Analysis Of The Book ' Gladwell '

The Citadel symbolizes the enduring nature of traditional gender roles. It has fought long and hard to maintain an air of strictness, military refinement and manliness. However the traditional views enforced by the Citadel and its interaction within the context of the outside world has created what Susan Faludi, author of “The Naked Citadel”, refers to as an “atmosphere of cruelty”. Throughout her essay Faludi uses primary witnesses and factual evidence to expose the violent injustices done to “knobs”, freshman cadets, by their senior counterparts at The Citadel. In his essay, “The Power of Context”, Malcolm Gladwell, argues that violence results as a response to social context and thus can be completely avoided or treated. Based on Gladwell 's theory of The Power of Context, the senior cadets are not directly culpable for their violent behavior; their actions do not create the “atmosphere of cruelty” rather the atmosphere defines them. The “atmosphere of cruelty” itself, is defined by social cues derived from historical context which prompt the cadets to dominate. The walls surrounding, The Citadel also perpetuate violence by separating the cadets from normal social conventions and boundaries. However because the “atmosphere of cruelty”, is not a problem caused by some innate or psychological instability on the part of the cadets, it can easily be treated by adjusting little things in the environment such as eliminating the use of derogatory language and presenting the

Throughout The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell explains to his reader his ideas about drastic changes in society, and how they seem to occur so rapidly. In this particular selection, Gladwell emphasizes the purpose of “connectors”, saying that they have a “special gift for bringing the world together (page 38)”. Gladwell states that part of the reason information or trends spread like wildfire is the presence of a specific group of people. They are called “connecters”, and they are people who know, or are connected to, people of “different worlds (page 51)”, and bring them together. In his book, The Tipping Point, Gladwell uses different forms of persuasion, rhetorical questions, and organization to

Society is stocked full of various trends and epidemics. To many, the way in which these trends start is a mystery. As members of a society, we often subconsciously take part in these patterns without questioning our participation. Therefore, people continue to ignore the drastic changes in society, and the reasons why they occur so swiftly. There is a lack of motivation to take a step back and inquire about society as a whole, and rethink one’s actions. In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell effectively discusses and analyzes how and why ideas spread throughout societies using the rhetorical appeals, ethos, pathos and logos.

Criminal case is always tedious when it involves little or no information about the offender, like in the 9/11 terrorist attack which annihilated most of the workers in and damaged the New York Trade Center building. However, in an attempt to identify the offenders, government officials and investigators try out different ways such as criminal profiling and others. Thus, in the New Yorker article, “Dangerous Minds” by Malcolm Gladwell; the author informs the deeper problems with FBI profiling and argues that it is ineffective. He questions the usefulness of criminal profiling, “But how useful is that profile, really?” and uses other criminal cases, group research analyses, and analogies to refute

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking is a book written by Malcolm Gladwell. This book introduces the concept of “thin slicing”. The concept refers to how in a split second or blink of an eye people can make an unconscious and accurate assessment of someone. Using the concept of thin slicing we can determine what is really important within the first few seconds when meeting someone. Malcolm Gladwell explained that first impressions or spontaneous decisions can be just as important as decisions that are made carefully and planned out. According to Gladwell, people make better decisions with quick judgments than they do with a lot of analysis. Gladwell believes that the power

Visual media, such as the computer and television distract people from the natural world, and instead blinds them from reality. Fahrenheit 451 exposes the idea that mass visual media initiates problems of violence, unawareness, and ignorance. The advanced technology causes the people of society to stray farther away from reality, and they become trapped in their own world of unawareness. Thus, unlike in nature where everything is free, the advanced technology confines people within the boundaries that technology allows. The boundaries created by visual media imprison the people of society into a world of mental incapacity and illiteracy. This unfamiliarity with the world, shown by numerous characters, shows how society is negligent. For

Malcolm Gladwell’s book “David and Goliath” describe the stories of underdogs. In the chapter 2, he explains the story about Vivek Ranadivé who decided to coach his daughter’s no experienced basketball team. Malcolm told a fantastic story about how a father who has no basketball experience helped her daughter’s basketball won the game. The points somehow convinced me because the father really changed their team’s weakness to the advantage. This shows that sometimes have resources or preponderances are not good things. Try everything and don't give up easily, because the results are unpredictable. Notwithstanding, the story is really convincing but there are some points in the book let me feel skeptical to the book. The girls won the game use

Montag is someone who is shy and keeps his thoughts to himself, but thinks many things. He shows that he is distracted instead of being happy throughout the book. At the time, he was walking home from work and was looking at Clarisse. Clarisse is a girl who would roam the streets and was also Montag's neighbor. She walks over to Guy and they start to have a conversation while walking to their houses. They discussing if talking about to see if Montag is really happy or if he was lying. She keeps questioning him. Bradbury explains “He was not happy. He was not happy. He said the words to himself. He recognized this as true state affairs. He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run across the lawn with the mask and the way

