The 's Bargain, And The Trouble With Geniuses

Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Outliers, a novel depicting success, provides different examples of how an individual can achieve success in every chapter of his book to show his audience that success, despite a variety of barriers, is in fact in our control. A very important chapter titled, “Marita's Bargain”, explains the flaws in today’s public school systems. He shows the problems with the solutions to fix them while showing the alternatives to the regular system such as the KIPP Program in New York. The KIPP Program (Knowledge is Power Program) is a new kind of middle school that selects students from less fortunate locations and uses unique teaching strategies to turn them around into fantastic learners. In the chapter, Gladwell is extremely descriptive by using visual words to paint the picture of the South Bronx in New York City. He describes the buildings that were built in the 1960’s as squat and bleak looking. Gladwell had an interest in this subject as it involves success, however he had no prior experiences to produce the piece. Gladwell establishes personal credibility through the use of knowledge, reason, and facts and figures. He comes across very knowledgeable on the subject presenting great data with excellent vocabulary. He is able to do this with no obvious bias as well. Gladwell shows authority because he is well known for writing novels that involve success. His intention is to teach and explain how schools need to change the length of vacation breaks

Gladwell describes what makes some people more successful than others. His central premise focuses on the different opportunities that people receive throughout their lives and how those people use the opportunities to their advantage or disadvantage. Gladwell describes this theory as the Matthew Effect:

In his book Outliers: the Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell discusses successful people, and what it is in their lives that make them successful. While many believe that it is one’s intelligence and personality that allows them to succeed, Gladwell argues that it is the environment they live in. The author provides numerous examples that support his argument, including the people of Roseto who rarely die of heart disease, sports players born at a certain time of the year that are highly accomplished, the importance of culture in airplane pilots, and many more. Out of all the various people doing extraordinary things described by Gladwell, a certain individual caused me to stop and think. Christopher Langan is known as the smartest man in America. With an IQ of 195, Langan is a clear example of what is referred to in Gladwell’s book as an outlier. His cognitive abilities are far higher than than that of the average person, who possesses an average IQ of 100. Langan should be a highly successful man, but he isn’t. Chapters 3 and 4 of Outliers explores why Langan, who is possibly the most intelligent person in the world, has accomplished nothing more than what an average person will accomplish in his or her lifetime. This inspired me to further examine people like Langan, and why they weren’t as successful as they were expected to be.

Within chapter four, Gladwell introduces two different types of intelligence; practical and analytical, both in which influence our success. He claims that practical intelligence is something one is not born with, but instead, a reflection of one’s cultural advantages. For example, Oppenheimer attained the skill of practical intelligence because he always knew what to say, when it was appropriate to say it, and knew how to get what he wanted through people. Oppenheimer was taught to be a social savvy through concerted cultivation because his parents had fostered him to be assertive and question authority. We see in chapter four that being a social savvy and having practical intelligence is “a set of skills that have to be learned. It has to come from somewhere . . . get these kinds of attitudes and skills is from our families” (Gladwell, 102). Another intelligence Gladwell introduces is analytical intelligence. Langan and Oppenheimer both acquired this skill. It was intelligence within your genes. Gladwell describes analytical intelligence as a mental process that is expressed through our intelligence. Gladwell states that it’s in “your genes . . . he was born smart. IQ is a measure, to some degree” (Gladwell, 102). These two types of intelligence affect and influence one’s ability to succeed because intelligence refers back to

To start, in chapter 4 of Outliers, Gladwell describes a genius by the name of Christopher Langan. His IQ is 195 and he is considered one of the smartest men in America. Take a look at his accomplishments. He doesn’t have many, and for a very distinct reason. The reason is he doesn’t have anyone to help him; he never did. Growing up, Langan’s family struggled with being poor. His parents never helped him that much while he was developing, so therefore he never learned to take initiative and to work hard. Compare him to Einstein. Einstein’s IQ, being significantly lower, accomplished so much in both the science and academia fields. Einstein had much help to bring him to the position he was in, allowing him

Through certain analogies, Gladwell tries to convince the reader that opportunities matter more than anything. Talent is talent, but if you aren't given opportunities to express your talent then what good is it? One analogy that Gladwell used was the example of Chris Langan who is considered to be the smartest man in the world with his 195 IQ level almost doubling the average persons IQ level. Gladwell goes on explaining how Langan has a higher IQ than Albert Einstein. Langan who was a competitor on One Versus One Hundred reached 250,000 dollars on the show and stopped at that point because he had realized the risks of losing it all were greater than the overall benefits of staying in. Given this great opportunity Langan takes the 250,000 dollars over continuing on, which through his calculations was the better decision.

