Years and continue watching us that booktv all weekend long with more nonfiction authors and books. Booktv continues now with malcolm gladwell. He talks about the power of underdogs and why they succeed as often as they do. This includes the longrunning conflict in ireland and other events in history. This is about one hour and 10 minutes. So i bought brought some of my friends in college here tonight. I would like to see malcolm gladwell. Thank you for being here. One individual said that guy with crazy hair. [laughter] well, that guy is known for a lot more than that. Despite having in the book, working with thinking without thinking, and the beauties of malcolms works is that he makes you think. His work uncovers truths that are hidden. And as a marketer and a philosophy major, things are that are strange, and things that are uncovered, it is something dear to my heart than another reason why i have malcolm here to speak about this. His Academic Research and critical analysis and fascinating style provide astonishing and useful insights about the world and our place in it. His bestselling book includes a Tipping Point outliers how many people have read one of his books . Okay, that is actually a lot of you in that explains why he is the number one bestselling author on amazon in the business section and i think that he brings 19th overall in history. So okay, we know what he brings very. [applause] his new book, which she is here to talk about today, it is called david and goliath and we are battling giants. It is an appropriate venue to be talking about underdogs for many reasons and then rocky, of course. I mean, you know coming figure underdog. In this book, in this book, he challenges conventional notions of obstacles and apparent setbacks including what looks like anniversary. His singular gift is animating the experiences of his subjects, and he has an uncanny ability to simplify without being pretentious. Including the service of pure storytelling and please join me in welcoming malcolm. [applause] [applause] thank you. It is a real pleasure to be with you here today. I think this is my third time and it only gets better. Im on the middle of my book tour. In coming here, the first stop of my book tour was part of this in new york. And then i went to l. A. And thats the new fancy one. And then i did part of this further [inaudible] and i went to washington as well and you could see where i am going with this and you can see why it explains that this is the one that i am free to talk about with nonjewish audiences. [laughter] so, im not quite as talk about my book tonight. Orderlies im not going to tell you a story for my book. Because i figure that most of you what ever the experience of you could buy the book. So i thought i would talk about a story that is related to one of the big themes and one is why you underdogs bite. Why do people who are outgunned and outmanned and overmatched continue to keep on fighting against strong opponents and what kind of resistance is that . And so i thought what i would do is tell a story about someone who i think is part of it is in a very important way. Including an individual who is one of the most important figures in the early 20th of the 20th century. Part of the suffrage amendment. If you look at alice smith and her life, there is little that would suggest in her life or pretend to a life of radicalism. And if we understand, i think that we will get insight into this question as to why People Choose this. So alice smith has three names. Neither she does with and the name and she became famous with. And alices adventures one of pictures that i of a businessman and her family live in your city. She was from a very young age a piece of work. And shes domineering. And she was bossy and bad tempered and egomaniacal. She was a handful she picked fights. Even from the youngest age she was an individual with a face and she resemble the pekingese dog, but i like to say that she looked a lot more like petco. [applause] you know, she had a sense of this. One of these and domino the people who walks into a room and takes it over. And so so there she is, shes in new york, very young age. And she decides the only way that she is going to make her mark on the world as if she has access to some kind of money. And so she doesnt have anything herself and she settles on willie vanderbilt, who was a charming handsome playboy. And she bears him and she sets out on a course to become the greatest in the history of consumption. If youve lived through the last 15 years, you realize what are compos mentis per the first thing she does is buy this island and she instructs the architects to build or something and shingles. And she buys this and build a french style chateau. And this is a couple of hundred Million Dollars in todays money. So to give you an idea what this is like him i will read to you an account of one of the many books that have been written about in the process. All of which are exercises so here we go. Here is the description of her house. Everything was everywhere. Stamped leather, wallace, red velvet embroidered enriched with cut crystal and precious stones. And mother of pearl and brass. Polished ebony and made with satin wood and grecian elizabethan renaissance french and victorian touches. And bursting with bronze stained glass and mosaics. And she