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 …show more content…
Kentucky was a small town in the Appalachian Mountains, where two warring families fought each other to the death during the early 19th century. Harlan wasn’t the only town in the Appalachian Mountains that grew restless, but several others as well were erupting in bloodshed. The explanation for this behavior is tied back to something called “the culture of honor”. It was in their culture, that if a person kills one person from the family, the member of this family must kill the killer of their family member. Their culture legacy affects them negatively, and they are retaliating up to now, and killing each other. All this bad situation is the cause of their negative cultural legacies. Imagine how tough culture, it was, that a mother told for his injured son “go fight and die like a man like your brother did”. They were able to change their negative culture in a positive one, to have a save society, but they didn’t do that, and That’s how lots of people lost and losing their life cause of a negative culture in Harlan
“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).
I found Gladwell’s first chapter of Outliers entitled “The Matthew Effect” to be both interesting, confusing, and perhaps somewhat lopsided. Based on Matthew 25:2, Gladwell simply explains, “It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given to the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success.” (Gladwell 2008, pg. 30) The Matthew Effect seems to extend special advantages and opportunities to some simply based on their date of birth.
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.
Successful people are generally thought as the work of talent, brilliance, and ambition but as Malcolm Gladwell argues in his book “Outliers” that might not always be the case. Gladwell poses interesting questions and evidence to support his claim on the idea of “self-made” people being, actually the work of hidden advantages, cultural opportunities and legacies allowing them to learn and work differently by making sense of the world thus, allowing them to
In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that there is no such thing as a self-made man, and that success is only the result of a person’s circumstances. However, throughout the novel Gladwell points out that your circumstances and opportunities only help you become successful if you are willing to take advantage of them and work hard. From a twelve year old living in the Bronx, to those who were born at just the right time to become millionaires, one thing is the same throughout; these people because successful because they seized the opportunities they were given. The advantages and opportunities that came from their circumstances would not be important if they had not grasped them. Every successful man is self made, because he has seized the
Malcolm Gladwell is a canadian-english journalist, speaker, and bestselling author. In his bestselling book “Outliers”, Malcolm Gladwell discusses success and what patterns correlate with it. He states that how much time you put into a certain activity, specifically 10,000 hours, can put you in a elite level of proficiency. This in turn can give someone the tools to allow them the ability to be successful. Using historical citations, patterns, and real life examples, Gladwell forms his 10,000 hour rule. Due to his knowledgeable yet calm tone Gladwell seems to show credibility. His intended audience could be people who enjoy statistics or people who want to be successful and find possible ways to do so. Gladwell uses a logical appeal to show the patterns he has found through his studies of success. He supports his claim with overwhelming statistics which back it. He also uses similes to help better understand how he can relate the patterns he has found for the elite in a certain activity to other things. Foil is probably Gladwell's best means of convincing the reader to his thesis of the 10,000 hour rule. He uses Foil to compare success and we define to legends such as Bill Gates The Beatles and Bill Joy. Overall Gladwell uses Logos, similes, and foils to support his claim of the 10,000 hour rule.
The Civil War was one of the most horrific confrontations that Americans have faced, killing close to 620,000 soldiers. Culture is a big influence in the way a society performs. The North and the South had different cultures from the beginning. They came from different economies, social structures, customs and political values. Each side had advantages and disadvantages. The cultures of each side helped them continue going forward during the Civil War. The main issue of accepting slavery became the core conflict between the two sides. My mission in this case study is to explain the different cultures of the North vs the South, and how their beliefs impacted the Civil War.
