The Power of Context Discussion Questions

1. Bernie Goetz was a man who boarded the subway in 1984 in Manhattan. When four black youths approached him and asked him for money, he shot them. He claims that one's smile set him off. Some people see Goetz as a hero because the four black men he shot turned out to have criminal records. Others see him as a cold-blooded murderer. I see him as a cold-blooded murderer too. The men were not threatening his life, so he cannot validly claim he shot them in self-defense. In addition, it is not his job to rid the streets of criminals--that's what police officers do. If he were bothered by young men pestering him for money, he should have reported it to someone who could legally do something about it instead of shooting them. He's clearly not right in the head.

2. Contrary to what Malcolm Gladwell says, I believe that people with tangled psychological pathology are more sensitive to their environments than those who are completely sane. He pretty much suggests that people don't have control of themselves in certain situations--he says that environment determines how people behave. He writes, "The Power of Context says that the showdown on the subway between Bernie Goetz and those four youths had very little to do, in the end, with the tangled psychological pathology of Goetz, and very little as well to do with the background and poverty of the four youths who accosted him, and everything to do with the message sent by the graffiti on the walls and the disorder at the turnstiles" (150-151). Shooting four people on the subway is very serious. Maybe people who normally wouldn't break the law jump the turnstiles because everyone else is doing it. That is pretty minor and the environment--the environment in which everyone else is committing some minor crime in the shady subway--probably does effect how people behave to some extent. I am a little skeptical when Gladwell says that Goetz's disturbed pathology has very little to do with the fact that he shot four people on the subway. I think he would have shot those four men had they all been in Burger King, because I think Goetz's mere craziness caused him to shoot those people in cold blood. People do get shot in fast food restaurants and convenience stores. There are people who shoot other people in cold blood who aren't in a shady environment at the time, so I wonder how Gladwell would justify that. I consider myself completely sane and I wouldn't even consider applying for a gun permit. But if for some reason I did have a permit to carry a gun, I wouldn't shoot four people with it if they asked me for money on the grungy subway, because I believe I am sane enough to control myself and prevent myself from doing that. I believe this is true of most people, and that only crazy people would shoot someone in cold blood no matter the situation they are in when it happens. I believe that positive environments are more likely to affect behavior than negative environments because most people want to be happy and good rather than criminal, and they can control themselves in negative situations unlike some people with pathological disorders.

English Undergraduate Conference

I went to Panel 1, "A Research Identity: Four Fictional Females" and Panel 4, "Blackberry Picking", "Fan Fiction Ruined My Life", and "Depictions of the American Woman in Desperate Housewives". For Panel 1, four undergraduate English Education/English majors talked about papers they wrote that dealt with fictional female characters in different pieces of literature. The Color Purple, Beauty and the Beast, The Awakening, and Howl's Moving Castle were the four pieces of literature. Each student talked about why they chose the characters they did and how they went about analyzing them. They walked us through the steps they took to write their papers--first they chose their topics, then they went to the library to find sources, then they wrote their first drafts and had them peer edited, and so on. They also talked about the difficulties they had writing the papers. I liked how they all said that they had fun writing their papers because they wrote them about topics that interested them--they got to choose their own topics and theses. It is hard to write a lengthy paper about something you hate or are not interested in.

For Panel 4, three undergraduate students also talked about papers they had written. One student talked about how women are portrayed in the show Desperate Housewives. This show makes being a housewife seem better than many people think it is. The show makes being a housewife seem like a respectable job, which it is. Another girl talked about how she pretty much became addicted to "Fan Fiction"--writing fan-based fictional stories on a website for viewers and other writers to read. She wrote about pirates, telling us that Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies encouraged her to write. She became so busy with writing Fan Fiction that she did not practice enough for an audition to be accepted into IUP's music education program, so she was not accepted. She then wrote about how Fan Fiction ruined her life. She is an English major now. Another girl wrote about the poem "Blackberry Picking". She described how it is dangerous to give in to temptations. I liked "Fan Fiction Ruined My Life". Her narrative was moderately entertaining and well written.

Tipping Point Chapter 2

In Chapter 2 of The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the three types of people who are responsible for helping to start social epidemics. These three types of people are: connectors, mavens, and salesmen. I thought the most interesting part of his argument dealt with Paul Revere and William Dawes. Most everyone in this country knows who Paul Revere was but I bet hardly anyone, including me, has ever heard of William Dawes. Although Paul Revere and William Dawes had the same intention--to warn people about the British soldiers' plans--Paul Revere made history and William Dawes did not. It turns out that Paul Revere made history because his message spread more readily and progressively than Dawes's did because Paul Revere was a connecter--a social butterfly who knew who to tell the information to. Gladwell writes, "And Dawes was in all likelihood a man with a normal social circle . . ." (58) I like history and I thought it was interesting that there is another side to Paul Revere's story that no one knows about simply because William Dawes did not have the right social skills to start an epidemic. Gladwell refers to David Hackett Fischer's book, Paul Revere's Ride, as part of his research. He uses evidence from this book to show that Dawes's message did not spread very well.

Compare and Contrast Reading

I like to read novels mostly. I have read novels from a variety of different genres, but lately I have been reading classic literature romance novels. Within the past year I read Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre. The novels I have read recently are similar to Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point in that they are all stories. Malcolm Gladwell takes his research and turns it into something that is almost like a story to make it more interesting to read. I know that Jane Austen's books are based on observations that she made about life back then just as Malcolm Gladwell's book is based on observations he has made. The classic literature I read does not involve any research, however, but The Tipping Point does. Malcolm Gladwell tries to prove a point whereas a lot of romance novels are read merely for pure enjoyment. I pay more attention to books I have to read for school but when I read books for my own enjoyment I am more lax about it.

Tipping Point Summary: Intro. and Chapter 1

In the introduction and the first chapter of his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell raises awareness of the tipping point in order for us to realize how social epidemics occur. He says that the tipping point is "[T]hat one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once . . ." (9) Social epidemics work like a sickness, such as the flu, does. He argues that the three epidemic characteristics are "[O]ne, contagiousness; two, the fact that little causes can have big effects; and three, that change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment . . ." (9) He uses specific examples, such as the Hush Puppies and syphilis epidemics, to demonstrate how epidemics take place and what factors are necessary for them to occur. He says that the three necessary factors are: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. He argues that it only takes a few people to start a social epidemic and that the trend must be convincing or catchy in order for it to "stick". He also argues that the circumstances in which a social epidemic start are important. He concludes the chapters with research questions which he will explore in later chapters.