decides she wants the biggest yacht of alltime, 200 and 50. Would she christens the elbow. And then she decides she wants a country cottage in newport, rhode island. Except to say that it required structure and big enough to handle the 500,000 cubic feet of italian marble that she was importing and now she has the country has this been the attention turns to her daughter as well. This painfully shy girl has been raised in the strictest of fashion by her mother and she was required to speak only french and she must recite a poem in german from memory just to wear a corset at all times, you know, one of those steel rods in the back. She would be ridiculed and corrected if she made the slightest misstep. And as consuelo enters her lessons, she gets the idea of what she wants to do. One she wants to do. Merry off to some english aristocrat. And in this time of american life, it was the fashion to be married off to the sons of english aristocrats. And it was called casher class and consuelo typically decides that she only wants the very best for her daughter and her eye falls upon Charles Spencer churchill, otherwise known as sunny. And the first cousin of Winston Churchill and one of the largest private homes in the world. He made it look like some kind of ranchstyle bungalow. And they discover that they fell down and then they realize that there is my opportunity. And the first is that sunny is not funny but perfectly miserable and i will give you some sense that his second wife used to sleep with a revolver by her pillow in case her husband should come to her in the middle of the night. And the second problem is consuelo is madly in love with someone else, a individual that is a silent of a fabulous new york family, and a great athlete and a fabulous dancer and on his 18th birthday she gets a single rose, with no note attached. She knows that it is from him. Not long after that she was her bicycle ride and her mother comes along and as they approach a corner they look at each other and they speed ahead. He proposes to her and she says, absolutely. And of course she realizes something is up and tries to catch up and she catches that. And she looks at her daughter and she realizes what has happened. The she whisked her daughter away to paris the next day. Letter after letter in each of those is intercepted and tickets on about and her parents meet her and she bars the door and then alba takes consuelo to the cottage in newport and locks her up like proconsul and when she comes, once again he cant get there and finally comes willis had enough. She marches up the staircase to her mothers bedroom replete with cherubs holding shields emblazoned with the letters. [laughter] and she turns to her mother and says you cannot do this. Im in love with this man and i have a right to marry the man that is. And her mother turns to her in a cold agent says absolutely not. Do you know what that means. And Consuelo Simas and does not say a word and looks at her mother is a kind of defiance at that point out that turns into a complete rage because no one ever defies her. She starts to scream. With every name under the sun and she stands there and takes it into realized. And theres no way she can defy her mother and she has to give up on this man she loves. So on november 6 of 1895, they see the grandest wedding in its history. The daughter of one of the richest men in the country marries one of the grandest aristocrats and all of england on Saint Thomas Church on pico editor. And she hires 80 decorators just work on this and she marches up the aisle with her two young sons wearing this extraordinary blue satin dress with russian sable and this includes every reporter in the country and the crowds are held back in the streets are lined with these grand carriages and this includes proudly awaiting actuates the first five minutes and then to minutes and then 15 minutes and then consuelo doesnt show up. Why not . Because she is at home sleeping inconsolably into the arms of her father. She poses up together at all of them are in attendance and they cleaned her up and she gets in a carriage and she goes to the church and the minister pronounces them man and wife. And they risk them behind sanctuary and a prenup is signed and she gets a Million Dollars upfront and a guarantee of a hundred thousand dollars for life. And gets into the carriage with a bride and they drive down fifth avenue and she turns to consuelo and says i dont love you and i will never love you. The your responsibility is to fix of the castle and standing on the steps of the churchs alba. There she is. A tear comes to her i and she watches this down fifth avenue. The greatest moment of her life. A little girl from mobile, alabama. The mother of a duchess. It is her fulfillment of author james. Board so she thinks because things are about to get a little comforted. And i said earlier. I think there is an unlikely radical and i think you can see why. Its not typically the case the very wealthy people with lots of homes in fancy clothes would turn into radicals and its like one of the sisters of the Kardashian Family joining this movement. But its a little unlikely, i think, we would all agree upon him. That. So how do we account for this. What happened to cause this transformation. Well, i think the best way to answer is to take a step back and especially