Using Enron as the foil for his argument, Malcolm Gladwell writes about mysteries as opposed to puzzles. He’s talking about situations where there is no magical missing piece, but instead we often have an overload of information, a tangle that requires finesse and interpretation that isn’t necessarily open-and-shut.

In the case of puzzles, we put the offending target, the C.E.O., in jail for twenty-four years and assume that our work is done. Mysteries require that we revisit our list of culprits and be willing to spread the blame a little more broadly. Because if you can’t find the truth in a mystery—even a mystery shrouded in propaganda—it’s not just the fault of the propagandist. It’s your fault as well.

There’s a couple related posts in his blog. Gladwell writes about the strange fact that Wall Street insiders–those with motivation to really care ($)–didn’t publicize the weirdness around Enron’s financial statements. Enter the journalist hero: “Maybe we have underestimated the value of impartial, professionally-motivated, under-paid and overworked generalists in tackling the kind of information-rich, analysis-dependent ‚Äúmysteries‚Äù that the modern world throws at us.”