Introduction
This essay provides a critical analysis of the December 6, 2008 article titled “War”, by Lea McInerney, an Australian News paper publication, by ‘The Age’. The article touched on the importance of the word “War”. The argument indicates that through evaluation, the word is of extremely of no good to kindness. Considering McInerney’s point of view, the contemporary use of the word ‘War,’ is faced unsuitability due to poor usage. The word is often overused, thus causing deviation from the importance of meaning that it ought to bring out.
The usage also give digressive connotation away from the actual issues that people raise, therefore giving poor outcomes or misunderstandings. The writer’s opinion brings out the negative side of the word’s interpretation or significance and portrays lack of enough objectives and more productive terms of the language. Essentially, from a personal point of view, the argument presented by McInerney is reasonably strong regardless of the evident fallacies. This essay will form a critical analysis of these overlooked intricacies and critically looks at the strong and thought through aspects that the writer generally provides in the article.
Analysis
McInerney’s article mainly revolves about negative insinuations or aspects that are linkable to the word ‘War.’ It is also misinterpreted and inappropriately placed around theories or themes, where there is evidently vague meaning. McInerney start on the article by providing some instances where there is misuse and negative association with the word such as liking it to terror, cases of poverty and greed. According to the writing, the word brings out the impression of aggressiveness, skirmishes and physical conflicts.
In support to these indications, he explains that the meaning war is concern with good and evil, antagonism and friendship, correct and incorrect, losers and champions and other distinctive differences between people. The diverse differences between people give a negative impression. These aspects fail to relate to the important concerns that people correlate the word, ‘War’, with and what they are able to address easily. Such subject matters like the distinctions between extreme ends of characters require simple and polite redressing rather than hostile and aggressively conflict-ridden communication. He therefore argues that people have lost the ability to differentiate between critical issues from minor problems.
According to McInerney, poor communication skills concerning the meaning of the word ‘War’ is an implication that such language pushes personal opinions against each other in the aim of rejecting or antagonising other’s point of concern. The writer presents an example of the historical Hunter-gatherer situation of the ancestors, analysing their problems they faced in dealing with dangers.
This representation is a depiction of how the contemporary situation is and the way people are dealing or reaction to situations. He implies that there is a similarity between the ancestral reactions and current use of language. People use languages in a manner that suggest negative impression and thus others are not willing to listen understand and react to problems. McInerney gives an example of use of objective words and calm style of expression by the incumbent President of the US Barack Obama in his speeches.
Malnerney progressively provides alternatives usage of the word ‘War.’ He emphasizes that the use of aggressive words and belligerent language is the root cause of division among people and this leads too loss of character. The writer also brings in other related Latin words in place of ‘War,’ such as ‘Debate.’ This he claims causes people to acquire friendly traits such as care and a considerate or conscious mind.
This word maintains peace since the tone reflects a fight against conflicts. Another word that the writer mentions is ‘conversation’, which assists in triggering civilized thoughts and enlightened form of presenting one’s point of view. The word also focuses on comprehensive calmness in an objective language that has meaningful intelligent and established interpretation. According to the writer, these words maintain conversations that have an important effect and assists in enhancing understanding and enlarging the shift of arrangements to a cohesive state.
His argument indicates existence of unambiguous suggestions in respect of unprejudiced position regarding actions and proposals by people. He also include more potential implications or effects of the calm style leadership in a close relation to Nelson Mandela’s management approach, who was tranquil and with collected objective responses over harsh opposition during the post-apartheid situations in South Africa.
The conclusion of McInerney’s article takes an emphasizing style where he points out on the requirements of calm and rational language. Courage and strength are important aspects in achieving reasonable language. He indicates that talks’ regarding ‘War’ lessens the space for civilization and causes indecision thus promoting confrontation and fear.
Evaluation
From the prior analysis of McInerney’s article, there are notable examples and logical acclamations or suggestions that he expounds. Some of the relevant and commendable examples include the relation of the discussion to governance styles of prominent leaders such as Nelson Mandela of South Africa and Barack Obama of the U.S. I strongly concur with the argument especially the proposals, which make the whole article strong as opposed to a moderate analysis.
In a scrutiny of the writing, the writer tries to convince readers that the word ‘War’ is often inappropriately used and thus depicts negative impression when taken from the context. The analysis section of this paper clearly indicates some of the comparative situations where the word is misused and the writer expounds his point of view, by presenting common scenarios that most people often face in their day-today lifestyles.
On the other hand, the argument about the word ‘War’ as having only two sides of interpretation namely aggressiveness and scuffle or confrontation lacks better support. Although it is a reasonable argument, it is easy to refute the interpretation due to lack of solid support with more arguments or substantiations. At this point of his writing, it is arguably possible to note that the writer fell to some fallacies and assumptions that the populace agree and approve his implications against usage of the word. He also generalizes the situations by implicating that everyone uses such aggressive language and is not able to differentiate between the real deep issues from the superficial meanings.
From a personal point of view, his claim of people generally not being able to distinguish between insignificant and key issues lacks is broad argument and is a divergence from the main topic of discussion. Presentation of the issue is inappropriately and from some of the analytical perspectives, it would have been easy to have a better and appropriate explanation of the subject matter.
On deviation from the analysis, a good example would be the historical aspects of our ancestors who were mainly hunters and gatherers. The comparison of contemporary situation to the ancestral occupations is irrelevant to the subject and the writer should have kept away from such paradigms, in order to have better critic of the subject. It is possible to argue that the implication of ancestors evading their responsibilities of addressing the problem consequently applies the situation in the present is a fallacy, and potential accusation against individuals rather than against the argument.
Conversely, the examples of leader’s styles of management and choice of words as well as the example of alternative words are very appropriate for the argument. The example of the words would be stronger if the writer had references that are more appropriate. Generally, the examples in the article are very logical and coherent to the argument.
The writer could have evaded controversial situations by failing to accuse the readers. Fantasy accusations are a misleading notion that points towards particular characters especially those in opposition. The main problem is that the writer lacks proper references of various quotes used in the writing. The whole argument gets support from other reasonably well explained sub-arguments. He however systematically ends the argument by indicating that no one will win the controversies. This is a less-detailed but very definitive end. The answer in not defined but a probability, therefore indication of it as a possibility would have been a more logical way to end. From a personal point of view, presenting the origin of the word ‘War’ in the article lack a relation to the suggestions the writer make. It is arguably a fallacy, since grammatically; the meaning of the word is not associable to how it is used.
Conclusion
The article is reasonably well written and structured due to the excellent examples that are generally qualified in support of the argument. One of the strong hold of the argument is the corporeal sense of logic and the well explanations of the good examples of leadership styles. The weak point of the argument falls upon the generalized accusation that he makes. It is certain that improvement on the article to evade phrases that causes fallacies was essential; nonetheless, the whole argument is well built and coherent. Good and strong references would have strengthened the article for better structure and logic.
References
McInerney, L 2008, “War, what’s the word good for? Absolutely nothing but war”, The Age, Web.