I've vowed to change how I interact with people; Fruitful discussion.

Guys, I'm sorry I haven't been able to contribute very much as of late. I've been very busy, what with finals, and some personal issues that needed working out.

The following is not intended purely to be revised; I would also appreciate very much your personal take on it.

I realize that for the duration of my time here I was a bit confrontational and acerbic; I've vowed to change how I interact with people on a personal level. To not do so would cause, and has already caused me, far too many problems.

This is from my English 112 class and like I said, the reason I'm posting is twofold; one, to get some constructive feedback on my writing: am I too verbose, presumptuous, pretentious, or can you notice a different from past prose, (which I think emanated from my desire to indulge in vain proclivity, and foolish childishness, rather than any genuine desire to engage in productive, discourse). Second, what is your personal take on what I said. Does it make sense, or is it that you have to disagree, and if so why?

I spent as much time as I did writing the reply (see below) because the topic means a great deal to me; this is a serious issue in our time that has incredible implications for the future, and being that, I think it is my duty, looking back however far I go forward, to say as a citizen of humanity that I wasn't apathetic or subservient in the the throes of great uncertainty.

If you wish to view the article that Dowd wrote, you can visit the following link.

(Edit: It escaped me that I accessed these articles from a database [opposing viewpoints] available generally to students (and also to those with a subscription I think). Probably then, I can't find the precise links in google or anything.

Nevertheless, if you want to try looking yourself, the author of the first article, whose views we were supposed to analyze, is Alan Dowd.

The title of the article is "The United States Must Commit to an Ongoing War Against Terrorism."

The second article was written by two authors, Kegley and Raymond, and is titled:

"Preemptive War Cannot be Justified")

I hope I will be able to contribute here more than I have as of late, in quantity and meaning.

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Alright (redacted), I'll oblige you; just make sure you seriously consider what I'm saying. First of all let me address your submission within the framework of what the assignments required of you, then I will move on and compile a critique comprising the reasons why I feel you should step back and examine everything you know, ostensibly everything represented here and more.

Foremost, you were to summarize the authors' views; this is probably the single most important tenet of this assignment. Let's hold all other things secondary, because essentially if you can understand and paraphrase what these authors are saying, then really, you are fully competent per academic standards, even if you don't have a strong opinion or one that I agree with outside of school.

Look, I'm going to try to remain neutral; as best I possibly can when we all know that we harbor some bias, bias that can only be tempered, not withdrawn altogether.

If it was such the case that we could be compeltely neutral, I'm reasonably sure that there would be no grounds for disagreement, arguments, or differences.

So then, let me be quite frank; you did not submit an assignment fit of what the instructions of the assignment were, more to the point, the first and most important instruction to summarize the authors views.

I mean, your first sentence bade the tone of the rest of your paragraph.

Dowd said that civilization owes its origins to the warrior; quite true he said it, but can that confer what his thesis is?

If I was examining that sentence on its own account, invariably there would be a plethora of inferences I could reach. The assignment could well be related to anthropology, evolution, and a host of other subject areas.

Your second sentence is not much better; you include a quote that is in itself more revealing than your disjointed analysis accompanying it. Remember, we are supposed to include analysis, and the quotes should support it. Rather, you have merely included quotes that are pretty much unrelated to your analysis.

- "Dowd talks about America having to continue the fight against terrorism and terrorist states"

This is uninspired; I'm sure the vast majority would agree that he is talking about terrorism, but that is not an analysis, it is more a mere petty "report."

- "The United States, for the most part, has stayed neutral in the affairs of the world, and only getting involved when something negative happens to American's or our interests. But, when provoked, this country does not back down from a fight. This country was founded by the outcasts of other countries, and in time, others migrated here as well. What makes America special is the combined knowledge of our nation. We are not just Americans, we are German, we are Russians, we are Iranians and Indian's, (redacted)."

Ok, so the US has remained neutral in most cases, except where its interests are at stake. I would argue that this is the prevailing notion. Most sovereign nations, superpowers especially, are disinclined to intervene in scenarios that don't have SOME bearing on their interest. I fail to see how this ties in with the analysis of Dowds' argument, so correct me if I'm mistaken, that is, IT IS in a constructive sense tied in.

Your next sentence could be loosely interpreted to mean that the United States is tough, and the one following it that the United States has an incredible richness in diversity in that the people who call it home, come from different cultures, ethnicities, geographical areas of the world, and so on. Basically, the most salient point that leaped out at me while I was reading this portion, was "he's arguing that America is distinct, special; exceptional.

Again, I'm not badgering you, but this has little relevance to your analysis of Dowds' arguments. I'm waiting and waiting for you to tie this in somehow, but in hindsight, you don't.

- And yet, a man, under the disguise of a pacifistic religion, murdered 3000 people on a September morning.

This is your final sentence, and your last chance to salvage what is otherwise an unimpressive analysis of the first article. You are compelled to address Dowds' primary argument, even if you decide to include your personal opinion alongside it. Instead of that, you go so far off point that I'm left with nothing to dissuade me from the view that you didn't present ANY analysis, if by that we mean even a basic paraphrasing of the authors' contentions.

- Charles W. Kegley Jr. and Gregory A. Raymond write in 'Preemptive War Cannot be Justified' that the war being fought in the Middle East is not correct per international law (redacted), "This radical revision of customary international law is leading the world into uncharted waters. If it becomes permissible to attack other international actors who do not pose an imminent threat, then, without a moral principle to guide international conduct, war is likely to increase."

Sir, I'm going you the benefit of the doubt and judge your second paragraph on those first few sentences, and disregard the rest.

