War is an eternal aspect of humanity.

As long as we have lived on the planet, humans have found reasons to fight amongst themselves. Regardless of whether one considers war righteous or detestable, it is nevertheless ingrained into our society. Attitudes towards war however, have changed significantly over time, particularly in the last hundred years. Prior to the World Wars, war was glorified, and "heroes" placed on a pedestal. Following the atrocities of those wars, and the emergence of huge civilian casualties throughout, people began to take a different approach to war. Feelings of horror, outrage and disgust have been expressed over crimes such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Holocaust, and the Armenian genocide of WW1. A relatively recent development in attitudes towards war is one of widespread intellectual contempt. Both Stan Arneil's One Man's War and Phillip Adam's article War Worship: Man's One True Religion, wish to see war vilified, though for different respective reasons of horror at human suffering and contempt for war as a concept. Structure, language, and selection of detail have been utilised in both War Worship and One Man's War to reinforce and reflect to a great extent the attitude of their respective target audiences in regards to the nature and morality of war, and to demonstrate the evolution of socially held ideals. The author of One Man's War ends every extract with positivity and optimism, reflecting the hopefullness and naivety of post-WW2 society. The world wars were the first time the world had seen such truly horrendous behaviour, and most didn't know what to believe. Therefore it became commonly hoped that this would be the end, that after such atrocities nothing like it could happen again. The piece is written as a series of diary entries documenting the author's experiences as a prisoner of war. His attitude reflects this belief, "Surely this cannot last?", "The war cannot last forever. Needless to say this assumption was wrong, as seen in War Worship, which reveals that no matter how horrific or detestable the acts of war are, it never ends and never improves. Despite the post-war construction of such organisations as the United Nations with the aim of seeking an end to war, these goals have not been met. References to surroundings in One Man's War are scarce and incidental at best, which demonstrates the focus of the author's opinions of war. He focusses on people and events which happen to himself and others, mentioning change of locale only in passing. This is due to the fact that his attitudes towards war have been created by what he has witnessed of the suffering of his fellow humans, rather than by any kind of intellectual opposition. As with majority of people at the time, their attitudes of horror towards the actions taken during war were formed by the stories they heard and what they saw. As it was such a new occurrence, outrage was prevalent. Although statistics are used in One Man's War, they never dominate the

extracts or form a focus, rather they are used to set the scene for each entry, and provide an introduction to each new horror. The author often opens with statistics, before moving on to much more personal accounts, especially vivid descriptions of suffering of fellow prisoners. The first entry starts, "Twelve deaths in the last 24 hours but few admissions... while waiting for the service two poor chaps were carted out on three poles and wrapped in a blanket or ground sheet, and were tossed on to a roaring fire five yards from the cemetery." This focus on people's suffering again conveys his attitude of horror at war, and communicates to the reader his essential humanity. It is clear that he is much more than an observer and recorder, he in fact represents the wider selection of society at the time in their attitude of shock and outrage towards war and the atrocities committed against people. As a feature article, War Worship is inevitably much more formal in structure than One Man's War, though it opens with a contemporary allusion to set the scene. "Baghdad writes Tehrana "dear brother" letter and suddenly bitter emnities are forgotten?", is a satirical phrase which introduces a key part of Adam's argument against war, which is it's moral fickleness. According to the author, war is a distasteful practice ingrained into "human nature" which cannot be changed or stopped. Thus rather than commenting on the suffering which occurs during war, his anger is directed at intellectual and emotional dishonesty, which is reflective of an attitude prevalent in his target audience. The article was written at the beginning of the Gulf Crisis, a war which went on to be remembered for its pointlessness and unnecessary undertaking. Many citizens felt their country should not be involved, which led to the emergence of an attitude of moral contempt for that war, and indeed war in general. Society's loss of a feeling of the personal horror and outrage at the atrocities of war depicted in One Man's War is exemplified in Adam's lack of personal examples. His one comment on war at a personal level is itself intellectually condemning, as he remarks on a visit to Westminster Abbey, "the great writers and poets are squeezed into a little annex, very off-Broadway... whereas the main thrust of the building was jammed to the rafters with mighty sculptural tributes to generals and admirals." This observation reflects the realisation in the target audience that all men like war, and that it cannot be stopped due to humanity's obsession with internal squabbling. This example also brings to light the idea that perhaps our society does and always has, rather than valuing an idea itself, placed greater merit on the actions which brought about and idea, and thus these actions are what we memorialise. When one thinks of the concept of Communism, thoughts spring to violent, cruel dictators like Stalin and Chairman Mao, while the intellectual co-authors of the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who first conceived their fundamental ideals, are ignored.

