Argument paper concepts and structure

¶ … colleges shower their students with A's, the author has brought forth some pertinent issues connected with decline of educational system in the country. Staples argues that since the pressure to be at the top is mounting, universities are showering their students with higher grades than what they rightfully deserve. In pointing out the problem of grade inflation, author has not backed his argument with statistics but has tried to convince the readers that something on this account is taking place in institutes of higher education. The author seems to agree with the idea of higher weightage for more tricky subjects such as science and math. In another controversial article 'College is a Waste of Time and Money, Caroline Bird express serious dismay over students' utter lack of interest in gaining knowledge. She feels that the primary reason students are in colleges is because that was the appropriate thing to do. The author feels that students are generally unhappy on the campuses and assumes that everyone would agree with this. However she understands that not everyone would agree with the reasons given by her for unhappiness she witnessed on college campuses. Bird feels that lack of enthusiasm for the chosen field is one of the biggest reasons. But some may assume that this sad is connected with leaving home, being in new surroundings and of course the concern about the future. In her article, A Century of Cinema, Susan Sontag talks about the decline of inspiration that cinema used to generate. She refers to decline of cinema not exactly in terms of revenues but in terms of quality and the emotion cinema used to inspire. She puts forth the notion of cine-love and cine-philia, and feels that as long as cinema doesn't inspire cine love, it indicates the death of cinema no matter how many good movies are churned out every year.

Argument: ALL WARS ARE WRONG

All wars throughout the history of the world have ended in terrible devastation and extensive destruction in terms of economic, social and political repercussions for the countries and their people. There are still some who feel that all wars are not wrong. They feel that some of these wars were important for self-defense. However looking at the extent of destruction wrought on by wars, it becomes obvious that regardless of its reasons and causes, all wars are indeed wrong. Different wars led to different end results. In some cases, the economies crashed such as the Great Depression in the United States of America after the World War 1 which reduced the value of the currency to mere its paper, cost of living escalated beyond human imagination, millions of people lost their jobs and millions could not enter the job market, the whole structure of trade and industry fell apart, private and public investment became shy and there was doom and gloom all around for the American people. On the other hand, some wars resulted in massive uprisings, mass destruction of property, indiscriminate killings of people, uprooting of the power base, widespread lawlessness through revolutions like the French Revolution, the Chinese Revolution and the Russian Revolution and most recently the Iranian Revolution. These revolutions have had far reaching repercussions for the countries in which these revolutions erupted as well as for the entire regions and the world at large. French Revolution over-turned the centuries-old monarchy and brought in republic governments, which in turn changed in quick succession until the end of the Second World War. The period between the end of monarchy and the establishment of stable republic government in France is a witness to the loss of French colonies. The Chinese Revolution turned around the people from a capitalistic economic system to socialist economic system under a new political system of communism expounded by Marx. The Chinese Revolution in turn created a major rift between China and the United States in particular and the West in general. The Chinese socialist economic and communist political systems were never acceptable to the United States and the West, which had totally different economic and political systems based on laissez-faire economies and democratic governments. Arab-Israel Wars, Iran-Iraq War of the 80's and the Gulf War of the 90's though these wars were confined to a few countries and the world at large was saved from their devastating effects. Look at the several Arab-Israel wars fought over a period of forty plus years without resolving the burning issue of the establishment of the State of Palestine. Billions of dollars have gone into war machinery, hundreds of thousands have died and economies of the Arab world have enormously been hit. The Arab-Israel conflict remains ripe till to date. Similarly, the Iran-Iraq war led to no gains for either country. In fact, tremendous loss of human lives and financial resources put both the countries under severe economic pressures with long lasting effects. The brewing conflict still horrifies both the nations and a war can erupt at any time with further destruction in both the countries. The Gulf War involving Iraq, Kuwait, USA, Britain and France freed Kuwait from the occupation of Iraqi forces but the conflict between Iraq and the U.S.A. remains unresolved till to date. Wars are not necessarily the solution of conflicts; they are rather the causes of new conflicts. Thus it is evident that wars certainly bring in total destruction and serve as the possible cause of ruin.