The example he uses in the book that stood out the most to me was the example of Bill Joy and his computer programming. Being born in the right year for when computers were just becoming popular would be very important for someone who wanted to become a big shot programmer. Gladwell explains that Joy eats, breathes, and sleeps computers. That he would often spend all day and night programming, and that it was all he ever thought about. For Babe Didriksen, she was born in a time where females were supposed to be at home with the children, cooking and cleaning.

A child’s abnormally high IQ may trigger thoughts of undoubted success for many of us, but Outliers shows us that many with unbridled promise fail to deliver. This study shows that almost all “geniuses” that fail to complete post-secondary degrees have one glaring trait in common: socioeconomic status. Gladwell presents the case of Chris Langan, a man who’s IQ nears 200 and taught himself to read by age four. Langan spend his adult years as a bouncer and later ran a horse farm. This is hardly dignified work for “the smartest man in America.” Langan’s only mistake was growing up poor. Gladwell compares Langan with Robert Oppenheimer, architect of the atomic bomb. While both were extremely intelligent, only Oppenheimer grew up affluent and gained necessary skills needed to succeed. While Langan had difficultly figuring out the procedures necessary to fill-out financial-aid forms in college, Oppenheimer was raised to learn social niceties. The author goes into great detail explaining how the experiences provided to Oppenheimer through family wealth helped separate him from a fate all-to-often

Gladwell had several ideas he had based people’s successes on, one of which were their skills. He focused on whether a person was capable of being successful in their career path. Not just their IQ, or their ability to perform a task well, but whether their social skills were also capable or not. Gladwell states that it is not possible to make it far alone, so he would check to see if an individual wasn’t an awkward loner who excelled in only academically. Gladwell would not only look at SAT scores and how well they did in school, but look at how creative or innovative an individual was.

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

“The Matthew Effect” in Gladwell’s Outliers is an assessment on the reasons of high levels of success. “The Matthew Effect” Is the observations of successful people who have gain more while people who lack something find it harder to achieve. It describes people who already have reputation are often positioned in situations where they gain more recognition and those that do not have reputation usually struggle to accomplish more. In addition, children who gain reading skills early as a result, find other areas of education easier to understand compared to the children who do not gain reading skills in an early age.

One of the disadvantages in the selection was that Gladwell mainly focused on Math and reading-skills scores, and that was partially wrong. He should have included other subjects as Economics; languages as Spanish, French, or German. As mentioned in the selection: “These numbers come from research led by the Johns

He describes the early life of different geniuses, and how this profoundly impacted the outcome of their lives. Gladwell writes well, allowing the reader to visualize in their mind the plight of a child who doesn’t receive the attention from his family, which likely would have made a significant difference in how well this child would be acclimated to the world. He paints the picture of children who are left to make their own way. This lack of direction or support from family prevents the sense of wellbeing and feeling of acceptance which might have been otherwise been bestowed on the child. Had the parents been more diligent in ensuring the children were well rounded, rather than allowed to have natural growth. In contrast, he provides a detailed example of what one would expect from a family who actively taught a child to have a larger conception of the entire world. The context provided presents a good way to compare and contrast the different people written about in this

Gladwell’s main purpose was to inform readers that smart can be dyslexic; genius can go to Maryland State rather than Brown (an Ivy League School). For instance, lawyer

Gladwell used many anecdotes and stories to push his hypotheses. An example would be the two chapters titled “The Trouble with Geniuses Part One and The Trouble With Geniuses Part Two”. In these chapters, Gladwell introduces Chris Langan, a man with an IQ higher