SK Booktalk: Recent Episodes
SK
We talk about books. Interesting books. Books of discovery. Books bearing knowledge. Books of life and society. Books that are wonderful!
The Vietnam War is now known to be a war that was impossible to win, but many didn't see it that way back in. Why was the RAND corporation so wrong? How were they so blind?
Perspective is the most important thing in life. How can one simply not see short-term but analyze in the long-term? For all the people who got it wrong about Vietnam there was one man who got it right. He was able to take off his blinders and see for himself. #coachseansur #davidandgoliath #davidgoliath #skbooktalk
Chapter 9 Andre Trocme
What happens when ornery people are confronted with the evilest government of all time, the Vichy government? Do they risk their own lives to save Jews?
Perspective is the most important thing. How does one gain the ability to not simply see the circumstances around you but more important purposes of life?
coachseansur #skbooktalk #davidgoliath
Chapter 8 Wilma Derksen.
Someone suffers a grievous loss of a child, how do they respond? Is there a better way to respond?
Who is more powerful, the one who changed the California legal system or the one who forgave the murderer? Phrased another way, who was able to save their own life in the face of unspeakable tragedy?
skbooktalk #davidgoliath #coachseansur
Chapter 7 Rosemary Lawlor
Northern Ireland had always had conflicts betwen the Protestants and Catholics. When the British army came in they thought with strict law enforcement they could put an end to it. But it lasted decades more, with a huge loss of life.
Pure brute force in law enforcement often does not work. Influencing behavior requires understanding the people who misbehave.
#skbooktalk #davidgoliath #coachseansur
Chapter 6 Wyatt Walker
Brer Rabbit stories were common amongst the American slaves. He was a rabbit with no particular skills, but he outwitted all the other animals. He was a trickster. And when Wyatt Walker was in Alabama with MLK they used trickery to get the news media to publish the conflicts: the count of protestors was vastly inflated because most of the blacks were not actually involved in the protests, just people who got home from work and just wanted to watch; the photo of a dog lunging at a helpless boy was actually of a white policeman trying to restrain a dog while the boy kickdd the dog and broke its jaw.
Trickery sounds bad, but you have to use what you have, even if supposedly it is against the rules.
Chapter 5 Emil Jay Freireich - Addendum
Rough people come from bad childhoods. And these rulebreakers who don't respect the status quo are needed to move us forward.
Chapter 5 Emil Jay Freireich
Malcolm introduces the concept of a "near miss", where something that was supposed to kill you didn't, and you are less scared because now you think you are invincible.
Childhood hardship is bad, but it makes adults who are used to hardship and thus can stand more than other people who had wonderful childhood experiences. Jay Freireich was one of those, but because of his horrible past he was able to push forward with treating childhood leukemia, a disease that at that time had a 100% mortality rate.
Rough people come from bad childhoods. And these rulebreakers who don't respect the status quo are needed to move us forward.
Chapter 4 David Boies
Dyslexia is the inability to process words well. They read very slowly, and in childhood have a lot of difficulty in school because they are simply unable to read. They usually develop coping mechanisms, skills that "normal" children don't need to develop, like negotiation, listening. And this can help them be vastly successful later in life, even though they still cannot "read".
The inability to grow up normally, like with dyslexia, forces some children to learn to adapt at a young age. And thus their alternative skill is very well developed by the time they are an adult, much more than a child who has grown up normally. Making this dyslexia basically an advantage. In one meeting of successful businessman half had a learning disability when growing up.
Chapter 3 Caroline Sacks
The Impressionists decided to break with tradition and create their own exhibit instead of trying to display at the Salon. In doing so they made their mark on their world, and are a famous movement known even a century later.
Caroline Sacks and many other promising high school students go to top universities and do poorly, because they despair after finding they cannot do well in classes. This is called being a little fish in a big pond, when you go from being top to just in the middle, or even below average, in the class. Malcolm posits that it is better to be a big fish in a little pond and that Caroline should have gone to the local university instead of the Ivy League one, and she would still be on track to become a scientist.
Chapter 2 Teresa deBrito
Smallest class sizes are only better until a certain point. This is the concept of the U-shaped curve. How wealth is good for parenting, allowing the parent to spend time with their children because they don't have to work two full-time jobs, until they have so much wealth they find it very hard to teach their children the value of hard work, because their kids just have everything given to them.
Nothing is purely "good." Ther is no such thing that you can never have too much of. Malcolm has shown us how too big isn't good (Goliath), too rich isn't good (parents raising children), too small isn't good (class sizes).
Chapter 1 Vivek Ranadive
The advantage of disadvantages
Vivek didn't grow up playing basketball, and doesn't know the way it is supposed to be played. So when he starts a team with his daughter he uses full-court press, where you put pressure on the other team the whole time they have the ball, even before they pass it in. It takes a lot of energy, and that is why many teams don't use it. But he does use it, to great effect, and his team of girls who don't have much basketball ability make it to the finals.
He changed it from a game about agility and physical capability to one about effort. Because they didn't have the former but had plenty of the latter.
There is a difference between playing the game how it is supposed to be played, how everybody thinks it should be played, and playing it how you, with your limited abilities, can play it best. And win.