The Engineer's Lament By Malcolm Gladwell

Improved Essays
The strategy an engineer utilizes to resolve automobile issues is considered callous by society. However, it is crucial for individuals to look from an engineer's perspective to fully understand the situation better. In the article The Engineer’s Lament, Malcolm Gladwell uses testimonial and anecdotes to express their viewpoints on several controversial issues relating to automobiles. As the article progress, Gladwell describes a variety of situations from the perspective of Denny Gioia, who works as an engineer at the recall office at Ford Motor Company. This article is intended to inform readers who demonstrate an interest in safety features of vehicles.

Gladwell discusses a universal issue that relates the association between the amount of deaths and automobile safety. Two main factors that impact the correlation between deaths and auto-safety are tolerance of the system and use of prioritizing certain issues. Gladwell portrays engineers as individuals with the ability to view situations differently because of their fascinating mentality. Throughout the article, Gladwell expresses an objective tone, by constructing his argument based on facts and statistics. An engineer uses an extraordinary process to resolve
…show more content…
The majority of the information Gladwell presents originates from an engineer's point of view, Denny Gioia. One of Gladwell main argument is that society needs to realize that engineers like Gioia prioritize certain issues over others. As mentioned, “You have to prioritize the most dangerous problems” (Gladwell 2). Gladwell explains that individuals need to focus on issues with most content information. As the article progresses, Gladwell describes several tragic reports relating automobile safety features. Even though companies know about the issues within the vehicles, they refuse to take action due to lack of evidence and

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Becker (2014) acknowledges a problem that GM is facing is its failure to innovate. Becker credits GM’s “sit back and settle” approach to its current engineering design as problematic (Becker, 2014). Becker contends this approach is a counterproductive approach because GM’s sights are set on profits, rather than investing in its future. This approach, according to Becker (2014), is ineffective as a result of evolving technology is being developed by its competitors while GM stays idle.…

    • 364 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gladwell’s argument is broad and proves even the best is needed for assistance. The author uses a combination of research and anecdotes to support his point to the audience. There is familiar and informal style of writing suggests Gladwell appeals to pathos, readers can relate…

    • 457 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The subject for the article “The Age of Protest” by Thomas Friedman revolves around today’s act of protesting and how people are “becoming more morally aroused” from these various protests. Protests nowadays are very much involved with the society as a whole because “when you get that much agitation in a world, everyone with a smartphone is now a reporter, news photographer and documentary filmmaker.” Now that generally everyone has a smartphone, he is saying that anyone can take part in any issue of importance because they can stay involved with conflicts happening over any broad distance. Also since many people are aware of different protests happening, they experience a moral debate about it as well of the decisions made during the event.…

    • 151 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Albert Einstein once said, “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.” Einstein indirectly referred to the society in Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451. In this story, the protagonist, Guy Montag, is a “fireman” that sets homes on fire if it rumored to have a book in it. The society that Montag lives in is completely dependent on the use of technology.…

    • 1105 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the novel The Outliers written by Malcolm Gladwell, Gladwell explains how and why some people succeed with impactful lives and others don’t even if they try their hardest. He looks at the lives of professional hockey players, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, and many more people explaining how they’re considered outliers. He explains how some people were deserving of their success, how some weren’t, how some people earned theirs, and how others were just in the right place at the right time. One of the things Gladwell talks about is The Matthew Effect, he talks about how professional Canadian hockey players become successful. According to Malcolm, it takes more than how hard they work or what their lifestyle is to succeed, it mostly depends on factors that they cannot control.…

    • 847 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    At first glance the articles by: Gladwell, Gardner, and Sunstein seem to have no real overlap or even consideration to be in the same topic but taking a “fine-tooth comb” and reevaluating the thesis of each it becomes apparent that they in fact have a major overlap. The shared concept of when does weighing risks become too far and inhuman is where all three share their substance. In Sunstein’s novel, Risk and Reason, the thesis is stated clearly within chapter two, “How ordinary thinking goes wrong, and how the errors are especially important, and pernicious in the design of public policy”. This then provides the rational of what is determined/defined as important and the way it was conceptualized as so. Then with Gladwell’s case study, “The…