to think about in general the question that it is that People Choose to rebel against authority in the play, you know, theres a number of answers to that. One of the leading theories has been a simply untraceable and the People Choose to break the law or vote against authority or disobey. And the cost of disobedience and we weigh in our minds whether it is worth it or not and if it makes more sense we fight back. This is the deterrence theory. It makes common sense. It is a famous example and in 1970, the Police Montreal went on strike for 19 hours and then they descended into this because the costs of disobedience were zero. People started with gun battles in the street. This is canada were talking about. I didnt even know people had guns. Is late the problem is there are kinds of cases where the theory doesnt explain our behavior. So a simple one would be to look at whether the decision people pay their taxes or not. That is the most common example of lawabiding behavior that anyone has to go through. And there are huge differences from one country to the next and how honest people are on tax day. If you go to greece. If you go to italy. The cheating on tax days is rampant, the size of the economy is enormous. But if you come to a country like this, its not cheating on taxes, this is probably as americans we are honest, probably more than anyone else. But the question is if this theory works, that would suggest the penalty is for cheating on taxes must be greater. They must be graded in turn greater here. The cost of breaking the law must be greater. In this country. And if we are so well behaved on tax day. Was not the case. But the penalties are lower here than anyone else. So we really dont have penalties. I mean, the irs come if you dont pay her taxes and they find out, theyre basically going to tell you to pay them. Even with a small penalty. The audit rates in this country are a fraction what they are and if you cheat on your taxes you probably wont get caught. I dont mean for any of you take it to heart. But the facts show that this is not to does not ally with the deterrence. It doesnt make any sense and heres another example, which if it really works, then countries or jurisdictions are dramatically increasing the penalties for breaking the law and they must and should see a decline in crime. Okay. So okay, but for the best examples. A california. Twenty years ago, it california enacted the severity of criminal penalties that we have seen almost anywhere in the western world over last 100 years. Three strikes. The three strikes law. An unbelievable amount of severity. To so what happens when that would happen after that . At the deterrence theory is correct, it should plunge in california after the law was passed. Well, today . Now, but it also pledged the same time another other state, even those that didnt change laws at all. And as we have looked closer and closer at the california experience what we have discovered is that no one really can figure out what happened in california. Some people say that crime went down a little bit and others say that nothing happened. Other people say that actually crime is higher today than it wouldve been if they had not passed that in california. But once again, the legitimacy theory doesnt seem to explain why people do or do not behave and obey the law. So in response to these problems, but people come forward and said, the real issue is not as come up its not the cost of benefits. Its really how the laws are enacted and a group of scholars have said that what really matters is whether people perceive the laws that govern them to legitimate. By legitimately mean three things. One is that people will obey the law when they feel like they are treated with respect. And they feel that they speak up, they will be heard. We have a right to speak out. And will someone listen to this. People will perceive this one a feeling of terror. Is there one law for me and mama for you or are we being treated the same. They also will, when seen as legitimate, when it feels as though its consistent and, you know, so with this in mind, think back to why americans pay their taxes. Not because there are huge numbers associated but because the american system is legitimate. The truth is if you stand up and complain about your taxes, will you be heard . Of course, there is an entire party in the american political system devoted to people grumbling about their taxes. Is the tax system fair . Its not perfect, but its pretty fair. There isnt a whole separate set of rules buster was your hedge fund person. But you know, this includes a fraction of the unfairness and those are system becomes consistent. Yes, it is. We dont make changes willynilly one year from the next. We make it in our tax code after a a lot of discussion. We know its happening. This is not a strange unknowable system and compare this to greece. They fail on all three counts. You cant speak up and not system. Totally corrupt, people are cutting special deals. And if our system look like greece, we would not pay her taxes either. Completely illegitimate. So i didnt three strikes have this effect in california . Because maybe if you walk up everywhere in sight, which is what california did, people found those communities thinking as illegitimate. Lets not forget california was a prison population doubled. They