Ekaterina Zhornyak read for us the book by Malcolm Gladwell “Tipping Point. How small changes lead to big changes
“There is a dramatic moment in the adaptation of the third part of The Lord of the Rings: when the dark forces approach the White Fortress and defeat is inevitable, a small hobbit climbs a signal tower and lights a fire, crying for help. In response, a fire flares up on a tower in the mountains, then on another … “Hope is lit,” says one of the heroes. Finally, the lights reach a distant city of people, an army of horsemen comes to the rescue, wins the battle, and this changes the fate of the whole world. A small change — the appearance of fire on the tower — led to very big changes. In my opinion, this is a pretty accurate illustration of what the New York journalist Malcolm Gladwell wanted to say in his book. He argues that global change is not the result of targeted «patience and work», but the result of events so insignificant that, with the right approach, one or several people can organize them. If these people correctly launch their idea into the world, then it, like a virus, will begin to be transmitted from person to person and at a certain turning point will take on the character of an epidemic. The whole world, says Gladwell, lives by these laws. We are unpredictably and uncontrollably embraced by one or the other ideas: smoking, a healthy lifestyle, the fashion for sneakers, having children, reading Harry Potter, social equality, etc. By explaining why some ideas cause epidemics and others don’t, and how to «properly» launch an idea into the world, Gladwell hopes that the book will teach us how to create our own beneficial epidemics. The latter seems ambiguous to me, since people’s ideas about «beneficial» can be very different.
By pointing out the «role of the individual in history,» Gladwell himself started the «tipping point» epidemic. Websites dedicated to the book on the Internet are full of stories about how people inspired by the ideas of the author changed something in their area, village, trading company.
Enthralling and layered, Gladwell’s book allows you to think about many things. For me, it was an opportunity to reflect on how many uncountable, often unpredictable and situational factors determine the behavior, thoughts and feelings of people and where in all this there is a place for personal choice.