Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Despite not having found much time to read this year, the few books I have read have all enabled me to calmly explain things that used to get me waving my arms around inarticulately.

This book, among its many other virtues, has helped me understand the positives of avoiding confrontation in day to day life. Keeping your head down is not necessarily about being conformist or even conciliatory, but about picking battles that are worth fighting. Robin Hanson's ideas about "stealth non-conformism" are great, although his writing not so much:

I’ve known some very successful people with quite weird ideas. But these folks mostly keep regular schedules of sleep and bathing. Their dress and hairstyles are modest, they show up on time for meetings, and they finish assignments by deadline. ... Think of it this way. When some folks go out of their way to show off their defiance and rebellion, others go out of their way to publicly squash such rebellion, to assert their dominance. But if you are not overtly rebellious, you can get away with a lot of abstract idea rebellion — few folks will even notice such deviations, and fewer still will care. So, ask yourself, do you want to look like a rebel, or do you want to be a rebel?

Anyway, here are some choice quotes from the book that forms the title of this blog post. It also inspired this discussionearlier this year.

Introduction

(4) We live with a value system that I call The Extrovert Ideal - the omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha and comfortable in the spotlight. The archetypal extrovert prefers action to contemplation, risk-taking to heed-taking, certainty to doubt....We like to think that we value individuality, but all to often we admire one type of individual - the kind who's comfortable "putting himself out there."

(5) But we make a grave mistake to embrace the Extrovert Ideal so unthinkingly. Some of our greatest ideas, arts and inventions, from the theory of evolution to van Gogh's sunflowers to the personal computer - came from quiet and cerebral people who knew how to tune into their inner worlds and the treasures to be found there....

As the science journalist Winifred Gallagher writes: "The glory of the disposition that stops to consider stimuli rather than rushing to engage with them is its long association with intellectual and artistic achievement. Neither E=mc2 nor Paradise Lost was dashed off by a party animal. "

The Rise of the "Mighty Likeable Fellow"

(30) Early Americans revered action and were suspicious of intellect, associating the life of the mind with the languid, ineffectual European aristocracy they had left behind. The 1828 presidential campaign pitted a former Harvard professor, John Quincy Adams, against Andrew Jackson, a forceful military hero. A Jackson campaign slogan tellingly distinguished the two: "John Quincy Adams who can write / and Andrew Jackson who can fight."

The victor of that campaign? The fighter beat the writer, as the cultural historian Neal Gabler puts it. (John Quincy Adams is considered by political psychologists to be one of the few introverts in presidential history.)

Further down the page.

But the rise of the Culture of Personality intensified such biases, and applied them not only to political and religious leaders, but also to regular people. And though soap manufacturers may have profited from the new emphasis on charm and charisma, not everyone was pleased with this development. "Respect for individual human personality has with us reached its lowest point," observed one intellectual in 1921, "and it is delightfully ironical that no nation is so constantly talking about personality as we are. We actually have schools for 'self-expression' and 'self-development,' although we seem usually to mean the expression and development of the personality of a successful real estate agent."

(73) Quoting the memoir of Steve Wozniak

Most inventors I've met are like me. They're shy and they live in their heads. They're almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone where they can control an invention's design without a lot of other people designing it for marketing or some other committee. I don't believe anythin really revolutionary has been invented by committee.

Is Temperament Destiny

On public speaking

(107-108) Public speaking anxiety may be primal and quintessentially human, not limited to those of us born with a high-reactive nervous system. One theory, based on the writings of sociobiologist E.O. Wilson, holds that when our ancestors lived on the savannah, being watched intently meant only one thing: a wild animal was stalking us. And when we think we're about to be eaten, do we stand tall and hold forth confidently? No. We run. In other words, hundreds of thousands of years of evolution urge us to get the hell off the stage, where we can mistake the gaze of the spectators for the glint in a predator's eye. Yet the audience expects not only that we'll stay put, but that we'll act relaxed and assured. This conflict between biology and protocol is one reason that speechmaking can be so fraught. It's also why exhortations to imagine the audience in the nude don't help nervous speakers; naked lions are just as dangerous as elegantly dressed ones.

She spends a lot of time talking about the high-reactive personality which is associated with introversion

(109-110) High-reactive children may be more likely to develop into artists and writers and scientists and thinkers because their aversion to novelty causes them to spend their time inside the familiar - and intellectually fertile - environment of their own heads. "The university is filled with introverts," observes the psychologist Jerry Miller, director of the Center for the Child and the Family at the University of Michigan. "The stereotype of the university professor is accurate for so many people on campus. They like to read; for them there's nothing more exciting than ideas."

Beyond Temperament

Discussing the extent to which we can control how introverted or extroverted we will become. Will taking a job that favours extroversion such as tax lawyer or TV presenter make us more extroverted

(118) Free will can take us far, suggests Dr. Schwartz's research, but it cannot carry us beyond our genetic limits. Bill Gates is never going to be Bill Clinton, no matter how he polishes his social skills, and Bill Clinton can never be Bill Gates, no matter how much time he spends alone with a computer.

We might call this the "rubber band theory" of personality. We are like rubber bands at rest. We are elastic and can stretch ourselves, but only so much.