ended up with this on a per capita basis, sometimes many people as canada or western europe and that is an astonishing number. Do you think the people in those communities that sought a cohort of people shipped off to prison in the space of five years, do you think that they perceived the system as legitimate . Do you think that they thought that there was governing why america is a community . And here comes consistent, trustworthy, as opposed to arbitrary . Of course not. So what happens . This is is where people perceive the system as being illegitimate in and a rebel. They get over it. And they feel compulsion to totally be served as a condition of feeling you are under a kind of untrustworthy system, which brings us back to the beginning. She lived in a society that did not treat her with legitimacy. And we have this woman building a castle. And its like, the truth is that she lived in world that was narrow and oppressive. Women of her class were expected to stay home and keep their mouths shut. You are not allowed to vote. They couldnt have jobs. They could not participate in any meaningful way in the public life of the society in which they were a part. They were told to stay home and take care of the children and put on dinner parties. But the man can do whatever they wanted. Jobs, running for Public Office, a man could divorce a woman by alleging that the ability and 40 women to divorce a man she had to prove infidelity and one set of rules. The men in that circle that she was a part of could indulge in every which way they wanted. She could get on the jpmorgan yacht to fill this and they would have mistresses in town with whom they openly consorted and meanwhile, women had to stay home and keep up the respectable appearances. This includes her husband, who is no exception, he was this spoiled playboy. He didnt work for a living. He inherited a gigantic fortune and he had one affair after another. Openly. In front of everyone and the Social Circle including being part of the dutiful hostess and she looked from the outside like she was a woman in command of her world, but she was desperately unhappy. She would later describe the gears leaving up to the consuelo wedding as the worst of her life. She had begun to argue and feel trapped and dissatisfied command she falls in love with her that she can have an affair. Theres no way. It will never situation and standing, theres no way that they can do what they were doing. So in an attempt to save her marriage she says can we take a Family Vacation and they got to the family to paris and its a disaster. Because they get to paris. Not just with her best friend, but also with a highclass prostitute and paris and they run around paris with these women humiliating him. And she feels that she has no choice. So she kicked him out. She says her that is it. Everyone says you cannot do that. The lawyer says no, we wont do it. Youre being ridiculous. All of her friends are up in arms. The tabloids can you imagine . They descend upon her. One of the wealthiest couples in all of america, having this very public falling out. It is can you even imagine what a press circuit is is . And she comes out of the church where shes been attending and all of these people turn their back on her. They pretend she doesnt exist. But she feel she has a choice. And later when she write her memoirs, she writes this poignant passage about what it was like to be a woman in that timeframe and she says that it was considered religious and dignified for the wife who is drawn to the shadows while her husband paid the family respects. And the woman was supposed to get her some might by proxy from her husband. And here we have this brilliant, ambitious, driven women in todays world she would be an entrepreneur and Start Growing Company that should be running something and should be running for Public Office and she would be taking on the role of a grand scale, but every one of those avenues is denied to her and what is the only thing that she can do . Should build houses on the grandest and most ambitious scale because she has no wider outlet in her extraordinary energies and creativity and intelligence. She is frustrated. Society will not give her a chance to do anything new. Because also it makes sense of her inexcusable behavior around her daughter and her daughters marriage. Her daughter may be in love, but winds up should be remembered. He was 33 years old at the time that consuelo was 18. He was a handsome man from a family that was described by a tabloid as best known for her wearing expensive clothing and he plays golf and polo, and when she looks at him she sees just another version of her own useless husband and an idle decadent flandreau who will condemn the daughter to a lifetime of misery. So what does the duke offer . Is visible in another country and in a place where she can be called a duchess and have real standing society. And standing up and be listened to when she wants to speak and have a place in the Public Affairs of the world and live in a society that is free from that kind of dreadful constraint of new york sizing. That sounds like a dreadful calculation. Because consuelo was genuinely in love with richard. And we think that love should be the basis for marriage. But 100 years ago, loved seemed to her like an impossible luxury and she was her great