The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

by Malcolm Gladwell

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New York: Little, Brown & Company 2000. 301 pp    Notes 12 pp.   $14.95

This is an important book in today’s world, where global heating (‘warming’ is an unacceptable euphemism), exhaustion of natural resources, pollution; and the potentials for major wars over dwindling food, water and other necessities of life are threatening the continuation of life as we know it on our planet. No one knows when we might reach a point of no return, a crucial tipping point, in any of these processes – as well as in countless, possibly even unrecognized and unknown other ones.

This is an important book in today’s world, where global heating (‘warming’ is an unacceptable euphemism), exhaustion of natural resources,pollution; and the potentials for major wars over dwindling food, water and other necessities of life are threatening the continuation of life as we know it on our planet. No one knows when we might reach a point of no return, a crucial tipping point, in any of these processes – as well as in countless, possibly even unrecognized and unknown other ones.

Malcolm Gladwell discusses various elements that contribute to the development of, transition through, and adaptations to the effects of varieties of tipping points. In a very readable and engaging manner, he takes us through the sudden breakthroughs of awareness in individuals that then spread rapidly through segments of society, sometimes just locally and sometimes globally.

Consider major shifts of consciousness

• In clothing – such as Hush Puppies, the brushed suede shoes that jumped from sales of 30,000 pairs per year in 1994 to 430,000 pairs in 1995: What led this sudden fad to catch on?
• In health – such as the outbreak of syphilis in Baltimore, where cases jumped by 500 percent between 1995-1996: What social changes occurred to cause this many new venereal infections?
• In education – such as “when the number of professionals [in the local community] dropped below 5 percent, the problems explode. For black schoolchildren, for example, as the percentage of high-status workers falls just 2.2 percentage points – from 5.6 percent to 3.4 percent – drop-out rates [from schools] more than double. At the same Tipping Point, the rates of child-bearing for teenaged girls… nearly double.” (p. 13)  What shifts occur in the communal consciousness at that point in time in the social flows of existence?
• In crime – such as the rapid decrease in criminal activity in New York City in the 1990s.

Gladwell hypothesizes that there are three rules which help to understand such tipping points:
1. The Law of the Few: It only takes a small number of people to spark a shift;
2: The Stickiness Factor: Words or concepts that have an impact; and
3: The Power of Context: People are more likely to respond in distinct manners within particular contexts.

Considering the importance of shifting consciousness towards more healing ways of relating to each other and to our planet, these laws suggest that it may be possible to develop the healing memes (conceptual viruses) that could tip global consciousness towards survival rather than suicide of humanity and genocide of most other living organisms on our planet.

Gladwell continues with further suggestions for how the rules can be deliberately activated in creating desired tipping points. Potential contributors to these processes are mavens, who are unusually knowledgeable people with gifts for lateral thinking; connectors, who are people with extensive lists of people who are relevant to given areas of social consciousness and activity; and salespeople, who are gifted at getting the new concepts across to all and sundry.

Gladwell presents another fascinating fact contributing to harmonious communications. People can comfortably and harmoniously communicate with 150 other people in a working or living environment. Within that number, it is possible to know everyone personally. This facilitates mutual understanding and cooperation. Beyond that number, people become anonymous; it is more difficult to understand and trust their intentions and actions; and it is easy for mistrust and disharmony to creep in and wreak havoc.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough for anyone considering working towards making positive changes in our world.

Review by Daniel J. Benor, MD, ABHM
Editor, IJHC

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