Malcom Gladwell

Paola Gonzalez
GOLD English
7/3/15

Essential Question: Is Gladwell's argument about Korean air, good enough to support the central argument of “it is still within the individual's power to go against one's cultural background and discover and address…”?

 In Outliers, Malcom Gladwell argues that culture powerfully influences one’s ability to succeed, but that it is still within the individual's power to go against the cultural legacies one inherits. He showcases cultural legacy through airplane crashes, claiming that plane crashes are caused by some people’s authoritarian culture. Although Gladwell makes an exceptional enough argument to persuade his readers of his argument through the use of case studies of renowned plane crashes, experts and credible sources, and statistics, he is still guilty of also making his argument off of hasty generalizations and lacks addressing potential counterarguments.

Gladwell supports his argument of a cultural legacy influencing one’s success through the investigation of Korean Air and Colombian’s Avianica. Korean air, at one point in its history, was the leading airline in plane crashes. Gladwell argues that Korean air and Avianica failed to make their flights safe because of their cultural practice of valuing and respecting authority, until they finally acknowledged this cultural fallacy and fixed it. He refers to the black box recordings of both crashes. What the recordings of Colombia’s Avianica  and ultimately of Korean Air, come to reveal is that the co-pilot, because of respect for his superior, the captain, did not make the urgency of their flight situation clear to the air traffic controllers. This, Gladwell claims, is the central cause for Korean Air’s multiple plane crashes. Gladwell’s use of actual recordings from the plane crashes and references to pilot veterans such as Suren Ratwatte appeals to his reader’s ethos, which makes Gladwell’s argument both convincing and believable.

Furthermore, Gladwell also supports his argument by presenting evidence from credible sources and experts like psychologists. In doing this, Gladwell attempts to justify his claim to the readers, that the cultural background of the captains and co-captains had everything to do with why the crashes happened. The lower ranking co-pilots did not speak up to let their superiors know that there was a problem and when the superior did not understand or accept the first pilot’s warning, the first pilot simply backed down and did not exclaim the situation’s urgency. This typical behavior of Koreans and Colombians is what Gladwell refers to as Hofstede’s cultural dimensions “power distance index”. He argues that both Korea and Colombia are high power index countries, meaning that these countries have a very high regard to authority and are less likely to speak up when there is a problem. In addition, Gladwell also presents countries with a low power distance index like the United States, who was brought into Korea to fix Korea’s “cultural deficiency” of a high PDI. Gladwell claims that the high PDI’s contributed to make two airlines struggle more than they should have because of their cultural histories and backgrounds. By referring to these credible sources and experts, Gladwell appeals to his reader’s logos.  In citing and referring to credible experts he creates a sense of trust and credibility with what he is claiming and forming a connection to the Korean air plane crashes.  

 Gladwell also makes his readers susceptible to this argument through the use of statistics. Gladwell sets up his argument with statistics of Korean Airlines crashes, citing that “The loss rate for Korean Air in the same period [as United Airlines] was…seventeen times higher.” These statistics of Korean air provides credible evidence which hooks the reader into believing that Korean Air was having a serious problem with plane crashes. Once Gladwell has effectively presented this argument to his readers with evidence such as recordings of the black box from the plane crashes, Hosefeds Cultural dimensions and statistics, he then makes claims and statements which now appear as facts to his readers. For example, in chapter seven, Gladwell makes the claim that “Planes are safer when the least experienced pilot is flying, because it means the second pilot isn’t going to be afraid to speak up.” Gladwell doesn’t say this as a suggestion, that planes would safer, but states it as a fact that planes are safer when the least experienced pilot is flying. This is common Gladwellian technique, developing trust and credibility with the readers through the use of case studies, credible experts and statistics to then make his argument seem true and factual. However, as convincing as Gladwell`s argument may be, Gladwell must still be held accountable for making generalizations and lacking counterarguments.

Although Gladwell makes a convincing argument that culture powerfully influence one’s ability to succeed, in this case, the Koreans learning to make their flights safer to prevent further airplane crashes, Gladwell is still guilty of  including hasty generalizations of the people of a culture and lacks engaging in potential counterarguments in his argument. For example, how does Gladwell and ultimately, how does his audience know for certain that the plane crashes were primarily caused by the countries culture? He does not mention other possible possibilities, like how well the pilots were taught in flight school. Also, Gladwell assumes that he correctly interprets the language between the co-pilots and pilot in the black box recordings. In addition, Gladwell agrees with pilot veteran, Radwatte, who makes a cultural generalization about American air pilots, saying that Americans would never make the mistake that the Koreans and the Colombians made because Americans are much more “individualistic”.  In addition to Radwatte`s claim being a generalization, which leads the readers to follow the assumption that an American pilot would never make the same mistake, it also notions a potential counterargument to Gladwell. For instance, it raises the question that what would happen if a cultural legacy of respect and value for an authority is in a situation where the co-captain is older and equally or even more qualified than his superior? Does Gladwell’s reasoning about a cultural legacy still stand then? And ultimately, Gladwell does not offer any interviews with actual Korean pilots to confirm all the generalizations and logical fallacies he makes.