The Naked Face by Malcolm Gladwell

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/08/05/the-naked-face

The part of this post that pulled me to reading it was not the title, or the subject area, but the author. The author, Malcolm Gladwell, is a writer for the New Yorker and host of (my favourite podcast) Revisionist History. Much of this Canadian journalist’s work revolves around psychology and the human psyche. This specific article, however, talks about the study of facial expressions, and the fathers of the field. I enjoy Gladwell’s writing because he uses anecdotes to convey his point. Much of his writing is narrative, yet issue driven. As a fan of his podcasts, I often find myself reading his articles as he would. His voice is so clear throughout all his work. His words are precisely chosen, always to convey a very specific point. In this particular article, his idea is to display the positivity of the science of facial expressions. However, the final line of the piece suggests something completely different. Gladwell writes (of a police officer in Hollywood) His partner looked at him like, “‘What did you do?’ because he didn’t any danger.” Harms said, “But I did.” This idea that Gladwell suggests is that there is a negative side to making assumptions based on facial expression – that, if incorrect, can bring serious harm to others.

One connection I made while reading this article was to the TV show Lie to Me. The show chronicles the story of Cal Lightman, an expert in deception. This practice of ‘Human Lie Detecting’, glamorized in the show, is perceived as simple, and straight forward. However, as discussed in Gladwell’s article, it is not simple. It took 7 years to tax all human expressions, and at the time the article was written, there were around 500 experts worldwide.