Malcolm Gladwell has bugged me for years. He's the worst kind of bullshit artist, and I've always been frustrated that so many people bought his schtick. But maybe Gladwell's not as bulletproof as he once was. This Esquire review of Gladwell's latest book by Tom Junod helpfully encapsulates a lot of what I detest about Gladwell:

He does not get up to 80 grand a speech because he makes his audiences feel bad about themselves. He gets that kind of money because in seeming to demystify the meritocracy, he makes his audiences feel both assured about their own standing and anxious enough to go home and make their kids practice, practice, practice.

Here's John Gray at the New Republic on Gladwell's over-reliance on studies to prove his point:

Perhaps this deference to academic authority reveals an underlying lack of intellectual self-confidence in the famously breezy writer. More likely it reflects his unthinking adherence to the idea that science can enable us somehow to transcend the dilemmas of morality and history.

It's possible that I ascribe too much power to Gladwell; I blame him in part for the rise of self-congratulatory conventional-wisdom tripe like 90% of all TED Talks. But it sure feels good to read some good writers taking him to task for the same Gladwellian characteristics that have rubbed me the wrong way all this time.