Essay On Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

Seong Hyun Kim(David)

ELA 11 (-- removed HTML --)

Most people normally think about intrinsic factors when they consider for the main components of success. However, Malcolm Gladwell, a famous writer, contradicts this tendency through the book, Outliers. Outliers insists that extrinsic factors define success rather than the intrinsic ones. Nonetheless, Gladwell himself goes against the topic of Outliers in his assertion: “if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires”. The assertion implies that individuals could achieve success only with their intrinsic factors. However, the insistence in overall content of Outliers proves that the extrinsic factors (an opportunity

In chapter 1 of Outliers, Gladwell brings Canadian meritocracy as an example of the relative age to prove that the appropriate birthdates are important. Although the Canadian meritocracy seems an ideal way to nurture best players only depends on the ability of individuals outwardly, real aspect of the Canadian meritocracy is not an actual meritocracy. The real fact of the Canadian meritocracy to the most players who reach on top of Hockey world starts from the opportunity of appropriate birth dates that are closer to cutoff date than players who born later. The opportunity of birth dates acts as the advantage because the opportunity provides maturity. Accordingly, the children who get the opportunity of early birth dates also strengthen their advantage by getting differentiated experiences. The differentiated experience happen because the coaches and scouts are confused of the difference between real ability and the maturity. Finally, the small advantage from the birth dates becomes a huge advantage by continuity of initial advantage and strengthening of the advantage through differentiated experience. Therefore, opportunity of relative age serves as the main component to achieve success which challenges Gladwell’s argument about intrinsic

In chapter 5 of Outliers, concerted cultivation and practical intelligence are mentioned as the keywords to achieve success. To begin with, concerted cultivation is a type of parenting philosophy which used by wealthy houses to raise children that helps to achieve success by learning the practical intelligence. Learning practical intelligence is critical because it can increase sociability to communicate with others. For example, Gladwell contrasts Chris Langan and Robert Oppenheimer in Outliers. They both have high IQ, but the actual difference between them is to learn practical intelligence. Chris Langan is raised under poor house which does not teach the concerted cultivation as a teaching method, but Robert Oppenheimer raised under wealthy house which teaches concerted cultivation as a method of education. Finally, the difference in raising under the concerted cultivation makes Oppenheimer to record his name on history, but Chris Langan couldn’t. Therefore, the opportunity to learn under concerted cultivation makes the Gladwell’s argument about intrinsic factors not