On an episode of the television show "Seinfeld," George Costanza asks Cosmo Kramer whether he should call his ex-girlfriend. Kramer replies: "Now what does the Little Man inside you say? See, you gotta listen to the Little Man. The Little Man knows all." George retorts: "My Little Man’s an idiot!!"
On the surface, this exchange would seem to encapsulate the differences between Malcolm Gladwell’s argument in Blink and Steven Levitt’s argument in Freakonomics….
Gladwell appears to be arguing for quick, shoot-from-the-hip thinking: trusting one’s Little Man or Woman. Levitt, by contrast, seems to say that we must proceed systematically, analyzing the numbers to strip away the nonsense in everyday thinking.
