I’m reading James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, and from the title I expected it to be solely pro-group. But from the very start that hasn’t been the case, and at various points during the first few chapters I thought, “But he’s just contradicted himself! What a moron! I can’t believe this got published!” I finally realized – at about the halfway mark – that he is presenting both sides of the argument, and I think what threw me is that he’s not presenting the other side in a “devil’s advocate” way: he’s presenting some situations where groups are smarter, and some situations where individuals are smarter. Apparently I was expecting a clear bias, to the point where I let my prejudice interfere with the author’s message.
What a very odd thing to realize about myself! Perhaps it’s a reflection of the fact that I don’t reach much nonfiction, or maybe most of the nonfiction that I have read has been clearly biased – the kind of bias I was expecting. How cynical I feel, now that I realize it took me half of a book to accept the content at face value! It’s weird.
And so mundane and pointless, I just had to share.
PLEASE NOTE: I do not mean for this OP to be about whether Surowiecki is correct. It is about what I expected him to say vs. what he actually said, and how my expectations affected my ability to understand the material at first.
So, your own individual bias based on experiences with a crowd of other authors caused you to misinterpret the wisdom this one author was imparting about the wisdom of crowds, and simultaneously caused you to misinterpret the wisdom of individuals this author was citing, which you caught only after reflecting on a multitude of examples he was giving?
Not necessarily, Misnomer. You said it yourself. The title of the books leads you to think that crowds are always smarter than individuals. Bad title, IMHO.
I think it would have been better without the “why the many are smarter than the few” part – the rest of it is fine. Or, since the title is already hella long, it could have said “why the many are often smarter than the few.”
Such is the state of non-fiction today; the best sellers that actually argue a position are little more than choir preaching.
The current list has THE FAIRTAX BOOK, by Neal Boortz (conservative radio talk-show host) and John Linder (Rep. congressman from GA) at #1, and 100 PEOPLE WHO ARE SCREWING UP AMERICA, by Bernard Goldberg (frequent critic of left-wing media bias) at #2; do I even need to read these to know what they say (the Fair Tax book’s jacket has the letters “IRS” inside a circular “no” symbol).
This is not to bemoan their point, but I doubt I’d be surprised by anything in these books…
I guess to summarize my point, it is so easy today to ‘judge a book by it’s cover’ that we are genuinely surprised when we can’t. Used to be the old phrase was a cliche; now it’s contradicted by the typical reading experience (at least for NF).
Don’t blame your individual bias. Public discourse in this country is usually a totally polarized tit-for-tat rather than a rational discussion of both sides. You’re just expecting more of the usual. I’m glad the book proved otherwise!
