"Actually Malcolm, such a memorial has stood in Tokyo’s Yokoamichō Park for two decades."
Missed opportunity to say, "Actually, Malc..." Channeling Douglas Murray.
MG appealed to me bigly as a young dude, but as I grew older I started to understand that there is so much nuance in the world that events can rarely be distilled into the simple binaries that MG is famous for. MG himself has apparently yet to realize this.
All I know is that my father, a devout Catholic, a forward artillery spotter in the Army Signal Corps and a veteran of many of the island campaigns, reconciled his anguish over the morality of the bomb simply: "They were never going to quit." Soldiers on transports would hear the news of the firebombings and believe surrender would come the next day; it never did.
"A million more of us," he once said, about the number of Americans who might have died taking Japan: "We wondered if Japan was even counting any more, or ever had."
Malcolm Gladwell has once again come up with a title that will be namedropped at cocktail parties and a couple hundred pages of froth. His work was once useful to me -- when I sometimes felt like dropping names -- but frankly, I've reached a tipping point.
Malcom Gladwell might well be pissed off at how well you demolished his book. Or he might not care. But what he really ought to do is have you research & fact check anything else he will write. Or least his publishers should. & pay you very well for the work.
What you say is possibly true about it being punishment. But staying at home & working remotely is better than coughing sewer ditches in the hot sun, better than welding in a steel kiln in the freezing cold winter & having slag drop on you from the other welders crowded together, better than reading gas meters in crime infested neighborhoods while gang member casually point their guns at you as if it were a joke & better than commuting 182 miles every day on a motorcycle in all 4 seasons to a job that’s eventually going to be shipped to China. I meant it as a compliment.
Whoa, whoa, whoa... wait a minute. Why is it in this whole conversation I did not see the names of either Sir Arthur Harris or Carl Spaatz? I mean we are supposedly talking about strategic and precision bombing during the Second World War.
great point. My understanding was that strategic bombing was never really an option anyway with the jet stream over Japan making it impossible to hit anything with any accuracy.
True - My Dad was in the 7th air force. At the end of the war he was flying bombing missions (B-24) over japan from Okinawa. they were getting it from all sides.
Neither the Enola Gay or Bock's Car dropped H-bombs - they dropped A-bombs (H-bombs weren't developed until the '50's and giving secrets of its development to the Soviets is what doomed the Rosenbergs to the electric chair).
Your introductory paragraph made me worried that I have misjudged Gladwell. What a relief that I haven't. All I know about him is from watching an online debate on the trustworthiness of mainstream media. He did not aquit himself well and his side lost, bigly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvaf7XOOFHc
Finally! I read about 30 pages of the tipping point that was so celebrated at the time, and thought, "I must be crazy, this is all B.S.!" Of course I haven't bothered to read anything of his since. Glad to see it's not just me.
So the idea of precision bombing is really about having to use less ordnance to achieve the same effect? The ability to drop fewer bombs, risk fewer pilots and planes to achieve a similar level of destruction?
Would you draw a line from that to today's weaponry, where the governments claim that they can precisely target someone in a foreign country with minimal "collateral damage" which makes the use of these weapons far more palatable?
After watching Gladwell completely lose his mind while debating Douglass Murray and Matt Taibbi, I can't take anything he writes seriously.
And this is an example of the elites that are to govern we, the deplorables? No thanks. Good review, with facts to back up your critique.
Ohhhh.... He's the dolt who obsessed himself with painting Taibbi as a racist over Taibbi's reference to Walter Cronkite! Yikes.
Exactly.
"Actually Malcolm, such a memorial has stood in Tokyo’s Yokoamichō Park for two decades."
Missed opportunity to say, "Actually, Malc..." Channeling Douglas Murray.
MG appealed to me bigly as a young dude, but as I grew older I started to understand that there is so much nuance in the world that events can rarely be distilled into the simple binaries that MG is famous for. MG himself has apparently yet to realize this.
All I know is that my father, a devout Catholic, a forward artillery spotter in the Army Signal Corps and a veteran of many of the island campaigns, reconciled his anguish over the morality of the bomb simply: "They were never going to quit." Soldiers on transports would hear the news of the firebombings and believe surrender would come the next day; it never did.
"A million more of us," he once said, about the number of Americans who might have died taking Japan: "We wondered if Japan was even counting any more, or ever had."
Malcolm Gladwell has once again come up with a title that will be namedropped at cocktail parties and a couple hundred pages of froth. His work was once useful to me -- when I sometimes felt like dropping names -- but frankly, I've reached a tipping point.
Malcom Gladwell might well be pissed off at how well you demolished his book. Or he might not care. But what he really ought to do is have you research & fact check anything else he will write. Or least his publishers should. & pay you very well for the work.
what have you got against Brad? that sounds like cruel and unusual punishment! lol
What you say is possibly true about it being punishment. But staying at home & working remotely is better than coughing sewer ditches in the hot sun, better than welding in a steel kiln in the freezing cold winter & having slag drop on you from the other welders crowded together, better than reading gas meters in crime infested neighborhoods while gang member casually point their guns at you as if it were a joke & better than commuting 182 miles every day on a motorcycle in all 4 seasons to a job that’s eventually going to be shipped to China. I meant it as a compliment.
Somehow this comes to mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQDeU6dHX-c
Whoa, whoa, whoa... wait a minute. Why is it in this whole conversation I did not see the names of either Sir Arthur Harris or Carl Spaatz? I mean we are supposedly talking about strategic and precision bombing during the Second World War.
Don’t go there. You will be set upon by the history geeks. We travel in packs.
I find it hilarious that Gladwell is going on and on about the Pacific when the real strategic vs precision bombing debates were in Europe.
great point. My understanding was that strategic bombing was never really an option anyway with the jet stream over Japan making it impossible to hit anything with any accuracy.
The big problem was how spread out Japanese industry was. It was not like Europe where there we large factory districts everywhere.
True - My Dad was in the 7th air force. At the end of the war he was flying bombing missions (B-24) over japan from Okinawa. they were getting it from all sides.
Gladwell's credo:
Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
While it is possible to get the narrative right while getting every fact wrong (Emerson's Reagan's Secret Warriors https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Warriors-Inside-Military-Operations/dp/0399133607 comes to mind) that requires inside knowledge and a great deal of luck. I'm not sure Gladwell qualifies.
You had me there for minute. I thought we were going to have words
Neither the Enola Gay or Bock's Car dropped H-bombs - they dropped A-bombs (H-bombs weren't developed until the '50's and giving secrets of its development to the Soviets is what doomed the Rosenbergs to the electric chair).
Good catch!
Wonderful evisceration of a Manhattan fraud, and great hyperlink to "There are no Civilians in Japan" article.
Your introductory paragraph made me worried that I have misjudged Gladwell. What a relief that I haven't. All I know about him is from watching an online debate on the trustworthiness of mainstream media. He did not aquit himself well and his side lost, bigly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvaf7XOOFHc
Finally! I read about 30 pages of the tipping point that was so celebrated at the time, and thought, "I must be crazy, this is all B.S.!" Of course I haven't bothered to read anything of his since. Glad to see it's not just me.
So the idea of precision bombing is really about having to use less ordnance to achieve the same effect? The ability to drop fewer bombs, risk fewer pilots and planes to achieve a similar level of destruction?
Would you draw a line from that to today's weaponry, where the governments claim that they can precisely target someone in a foreign country with minimal "collateral damage" which makes the use of these weapons far more palatable?