is also a really important idea, and that I think is a good way that a lot of these speakers connected their ideas to the audience, taking stories they know and relating them to now.
ReplyDeleteGreat post- I'm in the same boat as you with what you brought up in your last paragraph. I sometimes doubt religious reasoning but I find that when it's backed up historically (or when I find the history behind it), it makes the story more significant to me (does that make sense?)
ReplyDeleteI never actually watched this Ted talk, but I think I've actually heart Malcolm talk about this before, maybe it was on the news or history channel, or some other boring source of information- but I immediately recognized him. (I mean look at his hair, this man is unforgettable) Anyways, I really found your analysis interesting and absolutely agree with your last paragraph. I think I mostly remembered this guy because I found the way he explained things very interesting in a way that it arguably made sense beyond a biblical telling of something supernatural. All in all props to you for picking this one, these kind of subjects (religious) make me nervous too.
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