Social Determinism Drivel

In today’s edition of The New York Times there is an opinion piece written by David Brooks titled Lost in the Crowd.  The piece is somewhat of a review and criticism of Malcolm Gladwell’s new book Outliers: The Story of Success.  In the book, Gladwell argues that social determinism in fact does determine individual success to a larger extent than individual initiative, utilizing as examples for his argument the birthdates of exceptional hockey players, the “culture of honor” prevalent in individuals in the South versus Northerner individuals, and the brevity of speaking numbers in the Chinese language versus the English language, amongest other allegedly supporting examples.

Social determinism, as defined by Wikipedia, “...is the hypothesis that social interactions and constructs alone determine individual behavior (as opposed to biological or objective factors).”  A hypothesis which I think is just a heaping helping of buncombe.

Surprisingly, Mr. Brooks is skeptical of Gladwell’s claims also, stating at the end of his piece,

If Gladwell can reduce William Shakespeare to a mere product of social forces, I’ll buy 25 more copies of “Outliers” and give them away in Times Square.

though he does give a gracious nod to Gladwell when he states,

Gladwell’s social determinism is a useful corrective to the Homo economicus view of human nature.

which I think Mr. Brooks is wrong to do.

But the more pressing reason why I post regarding this social determinism drivel is because of the following statement from Brooks’ piece in regards to Gladwell’s book.

His book is being received by reviewers as a call to action for the Obama age. It could lead policy makers to finally reject policies built on the assumption that people are coldly rational utility-maximizing individuals. It could cause them to focus more on policies that foster relationships, social bonds and cultures of achievement.

In our world today we need less of this feel good nonsense, such as social determinism, and more objective and reasoned analysis.  And if Obama and his minions indeed take heed of this book as a guide to policy making, this country will end up ruined far sooner than its current trajectory points to.

As for the unnamed reviewers drooling that the book is a “call to action for the Obama age,” to be utilized by policy makers to interfere even more in individuals lives, they exhibit nothing more than the possibility that the infinite monkey theorom may indeed be fact, rather than theory.

Some excerpts from Gladwell’s drivel can be read here and at the link, above, of the book’s title, which will take you to Amazon.com.

UPDATE: For a more indepth treatment into why social determinism is just so much drivel please see The “Ism” That Isn’t (Why Social Determinism Cannot Mean What it Says), written by Allan Levite and published by The Independent Institute.

UPDATE II:  Writing at The Smart Set, Morgan Meis also casts his eye at Malcom Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of Success.  Meis’ piece is titled Success Story Dissecting Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers.

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