Analysis of Malcolm Gladwell's Essays

Summary of Malcolm Gladwell's Essays

In the "Outliers," Gladwell sets out to explain various factors that lead to renown and mastery. The book is structured as case studies' series that span varying cultures and different periods, but which all relate to central theories and theses. For Gladwell, success is not having a high intelligence quotient or the product of a powerful personality. It is the appreciation given by successful individuals to the right combination of community support, hard work, and a meaningful opportunity. In supporting his theses, Gladwell uses "A Jamaican Story" in the book to show that the analyzed forces of chance and culture have shaped his family's lives (Blundell, 108).

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Additionally, in the "The Tipping Point," Gladwell offers an insightful and fascinating way of thinking about the epidemics issue. These elements are the reasons why Gladwell believes that the start of epidemics allows the reader to think about the world in their way. He says that when one thinks of an epidemic, he sees diseases, but after reading "The Tipping Point," readers are left with new perspectives of looking at the hidden, the subtle and the unspoken (Morgan, n.p). In "The Power of Context," Malcolm purposes a theory to explain the occurrence of a phenomenon when the sudden intense period of maintenance and cleaning of crime-infested New York City, to astonishing new lows, was able to slash out the crime rates. He provides an account of the steps that are taken in leading to the recovery of the city by supporting his theory that a person's actions and mentality are influenced by the environment.

This is because it behaves as a mechanism that triggers personalities and emotions that are abnormal. He also paints New York City's vivid picture when crime rates were in the grip of the worst epidemics of crime in its history. The most frightening scene he describes was the subway which was a site plagued by problems which were uncountable, ranging from murder to robbery (Blundell, 109). "In David and Goliath," people's perspectives are changed and what they consider as valuables in their world arises out of lopsided conflicts as facing overwhelming odds produces beauty and greatness. Therefore, the paper is premised on a discussion about the significance of the message the essays of Malcolm Gladwell has and the effectiveness of the essays as a whole.

The Significance of the Messages of the Essays

The significance of the message of Malcolm Gladwell's essays as a whole is that readers are grateful for his work. "Blink" has maintained the best-seller list since it was released in January 2005, with over one point three million print copies in North America. The essay has also been translated into twenty-five different languages. "Blink" compares with "The Tipping Point" that was published in 2000 but came out to the paperback list of best sellers when "Blink" first appeared. Additionally, their success has given Malcolm Gladwell an extremely lucrative and active career as a public speaker (Morgan, n.p).

Also, Gladwell has become an all-out phenomenon internationally and has helped in creating a highly contagious hybrid genre of nonfiction. A person who takes a counterintuitive and non-threatening look at pop culture and the everyday mysteries. Several different books in the Gladwell's vein have appeared in the past and have been in the best-seller list. They include "Freakonomics" which is a breezy collection of case studies drawn by Levitt Steven and Stephen Dubner, the "Wisdom of Crowds" that was a book for thinking business people, "Everything Bad Is Good for You" that was the case of Steven Johnson where pop culture was becoming sophisticated so fast to name but a few (Blundell, 108).

The essays Gladwell has written has helped him generate a far much larger audience than other authors after the Civil War. Gladwell leavens serious research on social science with strong narrative powers and a writer verve with the characters of zany and pithy, making the anecdotes easily digestible. His anecdotes are selected from a wide range of sources such as the military, romance, food, business, music and diverse locales which were a tactic that broadened the appeal of his books (Morgan, n.p). Malcolm in "The Tipping Point," discusses everything from the crime drop in New York in the 1990s to the Hush Puppies retro return which was Aeron's chair rise of the dotcom era and how the "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood." Gladwell points were that social epidemics could spread with the right context and certain influential people's pull. The essays were "Connectors" which meant getting in touch with different people, "Mavens" that was experts in one era and the "Salesman" that meant a person who could win customers over (Rogers, n.p).

Nonetheless, in "Blink," Gladwell has introduced a variety of experts and case studies, including the historians of art who could tell within seconds that the statue was fake, and a psychologist who could predict whether a couple would divorce on observing them for a few minutes. He does these activities to showcase that people should trust the first impression except in scenarios where they should not (Gere, 616). Also, Gladwell is the "Connector" of disparate universes: corporate America and the literary world of New York; men and women; liberal and conservative; high and low.