hope that she was not going to let her daughter squander lives in the same way that she felt her own that her own life had been squandered in the past. So in that moment, when consuela are in the carriage and its not a tear of joy. This is a tragic moment and a woman who has had to alienate her daughter in order to save her and the woman that was trapped in the most horrible, loveless, benighted of marriages. This is a woman who has witnessed the society of which he is a part. Watching them turn against her because she dared to stand up against this jerk that she was married to. She is a woman who is living a life of indescribable hades. But she does not turn back the she doesnt back down. Because she doesnt perceive those who shun her as legitimate. Then we were standing. They dont allow her to speak up. They havent treated or fairly. The law that governs her and tells her what she should and shouldnt do is arbitrary. Its not trustworthy. She is supposed to stay at home and her husband is was to run around town with french prostitute. But now, at that moment, she is in a position of indescribable hell and she undergoes the moment that all radicals undergo and she is angry. One thing that i try to figure out in my book, david and goliath underdogs, misfits, and the art of battling giants, it is why people in positions of power dont understand the significance of anger. And when we understand and what kind of powerful emotion it is for people who appear to be on the outside and have no resources to hold it in their hearts. I went and spent a good portion is something that i would recommend. But thats my i went to a meeting and it was to commemorate the anniversary or british troops opened fire and on a group of individuals, killing several of them. In england, no one thinks about this. They moved on. Theyre worried about so many other things may think that it is something that happened in the past. And if you stand like this, the events that happened three decades ago, you wouldve thought that the shooting happened yesterday. The emotions were that raw. People were collapsing in tears and crying out in her grief and it made me realize that long after we have forgotten the consequences of our actions, the people that are oppressed and abused continue to nurse their rage and anger and she we think about what peoples thinking, iraq and pakistan and afghanistan are all about. Moving on complex. Were going to move on, but that is a mistake. The people who are fighting against do not perceive our authority in their hearts for generations we will bear the consequences of that. And that was exactly what the situation. No one understood the consequences of her anger and what it meant to have a ticking time bomb in the midst of someone Walking Around with a grievance to the consequences were deep. And the greatest of ironies the person who sets off a ticking timebomb is her daughter, consuelo. In the years after her marriage, she was transformed. She bears him two sons which she would refer to as an error in the spare and then she leaves him and of course she does and when she leaves him, she is so respected by her people and her society and her peers and she handles herself with grace and everyone knows what a complete jerk her husband is. But the London Society rallies around her and lets her up and she turns into one of the leading world voices of her generation. She becomes an advocate for genuine social justice and change. And she returns to new york. A tall and beautiful charismatic woman. She gives a speech to the Society Ladies at the waldorf astoria. What she has discovered that her time in england is that england is a very different place in america and a place where women really can stand up and speak out in a place and to say that youre wasting your life and you are slaves to her husband. You are not making a difference to take that and you are a disgrace. Standing, sitting in the front row of the audience and you can imagine how she feels. Fifteen years ago she had sent her daughter off in tears taking her away from the only man she had ever loved because she felt that the owner a favor. But her daughter is back now in new york. What has happened . Her daughter has been saved. They have a talk afterwards after the speech is over. She says in spite of everything, im glad that i married an englishman is like a weight has been listed in all of the the guilt that she has been carrying around for so long is it dissolved. And then all that accepts an invitation and this includes women across the world, those that couldnt vote, they have been denied the most basic of human rights. And its like in that period, women were given limited Voting Rights in idaho and colorado and the movement for what we have going nationwide and it is going nowhere. And she listens to the speech and she realizes that this is the only way to bring legitimacy. This is the only way that we can create a system in america that gives women a voice and to treat them fairly and that treats them without, you know, being trustworthy and nonopportune. She looks at the state and she realizes that it is in complete and utter disarray. They have no drive coming on a strategy, they have no energy, have no resources, they have no money. And all of those things that she has. So what does she do . Should have the same thing that she has done