Goodbye blinkThink



Posted: Friday, January 23, 2009

by
http://northerncommunique.blogspot.com

Malcolm Gladwell's book, 'blink' is "about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye" according to the author's notes on gladwell.com. 'blinkThink' is my term for making a fetish of the 'blink', and blinkThink took a well-deserved drubbing in Barack Obama's Inauguration Speech last week. Obama proposes -- and, most importantly, he symbolizes -- a spirit of deliberation, of considering different points of view and different facts, which is nothing less than a pivoting of American discourse away from the harsh moral certainties of Bush and Reagan toward the nuances of political virtue.

Gladwell himself signals the reification of the blink, claiming on his site that "we live in a society dedicated to the idea that we're always better off gathering as much information and spending as much time as possible in deliberation." Really? Where do you live, Malcolm? Oh right, the offices of the New Yorker mag and the international lecture circuit, I forgot. I'll tell you something, MG, where I live we are under constant and unremitting pressure to make snap judgements, to act on impulse, and generally to see deliberation as a sign of ineffectiveness, even shallowness. In the mall, and in the public discourse, we are encouraged to banish second thoughts. Political mavens tout the idea that values drive voter choice, regardless of group interests; the framing of key messages supposedly explains public receptiveness to policy ideas; and marketers ramp up the emotive or sexual quotient at every so-called 'touch point' (but, actually, don't TOUCH me!)

The blink way of making judgements lends itself to moral judgements. In its rapidity, it relies on pre-established ideas and frames of reference. As Decision Research has recently shown (www.decision research.org) many of us will prefer to help 4500 people out of 10,000 escape violence in a place such as Darfur, instead of helping 4500 people out of 100,000. It seems we value the larger slice of the pie represented by the former, even though it is exactly the same number of people. This isn't reasoning - this is 'blink', and blinkThink is the tendency to value this sort of snap judgement more highly than the sort of deliberation that would reveal just how wrong-headed it is.

Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have urged us to blink about each other in a myriad of ways, the better to wrap themselves in a homogeneous sheet of public approval.

But Obama asks us all to be more deliberative, to think more, take more time before making judgemetns. And this may be among his greatest contributions to 'remaking' America, for it opens the way to considering every individual on their own merits, every situation for its inherent possibilities, every outcome for its actual contribution to human progress. Above all, it takes us back to the idea that politics is about public virtues -- doing the right thing at the right time -- not absolute right and wrong.

So, thank you America, for encouraging us all to THINK once again.

About the Author: John Willis is a professional pollster and advocacy strategist who works for non-profits and progressive political candidates.  John is the former Chairman of Greenpeace USA and he is currently the Director of Campaigns & Research at Strategic Communications, Inc. a full-service consultancy with offices in Toronto and Vancouver.  He blogs regularly on public affairs at www.northerncommunique.blogspot.com and also teaches design students about responding to the dire ecological circumstances the 'grown ups' (like him) are leaving to younger people to sort out.  John has two children, a wife who is a research scientist, and not enough time to write.
John Willis was a professional trouble-maker in the environmental and anti-nuclear movements throughout the 1980s and '90s, but now he raises his kids in Toronto, writes www.northerncommunique .blogspot.com (a blog about public policy), and in his role as Director of Campaigns for the consulting firm 'Stratcom', he helps progressive non-profits and advocacy groups do a better job.  He was the Chair of the Board of Greenpeace USA (2000-03) and he also teaches global affairs for design students at the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD).
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by Anonymous
 3 years 13 days ago.
An intersting article. I agree with the need to deliberate rather than blinkthink, but I wholeheartedly disagree with your choice of those who blinkthunk.
» left by John from Toronto 3 years 13 days ago.
thanks for you comment.  I see what you mean - by picking out a couple of famous names to 'highlight' my claims, I've undermined some readers' experience of my argument.  and I love your term 'blinkthunk' - thanks for that.  but W's 'either with us or agin us' stance to the world post-9/11 was an influential 'keynote' of public discourse over the subsequent few years, I believe.  But we all do it sometimes, it is a built-in cognitive function for humans - the point is that we don't have to value it above deliberative thought.  cheers and thanks again for commenting..
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