George Gladwell And The American Dream

The idea of the American dream revolves around attaining happiness, success and equality. For higher wealth classes obtaining these components aren't a concern; but for many, the American Dream has become a nightmare. For the poor being able to obtain simple necessities such as food, clothing and shelter is a daily struggle. The price of being poor is a lot costlier then those in the realm of the wealthy. Based on the current economic and social systems in America it does not provide everyone with a fair chance to achieve the “American Dream”. In todays society many Americans believe money is the only way to happiness. True or not true, money certainly isn't a hindrance to obtaining the necessary components for survival. But if the American Dream is no longer about happiness and freedom it becomes solely about wealth and possession. "Money cannot buy happiness." (Anonymous, Spring Board pg.81) represents the concept that money doesn't necessarily play apart in your emotional well-being. Today, materialism is more important than character. Money isn't everything; you don't need it to be happy and certainly not to achieve "The American Dream". In addition to that, although money can jump-start your future it can also drive you into the ground. Dana Gioia, the author of "Money", says "...Money holds heads above water..." Implying money plays a crucial part in keeping your dreams alive while America demands so much. Although finances are a building block to ones version of the

The author explains exactly what the professional asserts and how particular pieces of evidence relate to Gladwell’s unconventional idea of success.

For many researchers, the notion of Asian students are hereditary more intelligent than other race groups as believes by Arthur Jensen, an educational psychologist, is not a valid explanation for why Asian students perform better than their counterparts. While it is evident

“There is something profoundly wrong with the way we make sense of success” (Gladwell 18). In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell is trying to convince his audience that they misunderstand how people become successful. Many believe one only needs hard work and determination in order to achieve success. However, Gladwell complicates this idea by explaining that hard work and determination is not how people become successful and instead, it is all about the opportunities one is given that decides if he or she is successful or not. Gladwell uses the rhetorical appeals of pathos and ethos in order to persuade his audience to accept his idea of the process of becoming successful.

Lastly, Gladwell incorporates the audience’s interests to appeal to them in an emotional and engaging method in the subject of the argument, success. The goal for many is to be successful in their specific craft, and even from the title Outliers: The Story of Success Gladwell advertises his own story of success, and the audience believes if they follow the methods that successful people use then they will be successful too. Gladwell gives testimonies of people that would be predictably successful but never made it far due to not having a community to support them to open opportunities. He describes Chris Langan’s lack of credibility and success despite having a higher IQ than Albert Einstein and before he lets Langan describe a typical day

In the story “The Trouble with Talent: Are We Born Smart or Do We Get Smart?” by Kathy Seal explains the difference between Asian children and American children’s work ethic. Kathy explains the school systems in china work differently due to the fact that America has the idea that children are born with a set I.Q. while Asians believe that your intelligence is determined by hard work. The author of this story’s purpose is to persuade the reader by proving her thesis that intelligence is gained through hard work. She does this by using a multitude of valid evidence, having a strong thesis, and connecting with the reader though reader oriented language. The pattern of this essay is clearly a compare and contrast because the author looks at the difference between how Asian and American children are taught. She makes a strong point using the compare and contrast method by providing the reader with valid information on the American and Asian sides to point out that being smart happens though hard work and determination. Seal organizes this compare and contrast by making a point to point analysis of Asian and American culture.

Malcolm Gladwell is interested in what makes some people more successful than others. Overall, how would you describe his thesis, or central premise? Do you agree or disagree with his ideas?

Many people view success as merely hard work; dedicating oneself to something completely. Although the recipe for success involves this type of commitment, Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, opened up a new perspective. Although Gladwell states, “....If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires” (Gladwell 151), he adds that many other things affect one’s ability to succeed. In society today, individuals tend to look at the big prize instead of the path that led them to it. It was very interesting because many stories about success involve time and perseverance, but rarely luck. Outliers gave a refreshing and unique way of looking at how goals are really reached. While the book was in the 3rd person point of view, it was very entertaining because with every chapter came another story that contributed to Gladwell’s overall idea. Throughout the book, Gladwell purposely went into explicit detail to push readers to further visualize and picture themselves in the shoes of the “outliers”. His friendly tone and his narration of anecdotes help captivate the reader. Although his style of writing feels slightly informal, Gladwell is very sincere and wants the readers to understand the misperception of success. In doing so, Gladwell separated the book into two parts; Opportunity and Legacy. By dividing the book into two parts he gives the readers two viewpoints to the overall idea of success and links them

In summing up Gladwell’s argument, the lesson he forwards is very simple. If we continue to believe in the myth of the “self-made” individual, we will continually seek out some strange gifted individual that never existed. In order to be more effective as a society or better stated, a world community,

In “Thinking About Diversity”, Frank H. Wu details about his experiences as an Asian American. Wu says that, “some non-Asian students do, indeed, assume that I am gifted with mathematical, scientific, or computer-programming talents solely on account of my race” (Wu, 147), this concept shows the overview picture of Asians, but this does not apply to every Asians. The mathematic, science or computer programming is a universal subject that most industrialized places like Asia teach to students. Most Asian immigrants are familiar with those subjects because they already learn it back home and are able to do well on them, not because of a race. A race cannot provide a special intelligent to people, it’s just a different classify groups of people.

Not only does he uses the work of various other people to enhance his point, he adds multiple examples. He addresses the success of people such as Bill Gates and the Beatles and talks about how they became outliers while also using other examples to solidify his argument. While talking about Bill Gates and the Beatles, Gladwell emphasizes that they got the opportunity to get better, that “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” (42) Adding points such as that are what give him that

John Steinbeck, author of many classic American novels, greatly influenced modern American literature. Steinbeck often referred to the Salinas Valley of California in his writing. He often referred to the settlers and the adversities they had faced during the migration to the Salinas Valley area. With novels such as Of Mice And Men and The Grapes Of Wrath, Steinbeck explained the harsh reality of the severe hardships the settlers faced to accomplish the American Dream. These novels share many similarities in regard to their themes. To understand Steinbeck's work, we must first understand Steinbeck.

Essentially, the topics Gladwell covered in this book include are, being at the right place at the right time, the 10,000-hour rule, timing, upbringing, and pursuing a meaningful career. Although all of these have been proven by Gladwell to be a major component of success, I do not agree with the idea of a particular upbringing will determine success. With this idea, Malcolm also includes that

All Asian Americans are good at math, or at least that’s what I heard. They are also good at anything involving technology, science, and medicine. They study all the time, work really hard and live a version of the American dream I never thought to dream of. Afterall they’re Asian, their parents wouldn’t allow for anything less. In his article “The Harmful Myth of Asian Superiority” the ethnic studies expert Ronald Takaki writes about the idea that Asian Americans are more successful than other American minority groups. Takaki refutes this idea using reason and statistics to show that Asian Americans still face some of the same hardships and barriers as every other racially defined group in America.

Here Gladwell dives into the stereotypical question “Why are Asians so good at math?”. But really, there’s factual evidence to support the fact that Asians are very proficient in the subject. One reason why Asians are good at math is the Chinese numbers system is much easier to work with. For instance, if you ask an seven-year-old American child what the answer to thirty-seven plus twenty-two is with only using their head, they would have to first convert the words to numbers (37+22). Then they would do the math, 2 plus 7 is 9 and 30 plus 20 makes 50, so in total the answer would be 59. The Chinese number system is different, because if you asked an asian child the same question, you would ask them three-tens-seven and two-tens-two. It’s much