Malcolm Gladwell: outlier

I doubt that Isaac Chotiner and Steve Sailer have much in common politically, but on one thing they can definitely agree: Malcolm Gladwell is an idiot.

Here’s Chotiner:

it is an axiom of Malcolm Gladwell’s method that a perfect anecdote proves a fatuous rule.

Here’s Sailer:

Gladwell also embodies the chief shortcomings of contemporary journalism: a complete lack of realism and skepticism.

He has neither the intellectual capacity nor the moral character to question his sources rigorously. So he ends up just recasting their self-interested talking points in a more reader-friendly format.

I haven’t actually read Gladwell’s new book, because life’s too short and I’m barely literate anyway. But I really love the idea that the greatness of the Beatles was primarily due to their years playing dives in Hamburg, not to the fact that they had two of the greatest pop songwriters of all time in the same frickin’ band. Yes, of course, if only Maroon 5 had spent more time gigging in Hamburg, just think how great they could be!

(BTW, does the rest of that band secretly hate Adam Levine? Stewart Copeland broke two of Sting’s ribs when they were in the Police. Is it too much to ask for the drummer of Maroon 5 to give it a shot?)

For a better picture of the their time in Hamburg, here are the Beatles themselves, from the wonderful Anthology coffee table book:

JOHN: All these gangsters would come in — the local Mafia. They’d send a crate of champagne on stage, imitation German champagne, and we had to drink it or they’d kill us. They’d say, ‘Drink, and then do “What’d I Say”.’ We’d have to do this show, whatever time of night. If they came in at five in the morning and we’d been playing seven hours, they’d give us a crate of champagne and we were supposed to carry on.

GEORGE: One time Paul had a chick in bed and John came in and got a pair of scissors and cut all her clothes into pieces and then wrecked the wardrobe. He got like that occasionally; it was because of the pills and being up too long. But we threw things at the Germans; all the bands did.

Also, while it’s true that the Beatles were essentially a studio band, they lock into a groove pretty nicely here — in the freezing cold, no less: