E7S


 * Group writing - body paragraphs for a critical response to Muldoon **

Muldoon’s leading argument is that the United States is “the basic model for humanity … based on the democratic principles”. His reason for this position is that “America has used their armies to secure the peace of other regions of the world, and promoted intellectual ideas of fairness, equality and liberty.” However, this claim is not credible and lacks evidence. In fact, America has had many military conflicts with other countries. For instance, the Iraq War and the Vietnam War, which were caused by America, have led to a lot of deaths and homelessness. What is worse, there are also a large number of social problems in America, such as racial discrimination and lack of health care system. Therefore, the United States of America is not a successful model for humanity.

Eric, Hugh, Chris, Leonardo and Annie

Body Paragragh2:

Muldoon’s second argument is that promoting globalisation will lead to world peace. A famous Italian medievalist is quoted as saying “the right of nations to claim exclusivity has resulted in massacres, wars and torture on non-conformists and political dissidents”, as the supporting evidence. The author also points out some negative aspects of centralisation, using some centralised states as examples. However, his statement is not logical, because there is no direct connection between globalisation and world peace. He fails to explain the relationship between these two elements. Better understanding among different cultures cannot be guaranteed by the world diversity. Moreover, globalisation may cause conflicts, such as financial and political, which enable to result in wars. This argument is not successfully supported by these evidence.

Ivy, Sally, Pauline, Fiona 30/11/2010

Author’s states that “The ‘free market’ produces economic benefits for all”, the logic of this argument is questionable because it marginalised the developing countries and the poor people within it. The author does not consider the fact that globalisation can lead to unfairness because although it can connect delevoped and developing countries with trade agreements, the developing countries have to imported goods with an expensive price that given by the developed one. This is what called ‘paralasation’, it means there’s still a gap between the countries, and that makes the quote above not credible. Furthermore, the author produce weak evidence in support of the argument, one of them is that the date of the source is not up to date, such as “GDP of South American and Asian………” (Johnson, 1991) and “a country that is open to trade…..” (1980). As a result, this evidence is largely not credible, if Muldoon wanted to be more convincing he should have provided more up to date ________ to support his statement. Overall, it can be said that the argument is widely unsuccessful.

Manal, Nikou and Reza

Muldoon’s first main argument is that the spread of globalization will lead to prosperity and peace for the world. Obviously, this argument sounds attractive, but in fact it shows an inaccurate cause and effect relationship. Actually, globalization does not always result in a peaceful and prosperous world. For instance, now we are living in the global village but there are still numerous conflicts and disputes, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In terms of the evidence, the author provides Moravio’s view point that some centralized states like Nazi Germany, Japan and Italy persecuted the minorities. So in short, this argument is partially successful.

Nofel, James, Vivian