Analysis Of Freakonomics By Malcolm Gladwell

Often when we face nebulous life questions, it is hard to navigate the path leading to their answers. Whether you are questioning how the Ku Klux Klan was able to function under relative anonymity, if parenting is really that influential, or the effectiveness of children's tv shows, as long as you ask the right questions, you can find the answers. The books Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner and The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell dives into the study of how our world works. The amusing Freakonomics deals with how completely opposing phenomena, such as schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers, can be compared by a common theme, like cheating under the right conditions, and goes on to make a point that can be connected to various
“... often a small and simple question can help chisel away at the biggest problems.” (Levitt and Dubner 45). Freakonomics demonstrates that you can understand what drives people to act the way they do, why we chose to side with conventional wisdom when it is often times wrong, and how the smallest of actions can have consequences that alter the world as we know it. Through excerpts of unsystematic data and studies, Levitt and Dubner show through questioning, digging deeper, and looking beyond conventional thought, that two opposite things may not be so different. They investigate three major cogs in the machine that is the world: incentives, subtle causation of major effects, and failures of conventional wisdom (12). They enforce that incentives drive most everything that we do, no matter who we are. Incentives can range from obvious, like getting good scores on standardized tests, to the seemingly unreachable, unfathomable ones, like becoming a successful drug lord. Incentives lay the groundwork of our lives, and understanding them is key.
Gladwell dissected epidemics, specifically “word of mouth” epidemics into three sections, the “law of the few”, “stickiness factor”, and “the power of context” (Gladwell 29). The Law of the Few explains how very specific people are requisite to the success of an epidemic. ‘Mavens’ hold the information of the message, ‘connectors’ spread the message to numerous people, and ‘salesmen’ take the message and make sure people know why it is important. The fateful night when the English planned to attack the colonies is the prime example Gladwell used to demonstrate how essential these people were to spread the message “the British are coming”. The maven Paul Revere knew the message because of his connections throughout the colonies. Because of his knowledge of the roads and connections between the colonies, he knew the most effective route to get the message spread, which accompanied ‘connecter’ properties that enabled him to speak to as many people as possible. Various ‘salesmen’ then told key people in their towns how imminent the problem was, which led to the eventual confrontation when the colonies defeated the British. Following the law of the few, which explains how an effective epidemic spreads, Gladwell explains the stickiness factor. “There is a simple way to package