Franklin Was a Politician but Eleanor Spoke Out of Conscience

On how introverts are better at showing empathy

(140) Some children, it turns out, feel a lot more guilty about their (supposed) transgressions than others. They look away, hug themselves, stammer out confessions, hide their faces. And its the kids we might call the most sensitive, the most high-reactive, the ones who are likely to be introverts, who feel the guiltiest. Being unusually sensitive to all experience, both positive and negative, they seem to feel both the sorrow of the woman whose toy is broken and the anxiety of having done something bad.

In our culture, guilt is a tainted word. Bt it's probably one of the building blocks of conscience.

Why Did Warren Buffet Prosper?

On how the high proportion of extroverts (with a fondness for risk and instant gratification) who work in the financial industry may be partly responsible for the 2008 crisis.

(176) Warren Buffett, the legendary investor and one of the wealthiest men in the world, has used exactly the attributes we explored in this chapter - intellectual persistence, prudent thinking, and the ability to see and act on warning signs - to make billions of dollars for himself and the shareholders in his company, Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett is known for thinking carefully when those around him are losing their heads. "Success in investing doesn't correlate with IQ," he has said. "Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing."

Soft Power

On how Eastern cultures tend not to share the extrovert ideal. One of the many tools she uses is to compare proverbs from both cultures.

(118)

From the East:

"The wind howls but the mountain remains still" - Japanese proverb.
"Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know." - Laozi, Daodejing
"Even though I make no special attempt to observe the discipline of silence, living alone automatically makes me refrain from the sins of speech." Kamo No Chomei, 12th century Japanese recluse.

From the West:

"Be a craftsman in speech that thou mayest be strong, for the strength of one is the tongue, and speech is mightier than all fighting." - Maxims of Ptahhotep, 2400 BCE
"Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact - it is silence which isolates." Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
"The squeaky wheel gets the grease."

When Should You Act More Extroverted

(209) Introverts are capable of acting like extroverts for the sake of work they consider important, people they love, or anything they value highly. Free Trait Theory explains why an introvert may throw his extroverted wife a surprise party or join the PTA at his daughter's school. It explains how it's possible for an extroverted scientist to behave with reserve in her laboratory, for an agreeable person to act hard-nosed during a business negotiation, and for a cantankerous uncle to treat his niece tenderly when he takes her out for ice cream. As these examples suggest, Free Trait Theory applies in many different contexts but it's especially relevant for introverts living under the Extrovert Ideal.

The Communication Gap

Here;s the first paragraph of a chapter on how introverts and extroverts can get along with each other

(224) If introverts and extroverts are the north and south of temperament - opposite ends of a single spectrum - then how can they possibly get along? Yet the two types are often drawn to each other - in friendship, business and especially romance. These pairs can enjoy great excitement and mutual admiration, a sense that each completes the other. One tends to listen, the other to talk; one is sensitive to beauty, but also to slings and arrows, while the other barrels cheerfully through his days; one pays the bills and the other arranges the children's play dates.

On Cobblers and Generals

This is also the beginning of a chapter.

(241) Mark Twain once told a story about a man who scoured the planet looking for the greatest general who ever lived. When the man was informed that the person he sought had already died and gone to heaven, he made a trip to the pearly gates to look at him. Saint Peter pointed at a regular-looking Joe.

"That isn't the greatest of all generals," protested the man. "I knew that person when he lived on Earth, and he was only a cobbler."

"I know that," said Saint Peter, "but if he had been a general, he would have been the greatest of them all."

We should all look out for cobblers who might have been great generals. Which means focusing on introverted children, whose talents are too often stifled, whether at home, at school, or on the playground.

Conclusion

(264) Love is essential; gregariousness is optional. Cherish your nearest and dearest. Work with colleagues you like and respect. Scan your acquaintances for those who might fall into those categories or whose company you enjoy for its own sake. And don't worry about socializing with everyone else. Relationships make everyone happier, introverts included, but think quality over quantity.

(267) We know from myths and fairy tales that there are many different kinds of powers in this world. One child is given a light saber, another a wizard's education. The trick is not to amass all the different kinds of power, but to use well the kind you've been granted. Introverts are offered keys to private gardens full of riches. To possess such a key is to tumble like Alice down her rabbit hole. She didn't choose to go to Wonderland - but she made of it an adventure that was fresh and fantastic and very much her own.

Lewis Carroll was an introvert too by the way, without him there would be no Alice in Wonderland. And by now, this shouldn't surprise us.

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Comment by LLY on September 7, 2012 at 9:21am: What a great article! I read it over. I guess I am most like a secret extrovert! Thanks!

Comment by Kev on September 5, 2012 at 11:30am: Well I'll be!

I had no idea she was such a milf.

Comment by Ellie on September 5, 2012 at 10:13am: Susan Cain is soooooo adorable! Did you see her TED talk?

That's all I gots to say

Comment by Wandering Cat on September 4, 2012 at 9:46pm: Sigh, such a long essay! Skipped the text body and jumped to the conclusion. Agreed. And I do not really like Van Gogh's paintings. ;-)

According to the text in your previous discussion, I am an ambivert.

Comment by Drunken beauty on September 4, 2012 at 9:22pm: :-p Love to read something like this!

It's not something that just touches the surface only, and with all the empty big talks!