Malcolm Gladwell incorporates many real-life situations and studies into Blink (2005) in order to describe the accuracy of the snap judgements people tend to make without realizing it. Gladwell begins with a story about a kouros, or a statue of a posed naked man. While analysis at the J. Paul Getty Museum seemed to prove its legitimacy, many trained archaeologists had a feeling that the statue was a fake. As it turned out, the kouros was a fraud. Gladwell draws the reader in with this interesting introduction and sets a baseline for the format of the rest of the book. In the first chapter, he explains “thin slicing,” or using small bits of conversation or experience to come to a conclusion, using stories about marriage therapy, specifically …show more content…
Chapters two and three discuss “priming,” or the use of visual cues to invoke certain emotions or responses in people, focusing in on tests that suggested people subconsciously hold racial stereotypes. Gladwell also mentions how the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VPC) plays an important role in our decision making. He then brings up a counter to thin slicing, describing how our snap judgements can still be inaccurate, especially when innate prejudice is involved. For instance, Harding is considered an awful president by many, yet he was elected because people felt he looked presidential. Chapters four and five show how spontaneous decisions are not necessarily random, citing the example of Paul Van Riper preparing for middle eastern conflict. He effectively combined snap judgement with deliberate thinking to prepare the best strategy when practicing combat scenarios, and he ultimately won during the practice run. However, the army ended up relying more on rational thought alone despite its failure in combat training. This ties the second half of the book to the first by taking a look at both snap judgement and logical thinking and explaining how the two together are most …show more content…
Gladwell takes a look at racism in the police force and discusses how it could be attributed to “temporary autism.” In a case where four police officers killed Amadou Diallo, an innocent man, it is possible that in the stressful situation, their heart rates increased drastically and put them in a state of panic, preventing them from thinking cognitively, just as someone with autism lacks the ability to read social cues. This situation stands out the most above the others mentioned in the story because it captures how our split-second decisions can create such a severe impact, whether that impact is positive or negative. Diallo, an innocent man, was murdered because he seemed suspicious, showing a failure of snap judgement by the four officers and leading to a controversial case. While it is impossible to truly determine if racism was a key factor or if it was just the state of panic that caused Diallo’s death, it does reveal how there are many factors to consider when studying the thought process and how the brain is infinitely
In the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, he goes into detail about a series of events, interviews, and studies done and how they correlate with the snap decisions our subconscious makes. The author explains a study done by John Gottman, the study involved a married couple and a question of whether or not they would stay together. Gottman watched the married couple have a conversation for just three minutes and within that time he could determine how long they will stay together. He would point out the small details that went on within the conversation, such as an eye roll or how defensive they would become (Gladwell). Consciously, I am sure the wife would not do this intentionally but subconsciously it is how she truly feels about the topic of
Burrough investigate about the use of censorship by the government and the their power over citizens which restricts individual’s freedom of thought. He states that the power the government gained through censoring certain materials is questionable and censorship is merely making people more sensitive towards censored materials. Burrough’s journal discusses censorship used by authorities relates to Fahrenheit 451 because the novel is based on a society where anything that might provoke one to question is censored: books are burned and the peculiar individuals are removed from the community. William Burrough studied English literature in Harvard University and he is famous as an essayist and novelist with famous work such as Naked Lunch. This
Q: How does Bradbury make Clarisse and Mildred memorable characters? In the novel Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, Bradbury makes Clarisse and Mildred memorable characters by making Clarisse a unique, happy character, making Mildred easily dislikable, and by making them extremely opposite. Clarisse McClellan lives life to the fullest. She enjoys the little things in life and questions why things are done.
(MIP-1) The ‘parlor’ effects creativity of the inhumane people of this society. (SIP-A) The parlor is something that controls you, it doesn't let you think about anything else but watch it, it is a attention seeking freek. (STEWE-1)
In the book "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking", the author Malcolm Gladwell explores the world of intuition and snap judgements, which he refers to as "thin-slicing". In order to support his thesis, Gladwell implements a variety of examples pulled from real experiments conducted by psychologists around the country. Gladwell's thesis of the book is that often snap judgements are far more accurate than well though-out, carefully analyzed reasoning. Gladwell supports his thesis with the use of experiments conducted by other psychologists, or instances that agree with his claims, such as the Coke-Pepsi experiment, or the kouros statue incident. His thesis has an abundant amount of support, due to the fact that he gives several experiments and incidents as evidence.