Nevertheless, Gladwell has cultivated the outsider persona by describing the "Right-winger" poster of Ronald Reagan about politics. He made people not to believe in boasting and think that the world was a good place and that they must take care of each other. Also, in his essays, Gladwell has offered an apologia pro vita sua, which meant that if he voted, he would have voted Democrat. He was in favor of gay marriage, a pro-choice and believed in God. He also, suggested that on balance in America, the taxes for the rich people should be higher so that everyone would benefit the same from the economy (Blundell, 109).

Additionally, although Gladwell's books have been pitched descriptive by negative people, his books have been essentially prescriptive. His dazzling arguments offer reassurance to the readers. In the American experience, Gladwell seemed a temporary incarnation of a recurring figure which meant that he came up with always encouraging news. He instructs his readers in his book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" on understanding their clients and flattering other people into liking them (Morgan, n.p). Therefore, in the case, he offers optimism through demystification, that is, understanding how things work is by having control over them. Moreover, in his essays, he has had the most pronounced impact in corporate culture. The books "Connectors" and "Mavens" have been marketers working vocabulary, those who are so desperate to reach consumers but they have calculated campaigns that are by word-of-mouth (Gere, 630).

Gladwell also assures his readers in his essays that not every person will always be happy with your success. Some will always strive to put you down. His books have been criticized more often for demonstrating and encouraging lazy thinking. People have argued that "Blink" is full of contradictions and banalities, it was even compared with a book that people do not intend to read (Rogers, n.p).

The Successes/Effectiveness of the Essays

Therefore, the successes or the effectiveness of Gladwell's essay include: The examples portrayed in his books are the ones that back up their theses. The books have evidence supporting their arguments. For example, the cases of "David and Goliath," the teenagers, the lawyer, and others, make Gladwell have a fancy way of portraying his agreements and disagreements in his essays. Also, every person's sense of confidence and self-worth is derived from judgments about a peer group. Highly competitive institutions reach out to different and fast conclusions as they have students competing against each other and about who they are, their capabilities and their image (Gere, 610). For example, a person's likelihood of dropping out from school of math or sciences cannot be termed as a function of intelligence, but a function of the people around you according to Gladwell's essays.

Additionally, the books influence the attitude of people. For some reasons, people choose to interpret the circumstances they are in, differently. One of his essays talks about Emil Freireich, a famous oncologist. Freireich had a childhood relation of the Dickensian and went to achieve many things in his oncology field (Blundell, 107). At one point, he described his childhood life as horrendous where he flashbacked his life at sixteen as he was optimistic. Malcolm showcases in some of his essays, that good are bad and bad is good. The idea in the statement is to unveil its positive side and take a negative side or the vice versa. The theme of "David and Goliath" depicts this clearly, where Gladwell argues that advantages can give us disadvantages or the vice versa. Also, in the same book, nobody thought that dyslexia, a disability, could make people more successful (Rogers, n.p).

Also, with Malcolm Gladwell, what appears to be local ends being global. The scenario is seen in the incident of the essay "David and Goliath" where underdogs are willing to play by the set of varying rules that serves as an illuminating lens for events (Gere, 620). The activity is diverse as the American's civil rights movement success and a basketball team that is inferior with inexperienced coaches making a national championship.

Nonetheless, according to Gladwell, what seems to fail succeeds and what appears to succeed fails. In the book "David and Goliath," he covers popular beliefs' evidence, institutions having small classes have no guarantee of making its students learn more. Here, Gladwell adopts the reverse strategy of underestimating the power of intuition and gives his opinion using the spot fake art (Rogers, n.p). Additionally, what looks like order is disorder and the vice versa. We can understand better spreading systematic factors of Gladwell's three rules of epidemics, that is, the stickiness factor, the law of the few and the power of context. Confusion turns into clarity for the "Outliers." A genius man turns out to be a bouncer because of his difficult upbringing and so is some of his examples in his essays (Morgan, n.p).

Works Cited

Blundell, John. "Outliers: The Story of Success-By Malcolm Gladwell." Economic Affairs 29.4 (2009): 108-109.

Gere, Anne Ruggles, et al. "Local assessment: Using genre analysis to validate directed self-placement." College Composition and Communication (2013): 605-633.

Morgan, Alicia. "Every Child in Our World Will Know His Name!" Malcolm Gladwell's Theories as an Explanation for the Cultural Phenomenon of Harry Potter." (2014).

Rogers, Alec. "Cognitive Set Theory: A Summary." (2018).