Quiet - book review

Susan Cain wrote a remarkable book in 2012 titled Quiet, which I have just read. A lawyer by training, social psychologist by choice, happy family woman and quite a balanced character who writes good English even in this day and age despite being American, she got me hooked from the very first page, so much so that I shoved several other books aside (I am still in the habit of reading multiple books at a time) to finish it from cover to cover, reflecting thoughtfully all the while. The book talks about the value and importance of introverts (‘quiet’ people) in an age when a quite unhealthy (in her opinion and mine) premium is put on extroversion – variously called gregariousness or sociability.

The basic thesis is that there is nothing bad or shameful about being introverted (which, by the way, is not the same thing as shyness, which can and should be cured through assiduous practice with deliberate social interaction), nor can people born that way do very much about it. In any large population, from one-third to half are born introverted. We need both introverts and extroverts to make a healthy and progressive society, but it is bad to force one type to become the other, as it is bad to force naturally left-handed people to become right-handed: which unfortunately, we do too strenuously (at least, in the author’s opinion, the way most children are being brought up in western countries). Each type should be allowed to grow up in its own preferred way, nurturing their best native talents, inclinations and drives, while also learning to know, understand and cope with those who are of the other type: we have everything to gain from doing that everywhere, from the domestic hearth to schools to the business- or political workplace.

It is also to be remembered that there are few people (though indeed there are some) who are ‘pure’ extroverts or introverts; many introverts, especially, learn to become very efficient pseudo-extroverts because they discover early – sometimes through very painful experience – that it helps a lot to get along even with people they don’t really like or vibe with. I was grinning hugely to myself while reading this part, because that is what has helped me most to succeed professionally, though I am a very strong introvert by nature, and that is what I have tried to teach hundreds of otherwise gifted introverts to do while they were my pupils, because it helps to ‘succeed’ in the practical world. But no true introvert ever really becomes an extrovert: because, and I shall underline this much more strongly than the author has, (I don’t have to fear loss of readership), most introverts not only dislike the other type but actually hold them in greater or less contempt for being basically shallow. After all, introverts have always had another name – ‘thinkers’ – and they have always taken pride in it, and felt angry because the majority pretend to scoff at what they are not gifted enough to understand. Remember, as the author has said, from the theory of gravitation to Harry Potter, the world owes almost all works of creative thought to the introverts (‘nerds’), who like to focus and work alone or in small groups of appreciative peers. The best that the extroverts can show are warriors and footballers (some of the very best salespeople and Presidents even, though this might sound paradoxical to many, have been introverts); far, far more commonly, they are of no more consequence than compulsive fashionistas, members of football beer gangs and party animals!

The book is full of memorable lines that you can quote at people. I won’t make it easy for you: read it yourself, and see how many of the things said there click with your knowledge of yourself and people around you. A lot of folks, I am sure, will find reassuring ideas as well as useful self-improvement tips here.  Most importantly, for the likes of my own daughter, if you are otherwise gifted and know that you have many positive qualities but are thin-skinned and easily bored by chatter as introverts usually are, don’t go out of your way to make yourself appear cheerful and superficial and falsely friendly to the riffraff. Wholly wasted energy.

I should also give at least one serious warning, especially to Indian readers, as I guess most of my readers are. All my life I have found Americans to be very blinkered and gullible about a lot of things outside their immediate ken, despite their obvious sincerity and vaunted fondness for meticulous ‘research’. The biggest bloomer that this author has made is the chapter on how ‘Asians’ are by and large more introverted – quiet, thoughtful, humble, disciplined, sensitive to other people’s feelings and needs – and that, apparently, helps them to succeed both at school and in the workplace far beyond the dreams of the average American. Now ever since the Japanese economic ‘miracle’ that began in the 1950s, lately replicated by the Chinese, Americans by the droves have been searching for the ‘right’ explanation for the extraordinary phenomenon, and Ms. Cain believes that this is it. She has drawn such utterly silly and superficial conclusions on the basis of investigations with a few hundred Japanese, Chinese and Koreans studying and working in the US (anybody could have told her that this is too small and too biased a sample to draw such sweeping conclusions from, since Asians who successfully migrate and thrive in the west are by definition very different from the common type in their own countries): all 1.3 billion Indians have been completely ignored. We know what we are like, don’t we? The only Indian she has mentioned is one M. K. Gandhi, and millions of Indians, both among his devotees and those who name him only to spit upon it, will tell you how ‘typical’ an Indian he was anyway. So alas, Ms. Cain, if Asia is rising today, you have to look for explanations elsewhere. And it made me grimace to think that only a hundred or a little more years ago, when we Asians/Indians were poor and supine, these same white people found us disgusting and stupid and venal and hardly human; now that we are giving them frightening competition, they have suddenly ‘discovered’ such wonderful virtues in us! One more reason why I have come to regard all sorts of ‘scientific findings’ with not a grain but a whole bagful of salt. - however, I must hasten to point out that this one rather ludicrous chapter does not detract much from the value of the book.

[Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking, by Susan Cain, Penguin Books 2012, ISBN 978-0-141-02919-1, pp. 333, Rs. 499. You can also hear her TED Talk here.]

P.S.: I am deeply delighted that a girl who is barely 16 read this book and gave it to me to read. Restores my dimming hopes. I know lots of educated people in their 30s and 40s who can’t or won’t read a book like this. Thank you, Anny.

P.P.S., later in the day: How I have dealt with my own introversion, and handled it in my (pretty large -) classes for more than thirty years will be the topic of the next blogpost. Coming up soon.