TLTOE and The Ethnic Theory Behind Plane Crashes

Hey guys - I haven't finished either book yet but I am about halfway through both. I have to admit that I'm having a hard time getting through TLTOE, and recently it's become even more difficult since I started reading Gladwell's Outliers.

The first half of The Last Town on Earth has seemed rather depressing to me (and this isn't to say that it shouldn't be - clearly it's a novel about a flu epidemic during war time), and I agree with Ruth that there are definitely parallels to the war today. I find it interesting that the feeling of fear that Mullen creates affected me the same way as some of the characters. Like some of the characters, however, I'm getting a little bit restless and impatient with the book and the quarantine, and waiting for SOMETHING interesting to happen. I feel like I could summarize the plot of the 200 or so pages that I've read in a few sentences. However, I do appreciate the way that Mullen created a moral dilemma for the characters that I felt carried over to the reader with the "interaction" of the first soldier. Without giving too much away, this conflict inadvertently reminded me of conversations that I've had with others regarding capital punishment and the central question, "Do you have the moral obligation or right to kill a person if their being alive threatens the lives of others?". Regardless of your answer to this, going even further with this question, I wonder if I personally would take someone else's life if I was in this situation. This could be politically shaky ground to cover with residents though, and I'd be curious to know how you all feel. From what I've read so far (and from what I've heard from others who have read the book), TLTOE is much more about the internal conflicts of the characters than about the plot anyways, and so I'll read on with this in mind.

When I turned to the chapter "The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes" in Outliers, I was almost too engrossed in Gladwell's arguments about everything I had read so far to think about the fact that I was on a plane flying over the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Fortunately, I was not flying Korean Air, so I read on.

I think that the idea that conflicting cultural norms are partially to blame for things such as plane crashes AND the idea of low and high power distance index are both really interesting and definitely seem valid. One other example of this that I thought of was being a backseat driver. My grandmother, for example, who is 88 years old has the opposite problem of many other elderly drivers. You would probably never sit behind her on the road wondering if your speedometer was broken because it was registering so low. She speeds around the country roads of New England where she's lived for over 60 years and generally stops a little too far into the intersection (past the stop signs or into the crosswalks) than I'm comfortable with. Being 69 years her junior, however, I generally feel uncomfortable saying anything about her driving, and just sit and grit my teeth.

This may be a bit of a stretch, but do you think that a similar idea can be applied to the teacher-student relationship? For example, I came from a school system where I would rarely be expected to call teachers Mr. or Mrs. I'm not sure if it was a direct result of this, but I always felt like I had a close relationship with them and was comfortable asking more questions or debating points that they may have brought up. I saw my teachers more as classroom discussion facilitators than lecturers, which I personally liked. Do you think that the teacher's choice to go by their first name allows a closer connection to students and allows more participation and/or discussions and a stronger professional relationship, or does it simply show a lack of professionalism on the teacher's part and a lack of respect by the student? Just curious.