Well, I'm glad "The Korean" didn't resort to a simple "Sorry, you've missed the point" response like he did towards other commenters. But I really like Gladwell's response.
FYI: Here is Gladwell's response to "The Korean"'s response to Gladwell:
I actually find "The Korean's" posts on these matters to be pretty irritating. Culture is a collection of ideas, and like all ideas, they can be bad sometimes, and regardless they are all subject to criticism. While he claims to understand this, he seems hellbent on showing that such negative cultural outliers (if and when they exist), will have "negligible" effect (which he doesn't seem to realize is a totally arbitrary claim; how did he arrive at "negligible" vs, I don't know, any other quantifiable amount). The fact is, the effects can't be measured, but a case showing non-negligible effects can still be made.
FYI: Here is Gladwell's response to "The Korean"'s response to Gladwell:
http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2013/07/my-thoughts-on-gladwe...
I actually find "The Korean's" posts on these matters to be pretty irritating. Culture is a collection of ideas, and like all ideas, they can be bad sometimes, and regardless they are all subject to criticism. While he claims to understand this, he seems hellbent on showing that such negative cultural outliers (if and when they exist), will have "negligible" effect (which he doesn't seem to realize is a totally arbitrary claim; how did he arrive at "negligible" vs, I don't know, any other quantifiable amount). The fact is, the effects can't be measured, but a case showing non-negligible effects can still be made.