Construct an argument between two debaters over the origins, causes, and future of war

Instructions: Write an essay on any one (1) of the following topics.

Either

Construct an argument between two debaters over the origins, causes, and future of war. The first speaker believes that war is inevitable because conflict and violence are essential aspects of human nature, inherited from our simian ancestors. The second speaker has a more benign view of human nature and believes that war arises from institutions that are unjust and unreasonable. Hence, if we eliminate injustice and unreason, we can put an end to war. At the end of this debate, provide your own commentary and conclusions—(fully documented and referenced with citations to the course materials) on the causes and future of war. A possible structure for this assignment could include the following sections: (1) Introduction to the Debate, (2) The Causes of War: Human Nature Versus Social Institutions—Genes Versus Environment; (3) Ideology Versus Facts—The Evidence from Anthropology and History; (4) Conclusions. At the same time, you are at liberty to impose your own structure on this assignment.

Or

Select a current trouble spot in the world—either of a past or present war or armed conflict—and show how this conflict situation may be analyzed using a particular theoretical perspective from either a systemic, societal, or individual level of analysis. In your analysis, try to review the strengths and the limitations of this theory as you apply it in an analysis of your case study.

Or

Select three different real-life examples of war, armed conflict or organized violence which illustrate each of the different types of cruelty described by Randall Collins. Describe how Randall Collins explains the social processes whereby “outsiders” are first dehumanized through language, and then dehumanized in practice. Provide some illustrative examples of how “outsiders” may be rendered as “the enemy” during wartime, and how “outsiders” may also be excluded from interpersonal relations in many other institutional settings—such as the school, the workplace, or even the family. Show how each of your examples meets the criteria established by Randall Collins in his classification of the different types of cruelty.

Note:

• Regardless of the topic chosen, please go through all the lesson notes from Unit 1 to Unit 5 and read all the articles attached.

• If you choose topic 3, you will find the article “Randall Collins, Three Faces of Cruelty” under file title ‘Unit 2 Article 4’.

3)   For the textbook “the sociology of war and violence’’ by Siniša Maleševic´, please read chapters 1,2, 3, 4, 10  (Access link: https://b-ok.cc/book/939608/3a3794)

4)   For the textbook, “the lethal custom” by Gwynne Dyer, please read chapters 1-6 (Access link: https://b-ok.cc/book/1292685/4e3e1a)

If the links do not work, you can directly access the books from this website (https://z-lib.org/)

Assignment Tips

When preparing an assignment, try to keep in mind some of the following points which will help you to organize and communicate your ideas and develop a logical structure for your project.

Your written assignment will be assessed primarily for its assimilation and application of course ideas; and also for its originality, accuracy, argument, composition, and conclusions.

Referencing

In order to submit an acceptable assignment, you need to show that you have read and referenced the relevant course materials. This requires you to footnote your sources throughout the paper, and to add a full bibliography of your sources at the end of your paper.

Remember that “footnotes” do not—literally—have to be dropped to the foot of each page; they can be inserted into the body of your text as in-text citations, using APA Style.

While documenting your sources, please bear in mind the following considerations:

1. avoid providing general (unpaginated) footnotes (for example; Simmons, 2011) without citing any page references. Your footnotes should always contain specific page references.
2. also, some (but not too many) direct quotations from the course materials would help to strengthen your paper.
3. finally, I would urge you to make full use of all the relevant course materials—textbook(s), Study Guide, and Reading Assignments—as these sources will help you to organize and structure the assignment topic, and provide you with a wide range of definitions and explanations of the key concepts. These readings should take priority over any outside readings, although you may also use outside sources to supplement the course materials.