Book-burning is the first thing that is explained about this future based society of Fahrenheit 451. Burning books is the obliteration of the single thought on paper or in one word- censorship. Books are considered evil because they make people question and think. All intellectual curiosity and thirst for knowledge must be quelled for the good of the state — for the good of conformity. Without ideas, everyone conforms, and as a result, everyone should be happy. When books and new ideas are available to people, conflict and unhappiness occur. Some of the many different motifs in the novel Fahrenheit 451 are conveyed through the use of various sardonic lines and connotations planted throughout the book. On the matter of technology and modernization it explains how TV reigns supreme in the future because of the "happiness" it offers. People are content when they don’t have to think, or so the story goes. TV aside, technology is the government’s means of oppression, but also provides the renegade’s opportunity to subvert. Rules and order is another popular topic written into the book. It is stated that “All books can be beaten down with reason.” This was said by Captain Betty, a quote ironically coming from a book itself. Much of the restrictions on the general populous are self-enforced. The government has taken away the citizens’ ability to dissent and marred all dissatisfaction with a cheap version of "happiness," a.k.a. TV. This means

Does social media “shrink the world” by bringing us closer together? In his article Small Change, Malcom Gladwell asserts that social media might be connecting more people, but the bonds it forms allow us to stay comfortably separate and avoid impacting meaningful social reform. Gladwell makes it apparent that he believes social media and revolutions are unsuited for each other. His article, written just two months before the beginning of the Arab Spring, was written in response to what some contemporaries have dubbed, “The Twitter Revolution” in Moldova. This revolution, as well as another in Iran, was heralded as examples of the merits of social media, with some even nominating Twitter for the Nobel Peace Prize due to their belief that Twitter had played a major role in these uprisings. Gladwell writes against a sentiment of righteousness and accomplishment that advocates of social media maintain in an attempt to convince people that the true motivation behind social change is conviction. He raises the point that while it is exceedingly easy for someone to join a cause, such as hitting a ‘like’ button, it is far more effortless for them to quit. This sentiment seems to be fueled mostly by opinion, looking only at how social media did not cause revolutions and avoiding analysis regarding how

Gladwell’s overall writing style in Outliers managed to convey his message using formal yet simple diction and mostly uncomplicated syntax. His writing was symbolic at times, but also quite literal at others. The book was relatable, memorable, and easy to understand. He uses some rhetorical devices, such as this polysyndeton: “he’s tall and gawky and sixteen years old” (Gladwell 42). He also used other literary devices, such as dialogue: “‘it came out of the blue’” (Gladwell 248). These devices added complexity and depth and also caught my attention. They are key to writing a book that keeps the reader interested and helps them pay attention to and remember key details. The impact of organizing the book into “Part 1: Opportunity” and “Part 2: Legacy” was that it showed there was a clear division between the two parts of achieving success. Having this distinction helps the reader to learn each concept and in the end, be able to understand the overall theme. For opportunity, he describes how opportunities need to emerge in order for success to be reached, such as how “[t]heir world—their culture and generation and family history—gave them the greatest of opportunities” (Gladwell 158) in the case of many people. Gladwell distinguishes the two parts of the book in part two, saying that so far, we have seen that “success arises out of the steady accumulation of advantages… [that] all make a significant difference in how well you do in the world. The question for the second part

In Blink by Malcolm Gladwell presents and creates very fascinating terminologies to describe split-Second processes that human mind undergoes to make important decisions. One of the term that he uses in Blink is “thin slicing”. Malcolm Gladwell defines this term as “the ability of our conscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slice of experince”(23). What this means is your brain is able to “subconsciously gathers the necessary information for sophisticated Judgments”(23) from previous experience. In Blink Gladwell presents a lot of examples to make you better understand the meaning of thin slicing and when it takes place. Also In are lifes we use thin slicing in daily basis but we do not know when thin slicing

In Malcolm Gladwell’s latest non- fiction “phenomenon”, Blink, the staff writer for The New Yorker attempts to answer that very question with the books repetitive nature and abundance of anecdotes to make the reader comprehend and recognize “The power of thinking without thinking“. However, the techniques that are used do very little to answer the question. He leaves a large amount of grey space in what, as a nonfiction book, should either be black or white; should we trust in our instincts and live by our intuition? Or should we stick to thinking through matters

In Malcolm Gladwell's novel Blink, the author conveys a message on the significance and power of our snap judgements and split second decisions. He explains the influential strength of our subconscious that controls our intuitions and perceptions that translates into our daily actions. These daily actions occur via thorough thinking or through a simple technique Gladwell calls, “thin-slicing”. Specifically, this technique showcases how an individual can extract in depth details about a situation, only given a snapshot of a given scenario. Gladwell explains, “If he [researcher John Gottman] analyzes an hour of a husband and wife talking, he can predict with 95 percent accuracy whether that couple will still be married fifteen years later. If we watched a couple for fifteen minutes, his success rate is around 90 percent.” From this, Gladwell expands to educate his readers on how to exploit these instincts in order to live our lives more efficiently. Or, in his words, to “think without thinking”. However, Gladwell does outline the dangers of thin slicing when done inaccurately exemplified by fatal police shootings conducted by officers who’ve misjudged a situation such as Amanda Diallo’s case. Additionally, thin-slicing can backlash when individuals are racist or prejudice. Overall, Gladwell provides his readers with a wholesome perspective on thin-slicing before stating his opinion on the benefits and successes of utilizing our natural human intuitions to live more

Perhaps one of the most important points made by Gladwell in this book is that neither analytical nor intuitive thinking is good or bad. But under chaotic conditions, the lesser the information available, the better because information overload can delay decisions, and under pressure, delayed decisions are worse than bad decisions. Gladwell illustrates this with an astonishing example of an experiment where sales of a jam shop were as high as thirty percent more when they had only six types of jam than when they had twenty four.