Human Nature In Malcolm Gladwell's The Power Of Context

Human nature is a consolidation of common characteristics, traits, feelings, and behavior that all humans share. Human nature is a very delicate because it can be easily manipulated by environmental, and cultural changes. In Malcolm Gladwell’s text, “The Power of Context”, he states that the environment has an affect on a person’s behavior, which is the way a person acts, and the environment alters more of a person’s behavior then he or she readily admits because the person’s character is unstable. The main idea that Gladwell is trying to convey is that how human nature is shaped and formed. One of the most compelling strategies Gladwell uses in his essay of human nature is the infectious disease formula he introduces. As a way to understand

As Gladwell writes, “…most of us are really good at controlling our environment” (160). The significance of this declaration lay in its suggestion that if we as individuals can control our own environment, then we have the ability to control the larger environment in general. Humans simply need the insight and the training to construct environments that foster happiness, peace, and good will. As such, it could be possible, on a massive global scale, to reduce crime, poverty, mental illness, addiction and aggression. According to Gladwell, by regulating the environments in which humans interact, learn, grow, and play, those who have access to the means of production and regulation, possess an enormous amount of power. In Gladwell’s use of the Broken Windows Theory, Gladwell describes the role context plays in constructing human reality. According to Gladwell, “Broken Windows Theory and the Power of Context are one in the same. They are both based on the argument that an epidemic can be reversed, can be tipped, by tinkering with the smallest details of the immediate environment” (155). By shifting the social perception by even small-scale, it becomes possible to uplift even the most depressed human spirit. Human beings rely on their senses to determine how they should react to their environmental conditions. These are ancient reflexes that humans inherited as a way to survive

“They say the criminal—far from being someone who acts for fundamental, intrinsic reasons and who lives in his own world—is actually someone acutely sensitive to his environment, who is alert to all kinds of cues, and who is prompted to commit crimes based on his perception of the world around him” (Gladwell 157). What develops from this is a completely humanistic and empathetic view of human nature. From Gladwell’s perspective, a criminal is not a personality type, just as a Good Samaritan is not either. Neither characters exist within the context of their own emotionally charged vacuum; they are instead produced by the context in which they exist. Gladwell’s narrative accounts provide real-life explanations for this phenomenon. What we observe from the example of Goetz is that while he had issues in his past that provoked him for the violent episode on the subway, the confrontation could have been avoided entirely had the environment itself had not been one infused with violence at every turn. In other words, if the environment in the subway was not infused my graffiti and litter, Goetz violent confrontation with the four teenagers would not have occurred. What this shows is not that humans are devoid of any will, but that their will can be improved by their environment through