RCQ

"We pretend that success is exclusively a matter of individual merit" (67).

            Success can not solely be a result of the individual merit of a person. I believe that every accomplishment made by an individual is due to something that happened to work in their favor or someone that made things possible for them. In Outliers, this is shown in the case of Bill Gates and also in the case of the children of garment workers. 

           Gates said that "That year, they put three thousand dollars into a computer terminal down in this funny little room that we subsequently took control of. It was kind of an amazing thing" (Gladwell 51). Bill Gates may have never been the successful billionaire that he is if something had not worked in his favor. Bill Gates' school so happened to have an extra $3,000 lying around which had to have been luck because most schools could have found other things to put the money towards like text books, or improving the school but his school decided to spend it on a computer terminal that didn't necessarily benefit the student body. Having the money to purchase the terminal was lucky for Bill and had that not happened he probably may have never broken into the world of computers in the way that he did.
         The fact that individual merit is not exclusively the cause of success is apparent when Gladwell talks about garment workers and a study that was done that showed that the grandchildren of garment workers whose children were also garment workers became lawyers and doctors (Gladwell 152). Their parents and grandparents worked in sewing together clothes in order for their children to be able to go to school and become doctors and lawyers. Their parents and grandparents gave up having so many things in order for them to live the lives that they do so their success is first and foremost due to the toil of their parents and grandparents.