Malcolm Gladwell makes many debatable claims in his book “The Outliers”. One of these controversial topics is brought up in chapter three when he talks about a person’s IQ and how that relates to one’s success. Gladwell says, “The relationship between success and IQ works only up to a point. Once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around 120, having additional IQ points doesn’t seem to translate into any measurable real-world advantage.”After reading “Outliers” I believe that this is the greatest controversial topic. I agree with Malcolm Gladwell because there are a high amount of people who are not incredibly smart that are very successful, success can be viewed differently by different people, and from my own experiences on the U-High
This paper presents how Labeling theory and strain theory can explain the crimes that The White family from West Virginia commit on a daily basis. The wonderful White of West Virginia portrays corruption and poverty. They do not conform to any authority or rules; all they want to do is fuss, fight and party. The White family takes part in shoot-outs, robberies; gas huffing, drug dealing, pill popping and murders. They are famously known for their Hill Billy tap dancing and wild criminal ways. West Virginia being the poorest state in the United States they do not have the resources to a good education system or available employment. Therefore, frustration sets in, leading to failed aspirations causing the Whites to resort to violent and illegal ways to survive in a declining economy, to obtain a slight chance to their perspective of the American dream. However, being labeled as the rebels of the south just makes that slight chance of the American dream much harder to obtain.
As a person grows to join society, they will inevitably run into the corruption of the world. The beautifully written To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a classic piece of American literature that explains this part of life. Maycomb County, Alabama is the home to southerners who seem friendly but are generally offenders of bigotry. Throughout the story, Lee describes the coexistence between good and evil in these people. People are sometimes considered either good or bad. In an imperfect world, there is some ratio between the two. Through her characters, Lee makes the reader understand the complexity of good and bad of people and society.
...d Jackson attacks conformity and mindlessness by providing a scenario where social conformity has gotten so out of hand that the people can easily commit a murder, even though they are unsure of why they are doing it. Their minds have been changed so much by mob mentality that they really don’t know right from wrong. No matter how wrong the tradition seems from the outside looking in, on the inside they are simply following tradition, and tradition is never wrong to those who follow it. In other words, the tradition continued simply because they didn’t know that what they were doing was wrong.
The Civil War was a very violent episode in America’s history. There were more casualties in this war than all of the American wars, (McPherson, 5). The war turned brother on brother, thus coining the name ‘the Brother War,” (McPherson, 15). Many people in today’s era often question why so many men willingly fought knowing death was always a high possibility. We will never know the exact answer but from many writings: letters, newsletters, journals, memoirs, we can get a glimpse at what the motivations were for them to enlist and then keep fighting. James M. McPherson attempts to do this in his book For Cause & Comrades. He gives many firsthand accounts as evidence for his explanations. His most important motivators are rage militarie, honor and brotherhood, ideals on slavery, and religion.
In Chapter 8 and 9 of Outliers: The Story of Success, Gladwell exams some of the ways that Asian and American students learn math, arguing that some of the principles in the US education system should be reconsidered. I generally agree with Gladwell’s point of view. I believe in two ways, students ' principal spirit and the length of students’ studying, the US education system leaves much to be desired, though an overhaul is in progress.
One way in which this occurs is through family. Throughout a person’s upbringing, family ingrains certain values into them. They teach them the wrongs and rights of life, and how to deal with different situations. This all in all is exhibited in the way someone views the world. An individual’s culture greatly shines through in their day-to-day life, especially in areas with opportunities to teach or learn, such as in school. Wind-Wolf from “An Indian Father’s Plea” is one of the affected individuals, as his teacher is seemingly not allowing him to “share his knowledge, heritage, and culture with [her] and his peers” (Lake 21). This boy’s cultural identity is being muted, and he is labelled a “slow-learner” (1) in the class. Wind-Wolf was raised to believe certain ideals, those which may differ from the majority of kids in his class, and this is evident in the way the teacher reports on his behavior in class. His Indian culture is causing him to be viewed as different, or lacking in some way, even though that is completely untrue. His family-acquired values are not being recognized in an adequate way, as the teacher disregards what his father calls a “secure environment, [that is also] very colorful, complicated, sensitive, and diverse” (5). Through this example, we can clearly see that family in a massive aspect of one’s life. Family introduces us to many diverse cultures, whether it
A situation can change one’s circumstances, but it cannot dismantle one’s core beliefs. An example of this is established in the Turkey Creek massacre scene, where