Only weeks after the city’s demise Montag, Granger, and the others regroup at the ruins to discuss the forming of a new civilization. Granger begins to lecture about how transparency and literary competence will form the groundwork of a great nation. He proposes that the group of scholars should work together improve the infrastructure the city ruins. Montag and the rest agree, but the dark, ominous clouds and haze still loom. The group disbands, but Montag stays along with Granger.
In this section I believe every human can relate to having heard or being involved in their own experience of jumping to conclusions, especially in the world we live in today. The story of Amadou Diallo is a story too familiar in 2016; many people are dying by the hands of cops for being looked at as a threat. If everyone actually stopped and thought before they did something many “accidents” in the world could have been avoided. If police actually took the time to think about the situation they were in they would be able to realize there is no reason to call six or seven back up cars or fire four or five shots into an unarmed human being taking their life and leaving their family
Bradbury wrote the book during 1950–1953 in Los Angeles, California when Senator McCarthy was up-and-coming. Bradbury may have took inspiration in wanting to write a book in which its protagonist when against the conventional society. McCarthy, much like Bradbury, both seem to have wanted to oust communist or “regulators.” In Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury showed how leaders could be contradictive and deceptive. Surely since Senator McCarthy was an outspoken and influential (he has a whole era named after him!)
Part One of the book, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, describes a man, Guy Montag, living in a dystopian world where books are burned because there are just other, better, things to do such as imaginary “families” in walls made of TVs. As a result, in the novel, firemen actually start fires to burn the books rather than put them out. Before the novel even begins you get a sense that it is going to include fire of some sort from the title, for example, like the burning of things. In addition, according to a review from The New York Times, it seems that Fahrenheit 451 is, “Brilliant… Startling and ingenious… Mr. Bradbury’s account of this insane world, which bears many alarming resemblances to our own, is fascinating.” Also, from The Washington Post the author, Ray Bradbury, is, “One of this country’s most beloved writers...
He believes that he is strong and capable enough to handle war scenarios and accomplish his goal: fighting successfully. On the other hand, as we get to understand better Henry Fleming’s attitudes, and how he compares
Setting: The story is set in Uz, during the time of the patriarchs which was around 2100 to 1900 BC, Main Character: The story consists of three main characters, Job, God, and Satan. Job is an upright individual who was blessed by god with a generous amount of wealth. God is the almighty figure, while Satan is the ruler of evil. Summary/Conflict: Job remains a loyal servant to God, however Satan speculates that Job’s faith is due to the prosperity that God provided for him.
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity” (Martin Luther King Jr.). This quote, said by Martin Luther King Jr. is significant, because it shows that ignorance is the greatest obstacle in one’s life. The novel, To Kill a Mockingbird takes place during a time in which there was great racial discrimination amongst people because of color of their skin. Harper Lee writes about the prejudice of society through the eyes of a young girl named Scout. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows how ignorance affects the way people are viewed, creating prejudice, a problem that can be solved by understanding.
In Morrison’s interview with Brockes, she opens up about the murder of Trayvon Martin and the reality of what Martin suffered also similarly happening to her teenage boys (Brockes). Morrison recounts the many instances where her sons could have suffered much more police harassment they actually had, but did not due to their politeness and ability to answer “sir, yes sir, no sir” to the police officers (Brockes). Furthermore, Morrison also discusses her experience with seeing “a group of white mothers in the south trying to turn over a school bus with black children in it” and equated it to her perception of how she could feel the “fury” to overturn a school bus of white children. Then, she analogized African-American struggles with horses, where she had to go “outside the species”, but it worked (Brockes).
“Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down” (Ray Bradbury). As a kid, Ray Bradbury was raised during the Great Depression with hardly any money. He was writing during World War 2 and was almost drafted into the military after Pearl Harbor. Everyone was scared about the war and Bradbury decided to write about the events that were occurring at the time.
“Unless the course of history changes, men all over the world will lose their most human qualities, will become soulless automatons and will not even be aware of it” - Erich Fromm. While many people may take this nihilistic point of view to be the truth, this is not and will not become our reality. There are many aspects of our society that prohibit this future, a future of automatons as Fromm describes. Our humanity and drive to truly live life to the fullest will never allow for a future where humanity loses what makes us human in the first place.