TOW 9: Complexity and the Ten-Thousand-Hour Rule by Malcolm Gladwell

In his article from the New Yorker Malcolm Gladwell defends his point from his book Outliers.  This point, about the ten thousand hour rule, came under fire.  One criticism came from Time magazine and said that talent had nothing to do with how good you innately are.  The author’s comments being that Gladwell meant that no matter how good you were at the beginning, if you spent 10,000 hours you would be top tier were misunderstood as what Gladwell truly meant was that to be proficient you must add 10,000 hours on top of initial skill.  He also contradicted another mans critique that this rule did not apply to some categories for example sprinter because he’d, “Never seen a boy who was slow become fast.”  To this Gladwell responds that it is “complex” tasks that this rule is essential.  This article is likely targeted at people who have already read his book and are also simply a fan of his writing, as there is little other reason as to why you would stumble upon it.  One method that Gladwell uses to get his point across is direct response.  He directly cuts apart what the critiques commented about his work and instead of simply criticizing the entire works he specifically picks out the points that they make to criticize.  He over simplifies their writings as a way of showing how they oversimplified the 10,000 hours theory in the wrong way.  Although this theory is not something that cannot be simplified and sill understood well he realizes that this is the issue with the writing of the other authors and uses their mistakes as a way of highlighting their failures.  The oversimplification at the same time also makes it easier for Gladwell to point out the flaws in their reasoning and counteract their arguments.