ruchi
New Member
Posts: 14 
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Post by ruchi on Feb 5, 2016 22:09:58 GMT
In the book "Outliers," author Malcolm Gladwell examines successes of contemporary icons like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and makes connections on their successes based on various factors. These include unique aspects in everyday living, such as birthdates, birthplaces, and family, as well as commonly observed attributes such as personality, opportunity, and intelligence.
In some ways, the ideas of the American Dream seem extremely prevalent in the studies that Malcolm explains. He points to the higher rate of success in people who are willing to work harder, and how people with ambition are more likely to push their way to the top. Malcolm also explains that past a certain point, IQ will no longer improve a person’s chance of being successful, and that social skills will then end up being a more helpful factor.
Other ideas that he explains seem to disprove the common elements of success that are defined by the American Dream. For example, Gladwell contradicts the idea that any hardworking individual can be successful by stating that narrow opportunities, based on age and birthplace, limit the possibility of how much success a person can have.
So based on these factors and other research, do you think that in today’s day and age the frequency of success has changed? Stayed the same? What sort of things are most beneficial (or detrimental) now to succeed in the Dream?
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Post by harleen5 on Feb 7, 2016 1:21:03 GMT
If the American Dream is still what Fitzgerald considers it (the pursuit of happiness), then I think that in today's day and age, the frequency of success has increased. We now have the access to a variety of different resources. Also, the barriers between social classes are not as large as they were in the 1920s. However, like the 1920s, there are still factors that can be detrimental to succeeding. For example, today, rather than bootlegging, there are things like identity theft. There are so many different ways people can accumulate immense fortunes (ethical or not) that can distort the American Dream, just like in the Great Gatsby.
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Post by dgarrett on Feb 7, 2016 2:44:22 GMT
I agree with both of you. Pathways to success have become more accessible, and just as Harleen said, the social class barriers are not as large today as they used to be. With all the opportunities young people have today through education and fancy things like the internet, the frequency of success has definitely increased. It would be interesting to see Malcolm Gladwell make a book about the icons of today and examine them like he did with Jobs, Gates, and others.
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Post by echeng on Feb 7, 2016 20:07:18 GMT
In reading this book, I found Gladwell's 10,000 Hour Rule especially intriguing. He states that it takes roughly 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. He then backs up this bold claim with the persuading success stories of the Beatles, Bill Gates/ Paul Allen, and an experiment conducted by psychologists in Germany. In Seminar last year, I even set out to disprove this rule by surveying athletes; however, the data correlated higher divisions of sports with longer hours of practice. Essentially, Gladwell asserts that practice plays a crucial role in success. Interestingly, in the American Dream, that definition of working hard to achieve a goal is synonymous to this 10,000 Hour Rule.
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Post by maddysmith on Feb 8, 2016 0:02:47 GMT
While I do think the book makes good points about how different backgrounds can affect success, I like what Emily said about the 10,000 rule. Essentially what Gladwell is saying in that chapter is that talent is not innate, rather anyone can achieve success through 10,000 hours of good practice. 10,000 hours is obviously a really long time so you would have to be extremely dedicated to achieve success through 10,000 hours of practice. This definitely does back up the traditional concept of the American Dream. This chapter is all about anyone being able to achieve mastery through dedicated practice, just like how the American dream says anyone can start from the bottom and rise to the top.
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Post by amytheoriginalg on Feb 8, 2016 0:19:53 GMT
If you also examine what Gladwell discusses in his books, mainly in the chapter about the 10,000 hour rule, he states that those from lower income families simply do not have the time to practice at something that much since they need to focus on their survival. I feel like this reflects how unfair and unrealistic the American Dream really is to people who are not born into rich families. He never touches on this unfairness and just accepts it. While it was not the point of his book, it still is a reminder to how commonplace everyone sees that the rich succeed and the poor cannot in our society, as much as we want to tell ourselves that to either ease our upperclass guilt or keep hope in the hearts of those from said families.
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Post by aamornwichet on Feb 10, 2016 2:21:17 GMT
Ruchi, this is interesting because Gladwell explores the luck of success and exaclty what makes people who are lucky, successful. There were 2 things in this novel that I found really interesting, aside from the 10,000 hour rule: the Terminites, and the rich generations. As you touched on before, Gladwell explores how differences in birth years or even birth months can vastly increase or decrease a person's chances of success. Most successful tech CEOs were born around the same time, same with Gilded Age Industry Tycoons, or even Canadian all-star hockey players. It is this luckiness that would make one think, that some are just meant to be rich while others are not. But another argument Gladwell makes disproves the point with Terminites, the supposed Genius kids and future leaders of the world. These kids had high IQs and were hand picked to be followed throughout their life to see how successful they were, the results showed no correlation. This is important because these kids, though born great circumstantially had no means to become successful. Brining up what Amy said I think that focusing on the 10,000 hour rule is missing the point of the novel. Gladwell is basically disproving the idea of the American dream because he is saying that success is conditional. It is dangerous to think that those who are at the top are meant to be their and those who are not at the top just didn't work hard enough.
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