On a roll with checking out books from the library and not finishing them. Read about "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell and it sounded interesting. When I started reading the book, I was glad I went through so much trouble to find it. Was not far into "Blink" when I got impatient. The phrase, "belabor the point" came to mind. I pictured myself waving my hands, saying, "come on, come on, I got it, let's move along". I decided that the book would appeal to skeptical people or people who never read/thought about first impressions, instinct or gut feelings.
The subtitle for "Blink" is: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Can not say why the book got boring. It seemed to promise, in the Introduction, more than it delivered. Chapter Five, "Kenna's Dilemma; The Right ~ and Wrong ~ Way to Ask People What They Want", seemed to ramble on about nothing. It talks about the singer, Kenna, moves on to packaging, market analysis and Coke versus Pepsi taste tests.
The bit on margerine simply annoyed me. I remember my first taste of the product and it was yucky. Suppossedly Imperial margerine began selling due to foil and a crown on the package. To this day I will not buy Imperial margerine, remembering the nasty flavor back in the 1950s. It was not until companies started improving the flavor of margerine that I bought it. I used margerine for baking and stuck with butter for everything else, until the price of butter rose to over a dollar and I could no afford to buy it.
It seems the idea of making sound choices in the blink of an eye has nothing to do with selling margerine. Or Blink got off track somewhere. There was a chapter about a military guy, lots on the man's history and experiences in the Vietnam war, moving forward to war games. The chapter could not hold my attention and I skipped it. Chapter Six sounded interesting~about mind reading in the Bronx~but after struggling through the previous chapters, decided it was time to close the cover and forget about it. I did bookmark some pages.
Aeron is a chair that I can not visualize from detailed, way detailed, descriptions of it. Want to Google it, to see for myself. I also think it would be fun to do my own Coke vs. Pepsi taste test. Do not have anyone around to try it. The author suggests giving friends three glasses of cola. Two of one and one of the other. The friends have to pick out which one tastes different, than the other two. I know people who are serious Coke or Pepsi drinkers, so would be interesting to see if the could pass the test, recognizing their brand.
Brain Grazer is quoted as saying: "You know, in order to make somebody laugh, you have to be interesting and in order to be interesting, you have to do things that are mean. Comedy comes out of anger, and interesting comes out of angry; otherwise there is no conflict." Huh?
There is a lot of information regarding a man that evaluates relationships and is able to predict which couples will end up divorcing. Something I read elsewhere said couples who say more positive things to each other than negative interactions are the happiest. "Blink" goes into that in detail. The gist is if negative outweighs positive interactions, the couple will not last. Gottman focuses on "the Four Horesmen: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt." He considers contempt to be the most important indicator of a troubled marriage.
"Gottman, has found, in fact, that the presense of contempt in a marriage can even predict such things as how many colds a husband or a wife gets; in other words, having someone you love express contempt toward you is so stressful that it begins to affect the functioning of your immune system." He continues:
"Contempt is closely related to disgust, and what disgust and contempt are about is completely rejecting and excluding someone from the community."
Yes, but, what does that have to do with evaluating a person in two seconds, the blink of an eye, in determining, before you are married, that the person finds you disgusting or will speak to you with contempt? TheIntroduction tells of people who could tell a statue was a fake in a blink moment, yet could not explain to you how they knew. I already know that the brain can be likened to a giant computer, processing information so swiftly that it will tell us stuff and we "just know" or how we can think without thinking. I was under the impression the book would be teaching people how to tap into that power.
Instead I am taken on a tour of Pepsi vs. Coke taste tests and how to go about selling margerine, Warren Harding, Bill Clinton, O.J. Simpson, All in the Family, the Mary Tyler Moore show, Kato Katlien showed up in Blink. The Implicit Association Test or IAT was also discussed in length. Hey, I took one of those! After much explaining and samples of what the online test looks like, Gladwell says:
"On the Race IAT, I was rated as having a 'moderate automatic preference for whites.' But then again, I'm half black. (My mother is Jamaican.)" He continues:
"So what does this mean? Does this mean I'm a racist, a self-hating black person? Not exactly." Gladwell then continues to explain the obvious. I no longer recall my rating on that test, perhaps I have: "a moderate automatic preference for blacks."
What I learned from that test was that when they gave the heading: European Americans, I thought: white people. Of course the other heading was: African/Americans and I knew it was a test about "race" or ethnic perceptions. I did not picture, for instance, Germans being black and I do know that many French citizens are non-white. I also know that if one goes back in time, the ethnic background of European's from Spain or Italy most likely contain some black African in their genetic makeup.
