Malcolm Gladwell Kairos and Pathos Malcolm Gladwell wrote the book, David and Goliath and published it October 1, 2013. Around this time in 2013: Lance armstrong admitted that he was doing drugs in all of his Tour de France that he won in his cycling career. President Obama was inaugurated for his second term. There was the Boston Marathon Bombings, massive tornadoes hitting Oklahoma, NSA prism leaks, security breaching, and the Trayvon Martin case. Miley Cyrus just broke from her Disney channel appearance, Pope Francis which is the first pope from Latin America, Nelson Mandela died this year, and there were issues of the legalization of gay marriage. One of Gladwell's coworkers says, "The recent change in attitudes towards same-sex marriage
“People don't rise from nothing....It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't”(Gladwell 18).
In 2005, David Wallace Foster delivered a memorable commencement speech to the graduating class of Kenyon College. It was not the standard US commencement speech with “the deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories” which then turn out to be “one of the better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre”. By using pathos , Foster created an intelligent argument that wasn't overpowering but thoughtful and understanding. The argument made by Foster in his speech is about the capital-T Truth. And to Foster, the capital-T Truth is about life before death. The point of Fosters speech is to expose the importance of education, the value it possesses and the awareness it brings. Its modest amount parables, proverbs and cliches revealed the honesty behind his words and ugly truths that caused a stir the audience. Wallace Foster stripped away the standardness of such monotone and basic writing of commencement speeches to his advantage. By using pathos he builds bridges, sustains his arguments and emotionally influences his audience.
The Beatles, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, professional hockey players, and solo violinists all have one thing in common. Malcolm Gladwell, author of “Outliers”, is able to effectively link these different parties together though his “10,000 Hour Rule”. Gladwell states that, “practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing that makes you good” (42). Using rhetorical devices, Gladwell effectively conveys how overall success can be spotted by historical, recurring patterns or events. Malcolm Gladwell has supported himself as a reputable author as well. Using supported statistics, easily illustrated patterns, and well known examples, Gladwell fulfills the logos appeal. Also, due to his very successful works “The Boiling Point” and “Blink”, Gladwell shows his credibility as an author. Gladwell’s main purpose is to teach his audience the pattern of success, and why some people did or did not succeed. This audience is consisted of those who want to succeed, and want to create as many possibilities to reach their goal. Their main values are gaining success for themselves. Another possible audience is a group who enjoys statistics and patterns. These patterns show that around 10,000 of practice in an activity, the person becomes very proficient in that activity. Citing the Beatles, Bill Joy, and Bill Gates as his examples, Gladwell shows that practice can make perfect. Malcolm Gladwell states that to reach a level of expertise, one must practice that activity for 10,000 hours. Using rhetorical devices, tone, and logos, Gladwell efficiently supports his claim of the 10,000 hour rule.
In the article Threshold of Violence published by The New Yorker Magazine, author Malcolm Gladwell alludes to the cause of school shootings and why they transpire. Gladwell tries to make sense of the epidemic by consulting a study of riots by stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter. Granovetter sought to understand “why people do things that go against who they are or what they think is right, for instance, why typically non-violent, law-abiding people join a riot”(Granovetter). He concluded that people’s likelihood of joining a riot is determined by the number of people already involved. The ones who start a riot don’t need anyone else to model this behavior for them that they have a “threshold” of zero. But others will riot only if someone
Malcolm Gladwell, in the nonfiction book Outliers, claims that success stems from where you come from, and to find that you must look beyond the individual. Malcolm Gladwell develops and supports his claim by defining an outlier, then providing an example of how Stewart Wolf looked beyond the individual, and finally by giving the purpose of the book Outliers as a whole. Gladwell’s purpose is to explain the extenuating circumstances that allowed one group of people to become outliers in order to inform readers on how to be successful. The author writes in a serious and factual tone for the average person in society of both genders and all ethnicities who wants to become successful in life.
When we go about our daily lives there are many things that go undetected. One such undetected event goes on inside our own head. Thinking without thinking, an idea brought forth in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, where your brain is processing information that you aren't even aware of yet. Some of the best outcomes are produced from this “idea”. Another huge topic in this novel is the idea of “thin slicing”. Where your brain can come to a conclusion within seconds of analyzing the situation. Thin slicing is proven in this book to be more resourceful than putting any length of thought into a situation. But in order for Gladwell to drive home his ideas, he is going to need the help of some psychologists tests to prove that he is right.