her entire life. She barges in. She takes over. She choose the headquarters of the separatist movement. In one, ohio. She says that she moves it into a building that she buys on fifth avenue new york and then she says that my country cottage in Newport Rhode island, that is going to be our convention headquarters. They start to have the meetings of the Suffrage Movement amidst the granddaughter of this individual including his outrage. And when a group of female immigrant people and workers go on strike in protest against the appalling conditions under which they work and starting march through downtown manhattan, who is at the from the march . Well, she is. And then they get arrested by a judge in downtown new york. He stands in the courtroom all night long. I bought a judge until he lets them create and then she says the black women of america belong in this movement and she said that the suffrage of have been off on her own. But elvis said, they are women like us. They belong with us. And when the movement was perceived as this and we continue to be this aggressive and antagonizing men, she stand up and says that men do not worry about antagonizing men and so i should be. First world war starts. Lots of intellectuals say that this is no time for us to be pushing for this kind of form and we should take down the picketers outside the white house. And she made sure that the ticket stayed up until the end of the war. So what happens . You can imagine. She was denounced, ostracized, push a polite society, seen as a domineering, to tauro, egomaniac all woman who barged into an organization. The other thing to happen was on august 18, 1920, the 19th amendment, giving women for the First Time Ever the right to vote. And this is a lesson of her great victory. Is that pertinent today, as pertinent as it was 100 years ago, and that is if you deny people legitimacy, they will one day by one means or another come back and defeat you. Salama thing. She died in the spring of 1933 from a stroke and her funeral was held at Saint Thomas Church on fifth avenue, the same church where her daughter was married some years ago. Everyone shows up. Limousines lined the streets. And the crowds throng with police and others. And at her service, the crowd sings three hands. And the first is a hymn by Harriet Beecher stowe. And the third is one composed by the woman herself, which is the greatest of all. The greaseball tributes to this remarkable end. The remarkable and extraordinary woman in the hymn is about how when they get to heaven, how she will begin. If st. Peter stands in judgment of her and at weekends with no waiting at the gates of paradise. No tribunal of men to judge and the watchers of the teller who claim they daughter of the king. [applause] [applause] [applause] we have some time for questions. I forgot how they work. I can repeat the questions. Not odd. [inaudible question] where in the world deseeded gratis illegitimacy right now . And so many places large and small. In any country when you look at the way that women are treated in many parts of the middle east and the way they are treated in this country, treating Illegal Immigrants and other groups and, you know, i could go on and on. We dont even have to look on a global level that we could go into this and see how individuals are treated by their superiors and i think that this is a lesson for all of us to be fair and impartial and insistent and it is the obligation of those in power just because you have all of the resources. It doesnt mean just because you have the resources that you can behave as you wish. Right with power comes responsibility. And we need to be reminded of that every day because every day we forgot it. Thank you. Next question . Im sounding like i am like im a warhorse or something. But you know, i dont mean to sound grim and for bidding. [inaudible question] in this country, equality is growing at a rapid rate and we have recently had a demonstration that most of us do not think about. We also dont feel that the government representatives are very consistent in representing us and all of us are speaking towards legitimacy theory that we have this. Is that what you see . I have to say you know, i guess i will answer that if you read historical accounts of the last time in American History where we have equality as good as we have now, and she was a big part of it. What is amazing to learn is how close the country came to massive social unrest. But we came this close to having a breakdown in the and we have forgotten that now. So it is a hairless a very perilous position to have this gap between the rich and poor and its not sustainable and we were saved less time by a courageous man named fdr. And this includes having a fresh start on the system. Okay, go ahead. [inaudible question] i feel that we can hear you. We have given you a voice. You are wellknown for weaving together disparate facts and theories and excluding your research for your books. So what is your daily info feed in your sources and what you read or listen to and what is your world like . I feel that im giving away trade secrets at this point. Shania just like colonel sanders. Telling you about the herbs and spices. And you know nothing exciting happens, theres a lot of aimless drifting around this. Theres a lot of time spent wandering through libraries hoping to stumble on something amazing. Which is what libraries are all about. Im a selfprofessed library nerd. [applause] and what we dont know is which of our stories are interesting. Because we have no perspective on. We have no nice perspective on what is going on in one of the things that you learn to do if you are a journalist is to to probe and ask questions until you stumble upon what is interesting. I might give you an example of this. So my father waited until i could give you an example. This is proof of the proposition. People dont know what the interesting stories are. [laughter] the first exhibit. Its quite a long string of have to bear with me. My father met my mother in 1958. Mildly radical. After that time, they moved back to jamaica and he was teaching and he needs to get access to a lot of people for his research he writes at georgia tech. He says can i use your library. And he said yes. Then the permission was granted and georgia tech is sent into a panic because its 1951. And georgia tech is a segregated institution and they realize they have just granted permission to use their library to someone who teaches at the university and jamaica. And this starts as frantic attempt by the administration and i felt like we could tell from the name. You can go on the internet and so they start calling him, sending letters, saying his and jamaica. For such a panic sets in. Its crazy, my father is set to leave for this honesty. And they track him down, catching cause of my father has his voice set to go and this is professor smith and i have an awkward question and its like, okay, file and then. [laughter] and my father says, why yes. And the others like, oh, goodness. At which point my father was like, the full dimensions of us are resonating and dimensions unfold and he puts a giant photograph to eight to the visiting professor in all of the woman marries her at the table so we way wait to see these individuals and midway through dinner he pulled a picture my mother and says, and they watch them. And thats an interesting story. I knew my father before he told me that story. And it never occurred to me that saddam and ask them questions about this. It mustve been kind of interesting. We just dont understand how great they are. One of the simple things of all has just been to keep asking questions until you get to this kind of stories. So sure. That is the way it should be. How long it takes to kind of bring about some kind of change like this. Its always whats always amazing about these stories, why are we only now on the cusp of getting maybe a female president . Why only now is the tide slowly turning on legalization of gay marriage. Its like it seems like we have these kind of moral insights, but the gap between the insight and the practical demonstration of that insight can be decades, and i guess the task is to try to shrink that gap. It still amazes me. You look at the list of major western not western major countries in the world, were one of the few now that has never had a female head of state. Kind of astonishing. Even countries that you wouldnt have thought would have beaten us to the punch. Youve already accomplished such a impressive body of work. Im curious if theres one particular work that youre most proud of but also one that you might have structured differently or needs to be updated. Are you asking me if i have regrets . A few. Im not going to sing for you, if thats what youre thinking. You thought i was headed in that direction. Yeah, i mean, im somebody who regrets virtually everything ive ever done, so its not surprising that i should have regrets about my writing. I think that i havent read Tipping Point since i wrote it, and now im scared to. It was written in 1998, so lets all think back to what our lives were like in 1998, and ask yourselves if we were suddenly trend back in time, would we feel comfortable with our choices at that moment . Would you be happy with the way your hair looked in 1998 . Or the clothes you wore . Or the color of the furniture in your living room . Theres so many things about 1998 that are deeply embarrassing to me in let retrospect, and im sure if i were to reread Tipping Point id wince in pain. What am i most proud of . The things youre proudest of are the things all human beings are proudest of the things that other people are not proud of. Right . Or dont like. You always are drawn to the thing that question invites you to say, everyone in the world hated this, didnt understand the true genius. So this is true. I have done things that were universally hated that i have quietly loved. So thats probably and always little limericks you wrote in someones Birthday Party that fell flat when you delivered them, but you actually thought they were kind of sly and ingenious. Its that kind of thing i feel most proud of. But im sure that by the time im an old man i will just look back on my efforts and hang my head. Im sure thats inevitable. In the front row. [inaudible question] you talked about the legacy of emmerment. How do we as a country reconcile with those who we may have angered over the years the international community. The question is, if you create anger, leave a residue of anger and illegitimacy, how do you go about correcting that . I tell a story in my book, im finally mentioning my book at hour and 15 minutes into his book