The author writes, “I suspect that you may have had to pause for a moment to remember who Sandra Bland was. We put aside these controversies after a decent interval and move on to other things. I don’t want to move on to other things.”
This book is an act of not moving on; it is an act of trying to understand what went wrong, how it applies to us, and what we collectively need to work on to avoid another Sandra Bland, Amanda Knox, Sylvia Plath, Hitler, The Queen of Cuba, or Fidel Castro to name a few.
Talking to Strangers is an easy read that discusses the implication/cost of three factors. Firstly, the cost of not trusting strangers. People trust implicitly, which is why we occasionally get duped, cheated on, mugged et cetera. But the price of paranoia is higher; it leads us to take extreme measures in situations that can be resolved with no escalation.
Secondly, Gladwell introduces coupling, “coupling is the idea that behaviors are linked to very specific circumstances and conditions.” A man who generally doesn’t cry can be moved to tears given specific circumstances and conditions.
Thirdly, misunderstanding the context in which a stranger operates/behaves. For this particular case, Gladwell discusses the Amanda Knox case where Knox was wrongfully charged with the murder of her room-mate not based on evidence, but based on her eccentric behavior.
Talking to strangers is a book that is worth your time. It is one of the best non-fiction books that I’ve read in 2019 and by far, one of the best works of Malcolm Gladwell.
