~H. Westchop

While it seems simple to say, nothing is too simple for the common folk,the tomfools (a word I found, an I a word found, by chance, dear readers!), so I shall repeat a phrase that I have oft screamed at the top of my lungs, my fist shaking at the moon and the stars for denying me of any and all true love: Beware the Black Wind!  This phrase may mean nothing to you now, but, and please dear readers, give me a chance!  All will be understood in due time, and while you are necessarily in the Black (or the grey, if you will) at present, you will emerge into the calming light of day, and you will lounge with me amongst the world of forms, feasting on mongongo nuts while making love to some African goddess.

I digress (and I find my mind, among other things, commonly digresses toward African goddesses) but the larger point is that there is a finite time in this universe, and we must spend it doing wise.  Tomfoolish, yes? Of course not! I have not (to use a common turn of phrase (I sicken myself!) practiced what I preach, and now look at me, the state I am in, using common turns of phrases (which is itself a common turn of phrase!)! George Orwell is rolling in his grave (No! My Intellect Shattered! I cannot stop!)

The point! The point is that I have read a parable of pop analysis, a protracted argument lacking even a semblance of intellectual rigour, a liberal manifesto that stinks of New York sewage and racial conglomeration and concrete provincialism, a book by Malcolm Gladwell called Outliers.  Reading this was a waste of time, but I shall proceed in the following paragraphs to disseminate and attempt to destroy this particular article of faith amongst the liberal elite, and connect its nefarious ideas with an overarching fear of the oriental in all his slanty-eyed glory.  Shall we begin?

The first half of the book is simply sensible bordering on banal.  Yes, in order to be successful in this world, one needs to be lucky and have lots of situations and circumstances go his way and to have people who love him pulling for him and helping him out and lending him money and setting up computer clubs.  Of course, Hiller posits, who thought otherwise?  Gladwell references the “autobiographies published every year by the billionaire/entrepreneur/rock star/celebrity” in which “the storyline is always the same: our hero is born in modest circumstances and by virtue of his own grit and talent fights his way to the top” (18).  I’ve never thought that.  I rarely read autobiographies, because I am rarely interested in Michael Caine and/or Ted Kennedy  and his “Lion of the Senate,” but I can say with certainty I never thought that about any of those so-called success stories.  Outliers, as this Guardian article points out, is constantly trying to convince the reader that the reader believes every bespectacled charlatan or moppy-haired british musician “by virtue of his own grit and talent fights his way to the top.”  Anyone with a modicum of success in any endeavor knows that to be untrue, and anyone who does not have a modicum of success I care absolutely nothing about.  The point, dear readers, is there is nothing particularly innovative in saying that “what truly distinguishes their history is not their talent but their extraordinary opportunities” (55). Gladwell is only trying to trick the reader into believing he always preferred talent over opportunity, and instead should move to the Outliers position, to opportunity over talent.  Why make a preference?  Obviously, there would be no success for the Beatles if they had not been capable writers and musicians with some talent, and their wouldn’t have been any success if they didn’t have the chance to practice at Hamburg.  So each is required.  So instead we could revise such a statement on success to “history is distinguished by talent and opportunity.” Then we are much more in line with understanding success, without falling into the false dichotomy of trying to choose between one or the other.

“But Hiller,” you exclaim with a look of triumph, “Gladwell never chooses one or the other. He is simply trying to give luck and opportunity its proper due!”  And you would be right, if that were all Gladwell was trying to do.  Of course, this counter-point does nothing for the banality of the book, the obviousness of its points, but there is a deeper problem here.  Gladwell seemingly only gives opportunity its due, but then the 10,000 hour rule, the rice paddies and the slanty-eyed comes into play…and then the competing grains, the ideas that work against each other come into play.  Success is built on work ethic and the opportunity to apply your work ethic.  But  work ethic, practicing 10,000 hours, is not a skill! It is built on love, on drive, on blood, on soul, on artistry! The Beatles loved music.  Bill Gates loved programming.  What is success to this man?  Is it anything more than love for your art? The Beatles would have played without Hamburg.  Bill Gates would have programmed without his birth year, without his computer club. Does he measure success in name recognition?  In dollar value?  In platinum records or managing partners or math scores or IQ tests?  It is love! It is Art! And he rejects it as the spineless science writer that he once was, because the world is built on valuation and numbers and statistical models. He denigrates the individual, he rejects the phenomenon that I witness and my inherent reaction to them.  You can disassemble a life by pointing to individual events, to cause and effect, but the life, the individual, the soul becomes only puzzle pieces, stray events, floating in the wind.  There is something inherent in me, perhaps genes, perhaps soul, that leads me to write, and there is something inherent in The Beatles that led them to play.

A parable of pop-analysis, a manifesto on intellectual degradation, one of the black wind’s darkest agents seeking to unmake you, to snuff out the light you hold in your hands and make you seem smaller.  Success cannot be defined through recognition.  It can only be defined through love.

I will flesh out these points in greater exactitude on the morrow.  I will also address the post-colonial spirit inherent in Gladwell’s work, and the leftist roots this spirit is derived from.  On the morrow! A semblance of intelligence, please!