    • 1464 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Academic dishonesty is an awful conduct that can be infectious. Actually, the vast majority of us have been impacted or watched something that was scholastically unscrupulous but since one individual did it, we obliged it. A few people may have allowed their eyes to meander onto their neighbor's answers amid an exam, obtained or utilized somebody's homework or duplicated a paper from the web. When somebody has been impacted or watched scholastic contemptibility it is interesting how speedy and simple they wind up following the group. In The Tipping Point composed by Malcolm Gladwell he concurs with James Q. Wilson and George Kelling "that terrible conduct, if left unchecked spreads among individuals that once, maybe a couple or three individuals started duping the system, other individuals who may never generally have considered dodging the law would join".…

    • 1498 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Cause - Then In the early 1980s, consumers had complained to Audi about a sudden acceleration problem in their Audi 5000 vehicles (Wathen, 1987). As a result, in March 1986, the Center for Auto Safety submitted a petition to Audi of America, requesting the recall of all 1978 through 1986 Audi 5000 models for the dangerous malfunction. Later that year, on November 23, 1986, the popular CBS television program 60 Minutes aired a report titled “Out of Control” highlighting the case of Kristi Bardosky. She alleged that her Audi 5000 suddenly surged forward in her garage, killing her young son, Joshua (Dezenhall & Weber, 2007).…

    • 1180 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Chevrolet Corvair case… The task at hand is to outline or demonstrate the ignorance of a professional engineer with regards to the public health and safety and how this in overturn adversely affected or impacted the engineering outcome. Briefly a professional (a profession) by simpler definition is personnel who have a strong foundation in the principals of physics and exercise sound judgment when designing and analyzing such systems (Young, Michael; M&Y consultants and trainers (PTY) Ltd, 2016). There are attributes to which this definition extends (Fleddermann, 2008). Engineers, as other professions, are necessary to the functioning of society. They hold paramount the duties and responsibilities to society and have obligations in performing these duties by doing the right thing (they must act morally in their role as engineers), despite any cost (e.g. losing a job).…

    • 1399 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    After witnessing misfortune befall upon another person, have you ever began a thought with the phrase, “What if I had . . . ?” Once the inferno of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was extinguished and the bodies were counted, the involved parties, including the fire department, owners, and builders, likely thought this as well. In the non-fictional excerpt of Flesh and Blood So Cheap, Marrin utilizes explicit details to make his ideas clear, and implicit details to imply failures in safety standards. Using these techniques, Marrin illustrates the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory that resulted from unsafe work protocol and sparked a movement to reform safety standards for employees, whose lives were not a priority in the fire.…

    • 1749 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    By analogy, when the Occidental case protestant Wayne that is against the delivering of flawed safety- critical software that is described to be selling a car with defective brakes. Safety had always been at the upmost priority in the automotive industry. Releasing a faulty vehicle with brakes that could fail is deemed wrongly by most. In addition, Wayne argues that releasing safety- critical software that could fail would be wrong for him. Since his analysis revolves around engineering systems failures that could cost lives and both are released with known flaws, the cases are deemed analogous.…

    • 1394 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ford Ethical Dilemmas

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages

    When it comes to the auto industry, one of the largest ethical questions is whether a company can put a dollar amount on human lives. Throughout the history of the automobile industry, there is to be case after case where automotive manufactures try to walk the fine line of using specific parts in a car to try and lower their costs, but also while making the vehicle more dangerous for the passengers. The idea of safety versus cost in the industry has many factors that must be considered to fully understand the ethical dilemmas. Multiple stakeholders are affected by the safety versus cost dilemma. The most important stakeholder in the case of safety versus cost is the customer.…

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    1. What moral issues does the Pinto case raise? The Pinto case raises many moral issues. First, the case states that Ford knew of the faults of the Pinto and continued to sell them – even after they failed testing.…

    • 2054 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Many argue whether or not the teaching of professional ethics actually makes an impact on professionals today. Banks McDowell explains in his article that due to a consistently growing lapse in moral integrity, caused by market pressure and the growing bureaucratic system in professional work, the increased teaching of professional ethics is in fact futile due to the overwhelming pressure placed on people and business in this system. In this paper I will be evaluating the statement made by Banks McDowell, "Until we deal more forthrightly with the existence of a ready and acceptable set of excuses the current emphasis on professional ethics will remain largely a public relations gambit rather than a real improvement in professional integrity"…

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Engineers have been responsible for almost every single advancement in our modern world. An engineers’ duty is to protect and serve for the greater good of society. In every single project, an engineer must ensure the health and welfare of the public is the highest priority. Engineers must treat their profession as though it is a privilege and not a right. As engineering has progressed, sets of rules and ethical standards also developed.…

    • 1626 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays