Thursday, April 07, 2005

Blink

I finished Blink by Malcolm Gladwell a while ago. Very provocative. Certainly made me think about the strengths (positive and negative) of our subconscious which "informs" our actions often without our knowing.
On the negative side - do you think you have few biases? That you are not racist or sexist? Why not try some of the tests Gladwell talks about. They can be found at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, at very least, I'm open for hearing that I really am what I believe I'm not, or the converse. Taking a coupla tests is the easy part - whether or not the findings should change me in some way is another matter. If 'implicit' doesn't sell me then I suppose 'harvard' ought to. But I'm a bigtime skeptic. Haven't read "Blink" yet but hope to get to it soon.

canary said...

The tests are really quite interesting but make more sense if you read the book. There is a positive side to this unconscious "knowledge" also which hopefully one can tap. Perhaps that's what happens when we write stories: we tap into that which we know but don't know we know.

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.
Dorothy Parker, Not So Deep as a Well (1937)