Analysis Of Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

Nature versus Nurture is a very debatable topic within our society today. The nature versus nurture debate is the scientific, cultural, and philosophical debate about whether human culture, behavior, and personality are caused primarily by nature or nurture (Good Therapy, 2014). This debate is concerned with the extent to which particular aspects of behavior that promote intelligence, athletic ability, and overall success are a product of either inherited or acquired characteristics (McLeod, 2007). Nature is often defined in this debate as genetic or hormone-based behaviors, while nurture is most commonly defined as environment and experience (Good Therapy, 2014).
Published in 2008, Outliers: The Story of Success written by Malcolm Gladwell begins to tackle this debate standing on the side of nurture. From beginning to end, the Story of Success focuses on this theme and applies it within the context of the

book on just about every page. Although the modern day debate emphasizes the scientific evidence and support of newly discovered genes for virtually every behavior, Gladwell produces an entire book of his own evidence and support that allows readers to have a completely new perspective; grasping and understanding the importance nurture, or environment, produces its own stories of success.
Outliers deals with the cultural and societal forces that give rise to resourceful individuals. Through a series of case studies, Gladwell insists that we have all too easily bought into the myth that successful people are self-made. Instead, he says they “are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot” (Gladwell, 2008). Gladwell defines an outlier as a person out of the ordinary “who doesn't fit into our normal understanding of achievement” (Gladwell, 2008). According to Gladwell, great men and women are beneficiaries of specialization, collaboration, time, place, and culture. An outlier’s recipe for success is not personal nature, but the synthesis of opportunity and time on task, most commonly defined as nurture.
The believed purpose of Gladwell’s book would be to subtly defeat the ideas of nature overcoming the forces of nurture. Science often creates a society that believes people can become “self-made-men”. This means, our genetic make-up and who we are as individuals weighs more heavily on our life outcomes than the people, places, and world existing around us. Without once mentioning this debate, Gladwell is persuasively intriguing his audience into the idea that society is what truly creates the stories of success. Those that may have once believed that victory or achievement is due entirely to individual traits and efforts can begin to focus more clearly on history, culture, wealth, timing, and luck, as Gladwell emphasizes their part to play in determining life outcomes.
The effectiveness of Gladwell’s ideas are solely based on his structure of the book.

The structure of Outliers is based on the case studies that Gladwell uses to support his claims. The two parts “Opportunity” and “Legacy” are further divided into chapters that are devoted to particular cases. Within the chapters, Gladwell challenges commonly held beliefs by finding people whose circumstances go against the grain—outliers in a world of ordinary. This allows the reader to undoubtedly believe and buy into the idea that nurture does matter. Gladwell endlessly argues that the story of success largely socially constructed, and that success is due more to factors such as wealth, family background, luck, hard work, cultural capital, etc. than to individual factors such as brains, creativity, or temperament. Gladwell gives an example of Bill Gates, who, for example, was smart, but, according to Gladwell, succeeded as much as he did because he was rich, went to a fancy private high school, and was struck with continuous streaks of pure luck throughout his early

life.
Not only is the entire book greatly organized and set up to allow the reader to take on the idea of nurture slowly, Gladwell efficiently writes each story of success with great color and image. The reader is able to bring to life the feeling of success time and time again as each character and their story is explained and described throughout the book. Gladwell uses pertinent characters that every reader is able to recognize. Bill Gates, Michael Jordan, Robert Opperheimer, Mozart and the Beatles are brought into a light that allows the reader to believe, “that could have been me”.
The final story within the book is the story of Gladwell’s himself. It can be believed that while persuading the audience to understand the importance of society on an individual, Gladwell is also thanking the world; the same world and society that created the story of success in his own life. Gladwell is able to identify his strengths and talents, but more importantly, realizes he could have never made it alone. No one makes it alone. Finally, Gladwell states that it takes great humility to be honest about where we are from. It is all too easy to allow society to put only ourselves in the spot light, not sharing it with any other factor that played a role in our success. Society aims to focus on our nature, which forgets and discredits the crucial amount of help nurture has played in our lives.
Gladwell ends the book, stating the most profound and conclusive statement, summarizing the book’s purpose and major theme into one; “Super star lawyers and math whizzes and software entrepreneurs appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience. But they don’t. They are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky-but all critical to making them who they are. The outlier in the end is not an outlier at all” (Gladwell, 2008).