This is the first college essay I ever wrote. I got an 85 on it, but the comments were not positive. I thought I deserved a 185 -- 1 point for each time I tore Malcolm Gladwell a new one. My teacher's reaction to this essay is the perfect example of what is wrong with higher education: common sense is no longer good enough. Instead, you have to act like some pompous asshole who writes convoluted sentences and uses big words that nobody's ever heard of, all the while not making a bit of sense and wasting people's time. Fuck that.
As for Gladwell, it's pretty obvious why he published his work in a book, and not in something that is subject to peer review. (Hint: It's because his argument is bullshit.)
Malcolm Gladwell's chapter, "The Power of Context: Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York City Crime," argues that it is a person's environment, not psychological background, genetic make-up or personal character, that has the most influence on his or her actions. Essentially, he claims that you and I have no ability to think for ourselves and that we will always be slaves to the key circumstances of situations we are faced with. He tries to validate this argument using a variety of sources, starting with the Broken Windows theory, and continuing on with a seemingly endless torrent of different psychological studies as if to say, "And if you still don't believe me, take a look at this!" Why does Gladwell bother to put this argument together? He must have figured that people enjoy being stripped of their sense of individuality. One thing's for sure -- if the Power of Context is as valid as Gladwell would like us to believe, each and every one of us is going to have to look at ourselves and evaluate just how individual we really are.
Gladwell gathers a number of different sources that support his argument, but before he can start bombarding the reader with all of them, he needs a backbone for his argument. He chooses the Broken Windows theory; not a bad choice since it's a theory that has already been validated. Gladwell successfully conveys the validity of the Broken Windows theory by telling the story of Bernie Goetz and New York City crime. Now that the Power of Context has a backbone, Gladwell can begin irradiating the reader with the rest of his supporting evidence.
The first source that Gladwell presents, a study showing that, "People who watched Peter Jennings on ABC were more likely to vote Republican than people who watched either Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather" (187-88), and a study showing that, "People who were charismatic could -- without saying anything and with the briefest of exposures -- infect others with their emotions" (188), delivers the reader's ego a nice one-two punch. With these two studies, Gladwell is basically telling his audience that, "No, you can't have your own political views, and no, you can't help but become angry if a good speaker says something with anger." Well Mr. Gladwell, I may not be able to resist the charm that Peter Jennings (God rest his soul) projects on Republicans and I may not be able to resist the call of the charismatic, but guess what I can do: I can tell when some jackass is trying to subtly pound my sense of individuality hard in the backside.
Gladwell's second source, the famous Stanford prison experiment done by Philip Zimbardo, argues strongly in favor of the theory of the Power of Context. Gladwell was right to include this experiment in his pile of sources. After all, it is a given that the moral fiber of the nine guards who, "Found themselves in a new power-laden role," (Philip G. Zimbardo) can accurately represent the moral fiber of everyone else in the world. Yes, I think we can all agree that the actions of a sample of nine college guys can be judged as exactly how the other 5,999,999,991 people in this world would act. After all, who in this world has any sense of social justice or humanity anymore? Nobody, according to Gladwell.
Gladwell's next source, Fundamental Attribution Error, is a real doozie. "We will always reach for a 'dispositional' explanation for events, as opposed to a contextual explanation," says Gladwell (189). First of all, Gladwell just made up that word "dispositional." Sorry pal, but unless you discover a new country or a new atom, you don't get to make up words. Despite the made up word, I can really relate to Gladwell's statement. For instance, I accidentally set my alarm for 7 p.m. instead of 7 a.m. one day last week and consequently missed my first class. Later on that day, when my friends asked me why I missed class, I responded by saying, "Well guys, I missed class because I am an inherently irresponsible person, ha ha! Oh man, whadda ya gonna do, ya know?" That’s right, I didn’t make some petty excuse like, "I set my alarm clock incorrectly," I acted like a man and admitted to my personal faults, because that's what human beings naturally do. We don't make excuses or try to blame others for our failures, we just come right out and admit to them ourselves, right?
Gladwell chooses the Good Samaritan experiment for his final piece of evidence, and who can blame him? After all, this experiment is the best example of how personal character doesn’t mean a thing in the right situation – or is it? Gladwell does a good job of explaining the set up of the experiment, but fails to present the specific data needed to be able to judge the results accurately. Instead, like many psychologists do, Gladwell simply presents the data in a way that helps his argument. He tells the reader that the experiment had three variables, but then presents the data according to only one variable, shrugging off the other two variables as if they had absolutely no effect on the experiment. This allows Gladwell to make a contrived conclusion that supports his theory, when the real conclusion of the experiment is that most of the people in the experiment are selfish and shallow because they would rather let an injured man suffer than make a bad impression on some audience by being a few minutes late. You can't make a worse impression than the one you make by ignoring someone in need in order to preserve your own precious reputation.
Near the end of the chapter, Gladwell mentions that, "Judith Harris convincingly argued that peer influence and community influence are more important than family influence" (193), but this cannot be considered evidence because "convincingly argued" is hardly "proved." He also mentions that, "Studies of juvenile delinquency and high school drop-out rates / demonstrate that a child is better off in a good neighborhood and a troubled family than he or she is in a troubled neighborhood and a good family" (193), but this also cannot be considered evidence. Without a verifiable source, the reader can't be sure if Gladwell simply made it up or if someone really did do a study about that.
Gladwell gathers many sources in preparation for writing this chapter. There is one source, however, that he must have forgotten to look for – a study showing that the average person likes to be called a generic, run-of-the-mill, can't-think-independently, pre-programmed robot. Due to his underestimation of the need for this kind of source, Gladwell does something that is completely uncalled for – he walks all over the ego of every person that reads this chapter.
Malcolm Gladwell makes a compelling argument in this chapter, but when it's all said and done, it appears that Gladwell just tries to take a relevant theory, Broken Windows, and expand its relevance from just crime epidemics to all social epidemics. He boasts a generous helping of evidence supporting his argument, but unfortunately, people just don’t like to be called robots, so the argument has no real value.
Works Cited
Gladwell, Malcolm. "The Power of Context: Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York
City Crime." The New Humanities Reader. Eds. Richard E. Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer.
Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. 178-193.
Stanford Prison Experiment. Ed. Philip G. Zimbardo. 1999-2005. Stanford University.
26 Sept. 2003. http://www.prisonexp.org.
Nice hair, jackass.
© 2005 Pflanzenfaser