By that measure, you summed up his thesis, and provided an excellent quote backing you up.

I believe strongly that those few sentences address the requirements of the assignment in a more meaningful way than the rest of your submission combined, by the standard of most professors.

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Moving on, this part now will be more based on an approach that is in line with discussion, outside the conventions of school.

Just imagine that I'm talking to you outside of school...

- Dowd talks about America having to continue the fight against terrorism and terrorist states

Again, as I alluded previously, Dowd IS talking about terrorism, but here is my personal opinion on what his basic, superceding contention is.

Dowd fully supports unconvential, needless, criminal and abhorrent tactics, in this so called war against terrorism; but he is pretty intelligent. Most reasonable adults -- the constitutents of the United States who are at base responsible for deciding the electorates who represent them, choose those electorates which they feel most share their personal convictions. That said, most Americans would not support electorates, and in turn their policies, if they did not have a good reason to change their views -- mold their views in unison to those of their elected leaders -- because the status quo dictates that their beliefs about what is right and wrong in this circumstance, conflicts sharply with what their elected leaders have espoused publicly. So, if the most powerful elected officials are advancing these new radical methods -- otherwise unacceptable -- they must also make well sure that they don't leave the voters hanging; otherwise their careers as politicans will inevitably come to a grinding, halt. Dowd is merely interlocuting on behalf of the selfame beliefs that are those of crafty, unscrupulous politicans, who full well realize that they must in short, justify their deeply criminal misconduct.

Invite this new paradigm that we are in a new age, the likes we have never seen or read about in our lifetimes, and that's a pretty compelling reason for us to abandon our moral compass, which is shaped by arduous trial and error -- the mistakes that we have learned long ago that we should avoid repeating.

In a nutshell he alleges outright-- this is a "war against civilization." That's a very strong allegation sir; if we accept the premise that these rogue, intangible, factions are colluding to bring about the end of civilization as we know it, I'm positively sure we have enough reason and justification to consider new methods, irrespective of any morality carved out through our careful study of written history, the trials and tribulations of our ancestors that necessarily led us to where we are today, and which, thus, in all but the most extreme circumstances, should play a strong role in how we view conflicts of our time, and more to the point, how we respond to these serious issues.

In my opinion, Dowd is saying the hell with the past; we are in unchartered territory, thus the hell with preconceived moral objections fashioned through the careful study of our history; essentially, all of it has no relevance now. Sept. 11 [the attacks] he argues, constitutes the erasure of anything preceding it.

So we are absolved from our conscience; the old rules don't apply. We are newborn in a dark, dangerous world and we must adapt to circumstances which have no conscienable precedent.

Mustafa

You are awesome, Mustafa. Great example of articulate honesty. In your writing, the verbosity is a natural result of being a good writer. We are all verbose. read that book by Stephen King that I always talk about; you'll love it. The one called On Writing.

Need a hyphen: so-called

In my opinion, Dowd is saying, to hell with the past; we are in unchartered territory, thus the hell with preconceived moral objections fashioned through the careful study of our history; essentially, all of it has no relevance now.

Use italics to show what he is essentially saying.

Your prof wants to make sure that you caught all of Dawd's meaning -- that none of it was lost on you.. Show that you fully understand Dowd by thoroughly analyzing his argument, and even acknowledging its merits.(unless I misunderstood the cmments from the prof.)

I agree with what you are saying about the problem with using 911 as an all access pass to crazy land. However, like I said, make sure you acknowledge all of Dowd's points, too. As for your argument, I agree with you about what you are saying but I have not read Dowd.

Hmmm . . . Like Kevin, I find it difficult to gauge the reasonableness of your response because I haven't read Dowd.

What you have said, on its own, is perfectly reasonable. Essentially you seem to be saying that America, as a nation, shouldn't throw away its moral compass just because a bunch of fanatics destroyed a couple of buildings and a handful of planes. That's fine.

However, is Dowd really arguing that America should do whatever it likes, without any attempt at being moral? Or is he arguing that things you personally believe are immoral are justifiable (which is different)? What exactly does he believe changed after 9/11? Does he come up with any new principles to govern America's response, to replace the old ones? Your main problem, if you are trying to address your prof's comments by writing a new version of the assignment, is that I don't know the answers to these questions after reading your reply. Whereas, if you had summarized his points effectively, I would know.

Therefore, I would suggest you try writing a paragraph in which you summarize Dowd's views, without passing any judgment on them. Better yet, write up a summary of his views as he might write it, if he were asked to provide an abstract for his article. Then, you can use that as an introduction to your reply, and refer back to it when you are presenting your critique of it. At the very least, it would make it easier for us to follow your arguments.

By the way, I admire your honesty and courage in writing the opening to this thread -- it takes real bravery to be that introspective in public.

Yeah, I agree! I noticed a long time ago, in myself, a tendency to be argumentative and to be verbose. Both of those tend to come with being good at the use of language.

I think you once wrote that wordsmiths pick verbal arguments for the same reason jocks often pick physical fights -- because they think they can win. There's probably some truth to that. But it's also fun to explore ideas for their own sake, to construct and deconstruct arguments for the purposes of learning. You just have to make sure that the people you are doing this with understand that the exercise is nothing personal. I've noticed also that some people will never understand this, because they cannot decouple their emotional point of view from their intellectual one. Even someone as intelligent as Richard Dawkins admits that he couldn't handle being in a debating team in college because he would have been forced to argue points of view he didn't agree with. I guess it must be psychologically threatening, if you are deeply invested in a particular point of view, to force yourself to understand how someone else can disagree with you completely.