Sunday, September 11, 2016
Bios, autobios and bias
My first thought was that autobiographies are always better, because you get to hear from the horse's mouth, or horse's pen so to say (that'a a horrible metaphor- hooves cannot possibly manipulate pens). An honest autobio would tell you the real internal motivations for certain decisions, and the real circumstances that led to what we outwardly know about outcomes regarding the person. In biographies, I would tend to second guess the biographer. We are relying on the biographer to draw the link between cause and effect in the life of another person.
Some candid moments, which good autobios should be filled with, give you quite a remarkable peep into lives of the writer:
1) Phil Knight in Shoe Dog about his first meeting with Onitsuka in Kobe, in the course of which he imported shoes worth $50:
"Blue Ribbon", I blurted,"Gentlemen, I represent Blue Ribbon Sports of Portland, Organo".
2) Agassi in Open about being forced to log unreasonable hours of tennis, and about his father:
"I hate tennis, I hate it with all my heart, and yet still keep playing, keep hitting all morning, all afternoon"..."what the fuck are you doing? stop thinking. when my father catches me thinking, daydreaming, on the tennis court, he reacts as if he caught me taking money from his wallet"...."no one asked me if i wanted to play tennis, let alone make it my life"; his father imposing his dreams on his kid- "...he went to the Games in Helsinki. He did not do well. Later, he said- but maybe they will make tennis an Olympic sport and my son will win a gold medal"
3) Wozniak in iWoz about his science projects from Grade 1 to Grade 10, about his father being a Lockheed engineer, about resistors and capacitors lying scattered around in the house, about his motivations for staying on in HP and what in his mind made him love HP as an employer. Reading iWoz gives a great understanding of his values and life, which are I would say those of an ideal engineer. Every engineer should read this book in the first year of college. I will enrich this para with real excerpts once i get back the book from a friend who's borrowed it.
Biographies, on the other hand, are colored by the glasses of the biographer. Thomas Cromwell, feted as a messiah of renaissance, scientific temper and upward mobility for repressed professions in Wolf Hall, was earlier depicted in what was till Wolf Hall the most famous book on Cromwell, "The man for all Seasons", as "the villain and representing all that is evil and bad" and unscrupulous and ambitious". Therefore, there is the biographer's bias to contend with.
However, are Autobios always honest? Business autobios I strongly suspect, on this count. Phil Knight's autobio has the Nike Swoosh symbol on its cover, strongly wedding it to the cause of Nike stock price and shoe sales. The book was criticized for staying mum on the subject of inhuman conditions of sweatshops in South Asia, on which Nike has drawn societal flak. The contents of that autobio have a direct bearing on the Nike stock price- An inspirational story would create a welling of positivity in the reader towards Nike, making her biased towards a Nike purchase thereon. Any whiff of a controversy in the book, the media would pick it up and create a loud ruckus and the reader would have a bad aftertaste after reading, reader-bloggers like me will write about it in fits of pompous corporate self righteousness, leading to direct negative impact on sales and stock price. It is downright irresponsible to hurt all the employees of Nike and their families by saying something unsavory in the book, even if it is the truth.
Therefore, the answer, in summary: look for biographers who knew the subject well enough to be able to strongly understand the links between causes and effects in a person's life, and thus imbue the book with real personal color. And take corporate autobios with a pinch of salt.
On a separate note, there's a survivorship bias with biographies and autobiographies. You get to hear only about the lives of the heavy hitters- the Peter Thiels and the Andre Agassis of the world. However, it is likely that even if you aim to be Peter Thiel or Andre Agassi, you would end up not as successful and not as famous - you'll be somewhat well off in life. There is no place to read autobiographies of such people, who've aimed for the stars but due to circumstance or their own choosing settled for say the moon. But wait, is there not a treasure trove of living-breathing autobiographies all around you? In real life, most people you actually meet - colleagues, batchmates, are in this boat. So you hear about their life stories, their forks in life. Get sonderous with them (sonder: the realization that every passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own).
Some candid moments, which good autobios should be filled with, give you quite a remarkable peep into lives of the writer:
1) Phil Knight in Shoe Dog about his first meeting with Onitsuka in Kobe, in the course of which he imported shoes worth $50:
"Blue Ribbon", I blurted,"Gentlemen, I represent Blue Ribbon Sports of Portland, Organo".
2) Agassi in Open about being forced to log unreasonable hours of tennis, and about his father:
"I hate tennis, I hate it with all my heart, and yet still keep playing, keep hitting all morning, all afternoon"..."what the fuck are you doing? stop thinking. when my father catches me thinking, daydreaming, on the tennis court, he reacts as if he caught me taking money from his wallet"...."no one asked me if i wanted to play tennis, let alone make it my life"; his father imposing his dreams on his kid- "...he went to the Games in Helsinki. He did not do well. Later, he said- but maybe they will make tennis an Olympic sport and my son will win a gold medal"
3) Wozniak in iWoz about his science projects from Grade 1 to Grade 10, about his father being a Lockheed engineer, about resistors and capacitors lying scattered around in the house, about his motivations for staying on in HP and what in his mind made him love HP as an employer. Reading iWoz gives a great understanding of his values and life, which are I would say those of an ideal engineer. Every engineer should read this book in the first year of college. I will enrich this para with real excerpts once i get back the book from a friend who's borrowed it.
Biographies, on the other hand, are colored by the glasses of the biographer. Thomas Cromwell, feted as a messiah of renaissance, scientific temper and upward mobility for repressed professions in Wolf Hall, was earlier depicted in what was till Wolf Hall the most famous book on Cromwell, "The man for all Seasons", as "the villain and representing all that is evil and bad" and unscrupulous and ambitious". Therefore, there is the biographer's bias to contend with.
However, are Autobios always honest? Business autobios I strongly suspect, on this count. Phil Knight's autobio has the Nike Swoosh symbol on its cover, strongly wedding it to the cause of Nike stock price and shoe sales. The book was criticized for staying mum on the subject of inhuman conditions of sweatshops in South Asia, on which Nike has drawn societal flak. The contents of that autobio have a direct bearing on the Nike stock price- An inspirational story would create a welling of positivity in the reader towards Nike, making her biased towards a Nike purchase thereon. Any whiff of a controversy in the book, the media would pick it up and create a loud ruckus and the reader would have a bad aftertaste after reading, reader-bloggers like me will write about it in fits of pompous corporate self righteousness, leading to direct negative impact on sales and stock price. It is downright irresponsible to hurt all the employees of Nike and their families by saying something unsavory in the book, even if it is the truth.
Therefore, the answer, in summary: look for biographers who knew the subject well enough to be able to strongly understand the links between causes and effects in a person's life, and thus imbue the book with real personal color. And take corporate autobios with a pinch of salt.
On a separate note, there's a survivorship bias with biographies and autobiographies. You get to hear only about the lives of the heavy hitters- the Peter Thiels and the Andre Agassis of the world. However, it is likely that even if you aim to be Peter Thiel or Andre Agassi, you would end up not as successful and not as famous - you'll be somewhat well off in life. There is no place to read autobiographies of such people, who've aimed for the stars but due to circumstance or their own choosing settled for say the moon. But wait, is there not a treasure trove of living-breathing autobiographies all around you? In real life, most people you actually meet - colleagues, batchmates, are in this boat. So you hear about their life stories, their forks in life. Get sonderous with them (sonder: the realization that every passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own).
Labels: Books
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