Summary Of Malcolm Gladwell's Troublemakers

Malcolm Gladwell’s “Troublemakers” is an article in which he explores the way societies make generalizations. Malcolm explains how Ontario has banned pit bulls due to a boy being attacked and people viewing that one example to be enough to distinguish all pit bulls as vicious and bloodthirsty. He goes on to employ that all dogs even resembling pit bulls or that have some pit bull mixed into them have been banned as well, because anything that looks like a pit bull has now been deemed dangerous for the people in that society. Not only does Malcolm point out other ways societies generalize people, like racial profiling a terrorist, but he distinguishes how steps could have been taken to eliminate the threat of the pit bull but it seemed to just

be easier to ban the breed. This article implies that people make too many generalizations and I agree, people nowadays find it easier to generalize than to actually look at the facts. People have become blind to the truth behind things.
A generalization is a general statement or concept obtained by inference from specific cases. Gladwell’s main point of the two year old boy being attacked by multiple pit bulls creates the perfect example of a generalization. After the little boy was attacked in Ottawa, Ontario put a ban on pit bulls. These pit bulls have had problems with people before, sure, but the police never did anything about it. The dogs weren't made to get muzzled or anything that could have kept them in check. In cases with aggressive dogs the main problem seems to pertain to the owners, pit bulls have a higher tolerance for pain and are known to go for the kill but they have been made this way through dog fights. Owner abuse and dog fighting are the main problem when it comes to aggressive dogs. These dogs have been made in to the vicious monsters society already believe they are so naturally people are quick to ban them. Generalizations about the pit bulls have categorized them as dangerous and unlovable when in reality eighty-four percent of pit bulls have passed a test designed to assist the dogs friendliness, they scored higher than beagles but no one sees a beagle and immediately labels them as a killing machine.
Not only are people generalizing dogs by their look but they also generalize people.

Another word for generalization is stereotyping or profiling. Malcolm points out how the New York City Police Department started sending officers in to the subways to do random searches of passengers bags, to look for terrorists, due to the transit bombings in London. The police commissioner says they have a policy against racial profiling but then how are they picking out which peoples bags to check? The police commissioner explains how making a generalization based off of looks is incredibly useless. Not only did the 9/11 hijackers shave to look American but the London bombers were all of a different ethnicity and couldn't be easily picked out of a group based on looks. Profiling is seemed as inefficient because terrorists aren't stupid and show up looking exactly how you assume they would, because clearly they would be profiled by everyone who sees them. So, in turn, anyone could be seen as a terrorist if someone profiles them but we don't ban people of the same ethnicity as a previous terrorist, society might not completely accept and trust them but they don't ban them. How then could we look at a pit bull and just assume that it is a brutal killer. Generalizing, or profiling, has so many holes in it. No one can truly look at someone and see what they are like. Profiling them just makes a social gap between people and creates

fear.
Malcolm argument is a strong one because generalizations happen every day. He might have pointed out a few extreme examples like terrorism and bans on a breed of dog but he also hint to the little generalizations made every day. He includes examples of men being charged more insurance for driving and doctors making older or overweight people come in more often because they could have more health problems than a seemingly healthy young person. Generalizations could cause more harm than good. We don't know when someone would have a heart attack or who might hit you in a car but by looking at young males or an overweight individual isn't helpful. Most of the time generalizations are wrong. No one has the right to ban a category of dog or anything, because of one generalization made about them. If societies keep making generalizations like this one day you might be having to get rid of your best friend, dogs are known to be loyal and loving. What would you do if you had to give up the dog thats grown up with you and seen you through all of the hard times in life. Generalizations are not desirable dimensions of our decision making lives, they ruin something good.