Summary Of The Book That Stood Out To Me By Malcolm Gladwell

One point in Malcolm Gladwell’s book that stood out to me was when he talked about the artist in Paris in 1860 and how they didn’t conform, which I think you shouldn’t. He quoted historian Sue Roe when she wrote, “works were expected to be microscopically accurate, properly ‘finished’ and formally framed, with proper perspective and all the familiar artistic conventions (pg. 66),” but the artists he wrote about didn’t follow those rules. His book is about underdogs but, when he wrote about the artists and how they were painting different than what was liked back then, I thought it was more about how the underdogs of the time didn’t conform to society. He wrote, “the Impressionists had an entirely different idea about what constituted art. They painted everyday life. Their brushstrokes were visible. Their figures were indistinct. To the Salon jury and the crowds thronging the Palais, their work looked amateurish, even shocking (pg. 67),” That is a big difference from “microscopically accurate. ” According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, conform means to be similar or identical, which is the exact opposite of what Monet and his friends were doing. If they did conform then they could have just been another painting hanging on the wall but they chose to be different. I think if …show more content…
We conform to the laws, like everyone else, because if we don’t, then we could get fined or put in jail. We all make mistakes but try not to by conforming to the rules and keep doing good.
I think we should not conform to society, with the exceptions of rules or laws, because it makes us unique. To conform means to be the same or identical and that would make you no different then the person sitting next to or across from you. We all have something that makes us stand out from the crowd, whether it be a physical feature or a talent. What makes you