I was surprised at my rating, because I gave the same answers for the different sets of questions. The test Headers are "European American or Good" and "African American or Bad". Then the "or" word is switched. Evil, for intance, I checked as "Bad" no matter which ethnic group was part of the header. I would think that would show that I do not hold any ethnic sterotypes or do not prefer one skin color over another.
It seems that maybe the subtitle should be the Danger of Reacting Without Thinking. In the blink of an eye we determine the skin color, shape of eyes, hair, perhaps gender of a stranger. Without thinking many tend to rely on learned stereotypes of the stangers ethnic background and treat the person accordingly. The brain should be able to process: just another human being, over-riding fear, apprehension or hatred of that stranger. But if your hair stands up on the back of your neck, I would advise being leery of that person!
Doubt that I will finish reading, "Heart Full of Lies" by Ann Rule. The blurb on the inside jacket cover says, "Can the female really be deadlier than the male? In Heart Full of Lies, she answers that question in one of the most intriguing tales ever~a riveting story of seduction, betrayal and murder." She being Ann Rule.
In the Foreword, Ms. Rule informs readers: "...I found instead an emotional tug-of-war with dozens of people pulling on the victim's side and as many fiercely loyal to the accused." Rule says, "The only way I have managed to deal with this impasse has been to show <i>both</i> sides as clearly as possible."
I am on page 92 of the true crime story and it seems Liysa Northon is simply a viper; a psychotic pathological liar. She wanted Chris Northon and pursued him relentlessly until she got him. Her murdered husband, the Golden Boy who could do no wrong, was clearly the victim of Liysa.
Ann Rule is a renown true crime writer, so who am I to critique her style, I wonder, but I do. The first chapter starts with a detailed description of Oregon and moves on to the day the crime is discovered. Chapter two skips back to Liysa's history. What does the courtship of her parents (and Chris', later) have to do with the murder? Thus far the tale is hardly riveting to me. Simply a bore of details hard to keep straight in my head. Liysa is a horrid person, is all I have gotten from what I read thus far.
I think the book would be more interesting to start with the day of the murder and work forward to the arrest and trial, letting readers discover Liysa's past as we go along. I bookmarked page 92 and skipped ahead to skim other chapters. Seems Liysa accused Chris of spousal abusive, both verbal and physical. He smoked pot and drank constantly. He tried to drown her and she shot him in her escape from the deserted camp ground. He died. Of course, I already know that is simply a story she came up with, due to Rule's "clearly" showing "both sides".
Hardly seems worth the effort to read through to the last page (376) to be convinced that "the female is deadlier than the male". I do not think it is a gender difference. Liysa could be my ex-husband, for instance. Chris could be any playboy, using women for his pleasure, never settling down. I find it hard to garner sympathy for either of them. Why bother, I wonder, reading the rest of the book to find out what compelled Liysa to kill her husband? She had faked amnesia to end a relationship with a prior lover, why did she have to murder to end this one? Perhaps if I keep reading I will find out, eh. Yet it seems like too much effort.
I did go back to page 114 and read "The View From Here" by Brain Keith Jackson until the end. A last quote:
"And you see, men are proud bein's. They don't like anybody knowin' that they need help. Help is a form of weakness, and the more people know you're weak, the less they think of you."
I do not think pride is specifically a male oriented trait. I do believe that men zero in on females they perceive as being weaker than them. This way they can feel powerful; the knight in shining armor to rescue her. It seems females hearts open to people they perceive as weaker than them. Like the male, they want to protect, help and save. It is the bullies of the world and abusive people who look down upon people they consider weak. They brag upon themselves; their power. Actually if they were powerful, they would find worthy oppenents, not someone they know does not have the physical strength or mental knowledge to put up an equal fight.
Do not know what movie "Some people mistake kindness for weakness," comes from. Yes, I know men who thought a woman who was kind to him was weak and thus thought less of her for what she thought was simple niceness to another human being. Wrecked all kinds of havoc on my life, these Mr. Superiors. Trying to fix what was not broken in my life; thinking I needed help when I did not. After screwing up my world, causing me to need help, they flew the coop. Content with their "she is inferior" opinion. I can think of one female who has that superiority complex, behaving in the same manner as those life wrecking men.
"Vanity is everything" is another old saw. yes, the guy refuses to stop to ask for directions, because he will look like he needs help and, following, Jackson's character's thoughts, thus weak. Must not let that stranger at the service station know I need help. Or perhaps he is feeling the female next to him will think less of him. Actually his refusal to get them unlost is what is driving her batty and having her think less of him.
That is the view from here.