talk, gladwell mentions he has written a book. I i tell a story in david and goliath about a woman called joanne javy, the head of the Housing Police in new york city, who asks that whose job it is to police the housing projects of new york. The worst parts of the city. And asked that exact question she gets the job and says police are not considered legitimate in the poorest neighborhoods in new york, with good reason. Not because the police force have misbehaved, but because, look, its really hard if you live in a community where the cops are omni present. All you do is see them interacting in a fraught, emotionally and physically fraught way, with all the young men in your neighborhood. Its hard to think about that as legitimate, and when the statistic i cannot get out of my mind is if you look at young percentage of a black men born in the 1970s who did not graduate from college, a High School Dropout. Black High School Dropout men born in the 1970s. 69 of them have spent some time behind bars. If youre from one of the neighborhoods, theres no way you perceive the law as legitimate. So thats what she said to herself. I am now in charge of those neighborhoods. They dont see me as legitimate. What do i do . What she did was to embark on a policy of trying to win back their trust. And it was extraordinary. The results were incredible. It took a lot of hard work. And it involved her behaving in ways that Police Officers do not normally behave. She basically had to go to the families of juvenile delinquents and make friends, knock on the door, introduce herself. She started by bringing them turkeys on thanksgiving, and just said, i know you dont trust us, but all i wanted to say is im here. I know your kid is a delinquent. Cops are always coming around and harassing you guys. Im their say im on your side. Heres a turkey. Thats how it started. She gradually won over the trust of the families and the crime rate began to fall because people realized the law could be on their side. It took years. She hired Police Officers who cared before the kids, and who were good at that thing where you knock on the dispore they open the door and say f. U. , and have to be the kind of person that would say, no, id like to talk to you and get to know you. So, its theres no grand way of doing it. It can only be done in a kind of persontoperson, painstaking way. She had put her story in i think such a powerful lesson about and her accomplishments are so you look at the decline in crime in those neighborhoods. Mindboggling. Le i thought so many of the stories in your book were so moving and so inspirational, but there was one chapter about Martin Luther king, that i really had trouble with, because it seemed to me, although i know that all of us respond to what we see on the tv, et cetera, and what we have been taught to believe happened. I was so surprised at the way dont give away the surprise. It has a surprise ending. You cant give it away. Spoiler alert. Well, let me say, i was very surprised at what you drew out of Martin Luther kings experience, and i found it very upsetting. Its supposed to be upsetting. Im not i dont disagree with your reaction. Im not going to give away the ending but just say that i tell a story about the Civil Rights Movement in birmingham . How did they win . And the answer is they made a trick, trick that made people very uncomfortable at the time, that led to widespread criticism along the way of Martin Luther king, and continues to make people uncomfortable today. You and me. I cant even i will cornifies find that a little bit [inaudible] the trick is openly admitted to by bryan walker, kings number two canner so the man who played the trick, after it succeeded, was very frank about what he did. He did many, many interviews in which he described bree sizely how hey precisely how the pulled the wool over the eyes of the press. Its not a its not a secret or a kind of speculative conclusion. Its what this guy, this remarkable guy, wyatt walker, brilliant guy, stayed in the shadows, and who was the author of this kind of those of you who read the book, id be very curious to know your response. I dont disagree with your reaction. I think its weird. What they did. Its weird to think about what they did in the context of i cant keep talking about this and not tell you so im going to stop. I am with you, and im i appreciate that response. One last question. How do i choose . In the back. The person most vociferously yes, the glasses, blonde hear, and blonde hair and green. Well, as perhaps the only ju jew attending on a friday night how much to due think religious upbringing plays into this . I say every reformed conservative jew is brought up to challenge god, do everything, challenge authority, versus my catholic friends who were accepting of authority, and im wondering, you havent mentioned the religious factor yet, and im wondering if its significant at all. The last third of my book is all about religious faith. The last two chapters in particular, and the civil rights chapter is about the consequences in part the consequences of deep religious commitment, what that gives you, and the last two chapters are about extraordinary things that faith makes possible. And i think its i end it on that note because i came to understand and appreciate in writing the book, that the most significant weapon in