What Malcom and the Dog Saw

I read what may the most fascinating of sociology books hiding deceptively within the journalism of Malcom Gladwell. It's called, What the Dog Saw.

Though Gladwell's chapters seem disconnected, a theme emerges about the forces that create order and disorder in large and small societies, including groups. Whether it's dogs or people, he argues most social problems are caused by small groups. Yet, people tend to generalize the problem, projecting it onto the broader group or society. This, of course, is an unfair assessment. And when we generalize the problem, we also generalize the "solution" to that problem. Essentially, it's like trying to pick up a dropped penny with a steam shovel, taking up a plot of soil five feet by five feet to get the penny.

Think about it this way. What if, in a public school system, the chronic "troublemakers" from any one graduating class number maybe 10 kids? The other several hundred may have a few behavioral issues in their 12 years of school, but are relatively stable and peaceful compared to these 10. Yet, how often do we treat the problems of the 10 as if they applied to the hundreds? This is not only an incredibly expensive way to "solve" the problems generated by the 10, it doesn't really get at the heart of the problems. It doesn't really solve the problems at all.

Gladwell uses the example of a homeless man from Nevada. He was called Million Dollar Murray. Drunk, drugged, and injured, he would show up at various hospitals in desperate need of help. Within one year, he had racked up over $1 million in medical care received through state-funded emergency room services. He alone consumed a large proportion of all dollars spent by the state that year on indigent health care.

The few times the state put him through rehab, he did great. He cleaned up his act, lived the structured life required, and all-but resurrected from the death of alcoholism. But just as soon as he went out on the street again, he would end up back on death's doorstep, meaning the Emergency Room.

Now, wouldn't it be better for Murray and less expensive for Nevadans to simply have him live full-time in a rehab center? Sure, it would go against the American norm of the self-made man, simply being given a structured life to live rather than create one. But, wouldn't it be a lot cheaper than spending $1 million a year on his medical treatments, some of which involved life-saving surgeries. Wouldn't we get a potentially useful member of society again? See, once he was rehabbed to a point, this center would send Murray out on work release. He became useful again. Yet, one night long after the rehab center dollars had given out, the police found Murray dead. It's no surprise.

And here's the thing. Most homeless people are that way for only a few days. They soon find a new place to live and get on with their lives, even in these trying times. Yet, there is a small nucleus of homeless people who present the generalized face of the problem. The chronic problems of a few people stigmatize all homeless people, the vast majority of which are only homeless for a day or so. To remedy the chronic face of homelessness presented by this small group, meaning the kind of lives lived by this small group, we apply a generalized approach that costs hundreds of millions of dollars a year but really does not help this small group or society. Yet, we may remedy the problem and spend a whole lot less money by simply focusing most resources (not all, of course, because some still need the short-term help) on this small group.

And, don't we apply a generalized solution to a specific problem for so many other issues, from "viscous" pit bull dogs (most of which are not pit bulls... we falsely generalize here) to school test scores?

Ultimately, Gladwell argues that generalized approaches to social instability don't work. Rather, society should focus on the small group that really needs the focus. It would not only prove less expensive, it may actually remedy the social ills. I love this idea, and am willing to try it.
 --- What was the original American Aurora? The Aurora was a newspaper published by Benjamin Franklin Bache , a grandson of Benjamin Franklin. The Aurora was published in Philadelphia, our nation's capitol at the time.

The Aurora was highly critical of what Bache felt was the tyrannous Federalist governments of presidents Washington and Adams.

The result? Adams imprisoned Bache for sedition, where he languished, awaiting trial, until his death from yellow fever at age 29.