Artrite 3 k.way 2008

Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. London: Penguin, 2007.


"My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves & the quality of their knowledge too seriously & those who don’t have the courage to sometimes say: I don’t know...." (You may not be able to change the world but can at least get some entertainment & make a living out of the epistemic arrogance of the human race). (1.) Taleb, ‘Fooled By Randomness’)


The Black Swan describes how we are mostly unprepared and ignorant about the timing and impact of major occurrences in our personal, local and global lives. I remember in a Sociology 101 lecture hearing the French Revolution described as having seemed ‘to suddenly burst forth out of a clear, blue sky’. I also remember the day of the September 11 being described by a newsman with exactly the same words, and the surprise reported of Americans who could not understand why they or America should be so hated.
Perhaps these occurrences help to explain why we are drawn to conspiracy theories. Because part of their appeal is that they provide secret and exhaustive reasons for the surface of history providing all the intrigues and machinations behind events, behind history. Then maybe if you get the codes right you know the secrets and you know who was pulling what parts of the string. Even though it’s hard to find out and even though it’s incredibly elaborate there is a cause and effect that’s traceable. Having an inkling of insider knowing about what Taleb refers to as the significant, large events perhaps imbues us with a sense of control, a sense that maybe we can do something about it, to be an actor rather than a couch potato observer.

Reading Edward Said writing about his own transformation from being a teacher at Columbia University to being “reclaimed by the Arab world generally and by Palestine in particular. This was a direct result of the war…and of severely damaged political, cultural…military and geographical situation…” supports this theory. He continues his story with a knowing of the history, the betrayals, the nations and political and economic orders that destroyed his home and their peace. (Said. P.1-2)

Michel Chossudovsky too has been thorough in his research of exactly how the “Movement of the global economy is ‘regulated’ by a ‘world-wide process of debt collection’ which constricts the institutions of the national state and contributes to destroying employment and economic activity….entire countries have been destabilized as a consequence of the collapse of national currencies, often resulting in the outbreak of social strife, ethnic conflicts and civil war.” (Chossudovsky P.15)
His book is about economic restructuring imposed by international creditors on developing countries and his information is sourced directly from the IMF, the World Bank, financial journals and bank archives.

This heavy information makes Taleb’s discussions, questions and the following Glossary, appear a little glib, a little, I don’t know…light and unfeeling maybe.

I do agree with his investigation of knowledge and how there’s maybe not enough emphasis on the bigger picture. We could do more to develop a culture where asking questions and admitting we don’t know is accepted without any major dissing.

We could accept randomness and unpredictability and chaos has a greater part to play in our lives and the world than order, static knowledge and hierarchies. However his approach and the manner in which he offers his analysis and what I suspect is his unremarkable agenda in this tumultuous and suffering world just leaves me cold.

Said. W. Edward. The Politics of Dispossession, New York, Vintage Books, 1999
Chossudovsky, Michel. The Globalisation of Poverty. London, Zed Books.1998. P.15.
1. 310 GLOSSARY
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http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/