by JULIET WATERS

In Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcom Gladwell writes about the Implicit Associations Test (IAT), a controversial computer test that reveals our unconscious preferences. Gladwell, a staff writer for the New Yorker, took the test and was horrified to discover that it revealed a strong, unconscious preference for white faces over black ones. A disturbing discovery, but one that shouldn’t be much of a shock. The vast majority of white liberals blow this test. Except that Gladwell isn’t white. His mother’s Jamaican.

Confronting unconscious racism wasn’t a subject I expected from this book. The title, and especially the subtitle, suggests more of a guide on how to live with less of the brain clutter that arises from life in an information society. Still, Gladwell has something to offer readers suffering from brain overload. It’s his comforting assertion that Western science places too much emphasis on the process of information gathering. The human brain is better designed than we assume to “thin-slice”—that is, to focus only on the information it needs. “Just how we manage to do this—and how we can structure our world to improve our thin-slicing abilities—is the story of Blink.” Read Blink as a series of stories, rather than as a guide, and like a good novel, it communicates insight in ways that are difficult to explain.

There are stories of spectacular success in rapid understanding: an expert who can predict the success or failure of a marriage from a few minutes of conversation, and a legendary anthropologist who has studied facial expressions so religiously that he can pretty much mind read. There are stories of huge and tragic failures of gut instinct: the election of Warren Harding, an irresistibly attractive man, generally considered to be the worst U.S. president in history, and the police shooting of a unarmed black immigrant who was trying to pull out his wallet. Woven throughout are conundrums that yield interesting answers and the kind of questions that lead to other ones. This is why, in the end, if you’re looking for a book that will lead you to less thinking, Blink isn’t it.

Example: I’m not sure what compelled my visit to an IAT Web site, probably just the masochism of a chronically guilty white liberal. But I was indeed, shocked. Shocked to discover that I’m not a racist. According to this test I like blacks and whites equally. And according to other tests, I’m also not sexist, ageist or homophobic (I do show a slight preference for heterosexuals. But, hey, I’m a breeder.) What could explain my remarkable gift for egalitarianism? One suggestion Gladwell comes up with for becoming better thin-slicers, at least on the IAT score, is to spend more time with blacks. In one anecdote, someone was able to boost their black preference scores by spending a morning watching track and field. But that wouldn’t explain me, a book critic who probably doesn’t spend enough time around people in general, let alone people of colour.

I had a better theory. It’s just like Michael Moore theorized in Bowling for Columbine. I don’t live in a country where I’m constantly bombarded with scary news about angry blacks. Clearly, it was because I’m Canadian. I wasn’t sure how this would explain my strong test scores in other areas, but who cared. After reading Blink, I didn’t need much information anymore. I just knew.

Or I did, until I took the last test. I wasn’t going to bother. It seemed like such a no-brainer. But the IAT had become like a slot machine, paying off in smugness. What could be the harm in one more little test? That’s when I discovered that there is one group of people I unconsciously despise: Canadians. Or at least I despise them compared to Americans. In a blink, there I was once again. Just another self-doubting Canuck with too much to think.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown, hc, 304pp, $37.95