“Killings” by Andrew Dubus is a short story about revenge and love. There is no single way to state the theme of a story, but Dubus gives the reader detailed clues. A theme is a meaning behind a story and can sometimes be explained as the moral of a story. Dubus ties two different themes together, while giving the reader a better understanding of the characters. Matt Fowler and Richard Strout commit the crime of murder for two different reasons, but both end with consequences and regret.
Once in a while, it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to. Gladwell believes that cultural legacies are powerful forces. Cultural legacies are the customs of a family or a group of people, that is inherited through the generations. According to Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, Cultural legacies is something that’s been passed down for generations to generations. It depends on what type of legacies was passed that will affect a person. If a good legacy was passed down, someone can keep that legacy going by trying hard at keeping the legacies going. If a bad legacy was passed down; I believe that cultural legacies can be altered or changed, by good working habits, determination, and a positive mindset to succeed. Culture can affect either positively or negatively, but we have the power to turn our cultural
An icon in the writing of science fiction, Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 in a style that shows a dystopian world where books are burned, and many people are living for satisfaction and fun. This shows the digression/regression of the intellect of a future society. This world he created is likely partially inspired by Bradbury 's observations of how the society of his day and age is turning out with some extremities and imagination added in. Fahrenheit 451 first appeared as a short story with the name "The Fireman" in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1950. Three years later it was expanded and re-edited and made into the book, Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953. Being re-copyrighted in 1979 (47th printing). Ray Bradbury has an attractive life of
After reading the introduction in the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, I was struck by some interesting information and noticed things within the introduction that were relevant to my life. In the introduction, Gladwell basically gave a summary of a town called Roseto. He went on to explain that the people that lived in Roseto never died of heart dieses and other illnesses because of the way their community grew up. The information was very intriguing. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell states, “For men over sixty-five, the death rate from disease in Roseto was roughly half that of the United States as a whole” (Gladwell 7). This information within the book was highly shocking to me. How could this be possible? I continued reading, and the shocking statement was better explained. As the introduction continued, Malcolm Galdwell said, “The Rosetans were healthy because of where they were from, because of the world they had created for themselves in their tiny little town in the hills” (Gladwell 9). When reading this, I was flabbergasted. How did how one lives have anything to do with ones health? It was striking to me because I never connected life style to health. After reading the introduction, the information taught me that how one lives does result in how one’s health and life span may be. After reading the introduction, some of the information seemed relevant to my life. Malcolm Gladwell exclaimed, “They looked at how the Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards” (Gladwell 9). This is relevant to my life because I grow up in very conservative and close knit family. Like the citizens of Roseto, I live differently than the normal teenagers ...
As Joseph Stalin took over the USSR in 1929, he kept a tight control over his people. Stalin did not want any of his people questioning his actions and decisions. He wanted complete control of not only the country but also of all the people that lived in it. Stalin came up with an idea that would help him achieve this: strip people of their freedom. He started to take control over what the people read, what they watched and what they listened to. Stalin glorified his name in all types of media and if anybody said otherwise they were sent to harsh labour camps. Stalin also changed the children’s history books in a way that overvalued him so that he could control the next generation ("Life in USSR under Stalin.") The novel 1984, by George Orwell, presents a post-apocalyptic world where a ruling party similarly manipulates the people’s memories in order to have infinite power and control. In this novel a man named Winston has memories of the past political state that exist before the Party’s existence which spark a desire within him to rebel, but he is caught and tortured until he believes that his memories are lies. Similarly, in the novel The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, a man and a boy travel an abandoned road in a post-apocalyptic America. The Man has dreams of the old world and he believes that these are signs that his death is near. Both 1984 and The Road are similar in the way they depict memories and dreams of the past as a symbol for a troublesome future. Both books are also similar in the way they portray love as a necessity for survival. Also, these novels are similar in the way they expose Winston and the Boy to violence in order to negatively develop their characters to enhance the books. However, the novels differ in that ...
The March on Washington. 2013. The. 23 April 2014 www.history.com/topics/black-history/march-on-washington>. March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Dystopian Literature is a type of fiction literature that represents a bad view of the future and its people on it. It is basically a not so perfect world, where the people in charge and the government control everything in the general public; also where the conditions of life are really horrible from depression and everything else that comes along. Three famous works of dystopian literature include Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.
Technology is constantly changing, growing, and evolving but with each change in technology we risk our own privacy. With each new update we get we are told it improves our network or life but in reality it makes it easier to invade our privacy just like in the novel 1984 by George Orwell. There are many parallels between 1984 and our present day like the over watchful eyes of the government for our own good.
... 20th, 1969 when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. The American society had finally accomplished the impossible.