Blink

This book is absolutely fabulous in every sense of the word. He has taken a topic that most people would turn their nose up at because it's 'sciency' and 'nerdy' and made it incredible. You can't put it down. When you read this book, none of the research is too complex for the reader to understand. This ability to communicate such important scientific information in an enticing, comprehensible manner is so so so important.
I completely agree with Becca’s response to this book, relating it to romanticism and Emmerson. I think what the author is ultimately trying to tell us is that we need to be ‘awake’ and do our ‘work’. We need to trust our instincts more often than think things through thoroughly in order to make better decisions. Which is contrary to what we’ve been taught by society for most of our lives, especially during childhood. It’s in the nature of children to act impulsively and instinctually, while the mother or father constantly reminds the child to slow down and think. We are trained from a very early age that it’s not only important to make good decisions, but that we must think slowly and deliberately in order to make them.  
This is going to bother me until I figure out who said this, but this book me reminds me of a quote that goes somewhere along the lines of “Trust your instinct, not your mind. For your mind is only as old as you are but instinct is thousands of years old.” I feel as though this saying and Blink go hand in hand together. We learn by correcting our past mistakes. We think of our elders as wiser because they have been around longer to make more mistakes and learn from them. Instincts has had thousands of years to evolve and improve in order for the human race to survive, thus it is is smarter than we consciously are.
The prejudice quizzes were also extraordinarily enlightening. Even though people can complete all the quizzes properly relatively quickly, those few fractions of a second in which we slow down once we have to associate words that don’t follow society’s general stereotypes reveal that we are racist/sexist to some degree. Which is something a lot of us do not want to come to terms with.

Romanticism in Blink

The thesis of Blink is that our first impressions, our gut feelings are the most reliable way to make decisions in our spheres of influence. This is similar to the romantics, who claim that the best way to evaluate situations is based not on rational decision calculus, but rather based on our emotional response. The way that Blink differs from the romantics, is that Blink comes to its conclusions scientifically. Whereas the romantics thought that following one’s instinct was good because it brought one closer to God, the conclusions of Blink come from innumerable studies and empirical evidence. It then begs the question, would the romantics agree with Blink? Surely they would agree with the thesis, that people should follow their instincts, but would they have a problem with the book’s epistemology? The way that Blink generates knowledge comes from rational thought. The way that the romantics generated knowledge came from emotional introspection. I think that Emerson would welcome the conclusions of the studies cited in Blink, but he would also think them unnecessary, as one can come to the same conclusion through meditation.

My opinion of Blink

I don't usually read scientific book but this is one that I would definitely recommend. One aspect in particular that I have enjoyed is the author's style. Gladwell is good at connecting with the reader. I actually feel as if he is talking to me and I think that engages the reader more than just stating facts. I also like the fact that he provides test/riddles for the reader. He talks about how most people react to  different phsycological tests and we can actually take them ourselves to see how we compare and get a better understanding of how they work. In addition, the author keeps that book moving at a moderate pace. He doesn't dwell on any one topic for too long and he finds ways to connect them to each other as the book progresses. I don't think that there is anything I dislike about this book. It is a science book so it can be a little dry at times due to the lack of a plot or story but that is to be expected and I think Gladwell does a good job of using everyday language and explaining technical terms.

Gender and Race

So far, I have enjoyed reading this book. A section that I thought was interesting was when the author talked about how people are unconciously biased. We may not realize that we have certain prejudices but I certainly did after I read over the tests that the author provided. People may say they arn't biased towards a certain race or gender but unconsciously, we are. Due to books, movies, t.v., and magazines, we have certain images of what people should be like that are from a certain back round, race, or gender. The first time I read through the author's example of the story about the son and the doctor, I was immediatly confused. After thinking for a couple seconds, my first guess was that the son had a stepfather or two Dads. It never occured to me that the doctor could be a woman. What this test did was make me think quickly about what my first image of a typical doctor was. Mine was male and I'm guessing a lot of other peoples' first impression was that too. A second test the author included was one where I had a list of names that I had to put into 2 collumns:Male and Female. This I found I could acccomplish easily. Then, the author gave us a new list and new columns: Male or Family and Female or Career. These two categories had a list of words with them that were either jobs or names. I found this to be harder because we usually associate males with jobs and females with family. The author included a couple other tests that I will not go into detail with but they also supported his point .

Height is important

A concept I found strange in the book is the theories about height. He mentions how height can often play a huge role in your success in a business-orientated world.When he calculated some figures he found that one inch of height is equal to about $789 added to your salary per year. In the U.s population 14.5% of men are 6 feet or taller, but among the CEO's of fortune 500 companies that number is 58%.On a conscious level we don't realize that we treat tall people any different from short people. This is amazing to me and shows how our subconscious places the height of a person with how successfull they are or will be.

The Assignment and the How-To

Hi Everyone,
In order to post, you need to click that Blogger logo in the upper left corner.  See it? The orange box with the squiggly thing in it?  Then, click on the pencil next to your blog title.  That will allow you to write your post.  When you are done, click "Publish."

Here's Your Assignment:

One thing that we have said repeatedly in our class is that American literature is an ongoing conversation about a few central topics.  These topics are ingrained in our national narrative, the story of who we are as people.  This week, you will begin thinking about topics that connect to this American narrative, and these topics will become the focus of your research after winter break.

To get you started generating topics for research, use your lit circle books.  I'd like two written responses from you this week, both posted to your group blog.  I also expect you to read and respond to each others' posts.  If you were to type your response in Word first, it would be about a page.  DO NOT JUST ANSWER A LIST OF MY QUESTIONS.  Instead, generate two or three paragraphs on the questions that interest you most.  The questions to consider:

• What do you like best about your book?  What do you like least?
• What was the most powerful part of the text?  The most exciting?
• Which of our central questions (American dream/possessions, nature, race and equality, individual power, etc.) does your text address most thoroughly?
• What questions does this book raise for you?  What does it make you wonder?
• What are some topics that you could research (based on your book)?
• What place do you think your text has in the body of American literature?
• How does the text "talk back" to some of the authors we've already read?
• What do you know about the author of your book?  Are you curious to know more about the author's story?