CT Forum

Last night (Wed. April 5) The CT Forum sponsored "A Conversation Between Thomas Friedman and Malcolm Gladwell". 

First - if you have a chance to check out the CT Forum website, please do.  This is an organization that has been sponsoring these types of programs since 1992.  Guests over the years have included Walter Cronkite, Al Franken, Henry Kissinger, Norman Swarzkopf and Spike Lee just to name a very few.  The program previous to last nights was an evening with Colin McEnroe (not my cup of tea), Jennifer Weiner (grew up in Simsbury - first novel "Good In Bed" , second novel an international bestseller made into a movie - "In Her Shoes" starring Cameron Diaz), Joyce Carol Oates ("We Were the Mulvaneys", "Blonde", "The Falls") and one of the greatest writers of my generation Kurt Vonnegut! The Forum's last "A Conversation With..." program featured Pulitzer Prize winner Frank McCourt ("Angela's Ashes") and Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison ("Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination").

Anyway..... Last nights program was at times excellent and at others frankly awful. I did not think that the moderator, Rita Braver (CBS News), did a very good job.  I was however, fascinated by the level of intellect of Friedman and Gladwell.  These guys are SMART!!  And witty, and sincere and genuine.  In spite of Braver's inability to engage Gladwell in really meaningful dialogue, he did manage to make some observations and share some stories about himself that were remarkable.  Tom Friedman actually was able to give me a viable perspective on the Iraq war that I had not previously considered.  He has remained a very vocal supporter of the war, while at the same time a very strong critic of the Bush administration for how they "botched" (his word) the entire thing.  He is perhaps the only supporter of the war that I can actually agree with, a little bit anyway.

Malcolm Gladwell allowed us to see him as a very down-to-earth guy who has a unique ability to see things differently than most of us.  Anyone who has read "The Tipping Point" or "Blink" know what I am talking about.  His insight in the Dialo shooting at the end of "Blink" is extraordinary.  Braver allowed the conversation to focus too much on the Iraq war, and Gladwell is definitely not a supporter.  I would have loved to hear his thoughts on the issue of immigration and illegal aliens, but Braver never asked the question.

Tom Friedman's "The World Is Flat" is, as I've pointed out in a previous post, a must read.  It's very easy to get on the Lou Dobbs, "what about middle class America?" bandwagon.  However, as a card carying member of that middle class, he's just a bit over the top, albeit the opposite of "W".  Friedman could have weighed in on the immigration issue as well, but he never got the chance.  He did make the point several times that "globalization" is going to happen with or without us.  Specifically, he said: "It (the global economy) is going to happen.  The only question is - will it happen with us or to us?"  He also made an observation that I thought was very true of the U.S. as a nation.  Despite how we are viewed by other countries (unfavorably for the most part), and despite the problems that we are facing in the U.S., there are still extremely great things going on in this country everyday.  He referenced some groundbreaking work on "green" technology taking place at North Carolina A&T.  He's an optimist and his optimism allows him to see the positive things that are going on, rather than causing him to focus on the negative.

After an intermission the two authors took questions from the audience.  The audience, by the way, included a sold out Bushnell and a simulcast at the also sold out Wallace Stevens Theater at The Hartford.  I was extremely disappointed at the questions that were chosen by who knows who!  Judging from the crowd, I was sure that there would be some engaging questions.  Instead, we were treated to a couple of "Malcolm, you're so cute, do you have a girlfriend and what do you think about love?" questions and some other, actually forgetable questions.  I was sitting in front of a number of obviously very intelligent college students whom I'm sure turned in some thought provoking questions.  They were never asked.  Sadly, most of the good stuff was over by intermission.

Was it worth it?  Absolutely.  Could it have been better?  Absolutely.

Comments

[TrishK]

Great review of the evening....I absolutely have to agree with you on the points that you made...I think they are both very intelligent authors with such a fresh perspective on the world.
I wish that Malcolm had more time to actually speak about his books.

[Bud Gibson]

Mike, it looks like you are making some progress here. Nice meaty posts. What's going on with the class blogging assignments like g-metrics, Stanford web credibility, or google adwords?