Comments on: The danger of a single story

The danger of a single story

peacheater — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 12:30:10 -0800

Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie on the danger of defining a place or a people by a single story. From TEDGlobal 2009 and via Feministe.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 12:46:31 -0800

Very interesting. (The interactive transcripts really save a lot of time, and you can skip to a certain point if you want to hear what they actually say. I wish all videos had that, but I'm sure they're somewhat expensive to produce.)

By: idiopath

idiopath — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 13:35:10 -0800

I have heard of this more generally as the problem of "exampling" - unless you can show enough examples to represent the variety, only one example can be worse than none at all. Of course this is a completely different kind of problem when talking about peoples ideas of whole countries of people than when talking about a new concept, but it seems like the same principle is in effect.

By: HTuttle

HTuttle — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 16:23:14 -0800

'Single' story?

By: peacheater

peacheater — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 16:36:25 -0800

'Single' story? I don't understand your question.

By: rebent

rebent — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 17:28:36 -0800

great talk. I know that when I hear a single story about something, it really sticks with me and alters my view.

By: furiousxgeorge

furiousxgeorge — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 17:36:22 -0800

Yes, I agree. It is a bad idea to generalize large geographic areas and groups of people via isolated stories.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 17:58:26 -0800

A Basket of Leaves: 99 Books that Capture the Spirit of Africa Is 99 enough?

By: blue shadows

blue shadows — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 00:09:56 -0800

Excellent, thank you. "The problem with stereotypes is not that they are not true but that they are incomplete."