Unlike One Man's Army, formal use of scholarly and academic quotes and opinions are used in War Worship to expose the intellectual attitudes of the audience towards war. Beckus remarks on the justification of war, "...The enemy has a ritual role to play by means of which evil is redeemed. All wars are conducted as 'holy' wars- as a revelation of fate, a testing of divine favour and as a means of purging evil from the world." and Koestler's theory on war being ingrained into the human psyche, as a fundamental part of our humanity, are used to build up a catelogue of weaknesses of the concept of war. The author is exposing the widely held contemporary attitude of examining not the cruelty of war, but rather its dishonesty. This intellectual contempt for war reflects the attitudes of the audience Adam's is adressing in this article. Rhetorical questions are used by Arneil in One Man's War to express the character's deeply rooted attitude towards the destructiveness and human cost of war. This attitude is thereby a reflection of Arneil's target audience, i.e. western society in the post-war period. "Why must there be wars?", "Surely this cannot last", unlike with other forms of writing, this technique's usage is not included for dramatic effect, but rather to convey the depth of the character's feelings. In this, the author hopes to reinforce the audience's outrage at war, and their attitude of personal moral outrage. Arneil uses a mixture of subjective and objective language to reinforce his ideals and attitudes with both emotion and fact. In this context the negative attitude towards war is best conveyed by being both an accurate observer and a very human observer, and thus writing to record a personal experience has a particularly potent effect on the reader. "Yesterday there were 14 admissions, not 2 as I stated... It was a horrible sight and I pray that I will not finish that way." These contrasting comments reflect society's acknowledgement of the horrors and atrocities of war, and their immediate prayers for the end of such cruelty, however in vain they were. Similar to as in One Man's War, Adams also uses a mixture of subjective and objective language. As stated above, his use of scholarly quotes solidifies his argument and the attitude of the target audience, but some of his own words have personal connotations. The use of words such as "wimpy" and "demonise" brings a more intimate and relatable outlook to the reader, and allows them to form a connection between their own attitudes and that of the author. This reflects the attitude of intellectual contempt for war, combines moral and academic high ground with Adam's own very personal scorn for the entire concept of war and his relation to the widely held attitude of his target audience. The juxtaposition of colloquial and formal language in War Worship is utilised to make war more dislikeable. This contrast results in an incongruity which

brings to the forefront of the reader's mind their own distaste towards war, an attitude resulting from decades of repeated crimes which have occurred throughout its waging. Phrases like "zappy sound effects", and "from kamikaze to camaraderie", have a droll tone to them, and this blatantly critical sarcasm is intended to mock contemporaty governments and global organisations involved in international relations. This sarcastic and cynical outlook reinforces the modern attitude of sitaste and disapproval. Adam's uses simple language throughout his article to make it easily relatable and instantly recognisable to a wider selection of his audience, yet remains formal and scholarly throughout. This combined with his sarcastic and synical attitude mentioned above has resulted in the projection of his attitude of "cold anger" rather than the horror and passionate rejection expressed by past generations towards the atrocities of modern warfare. The authors of both One Man's War and War Worship have used selection of detail in a way which reflects the attitudes of their respective target audiences. Arneil has written his diary entries in a way so as to have his character focus on his fellow prisoners, and pay little attention to his surroundings or captors. "Tommy much better", "78 dead Aussies", and other such comments regarding the conditions of his imprisonment serve to express his attitude of horror at the suffering created by war, and shows that unlike Adams is not as concerned with the wider intellectual relevance of the argument. In encouraging focus on the victims rather than the perpetrators, the character mirrors the widely held attitude of post-WW2 society in that they felt horror at the injustices committed against victims more so than anger and disapproval towards those who committed the crimes. The early entries of One Man's War emphasise the incidence of death and illness more than any other aspect of the story, which is a direct reflection of the early attitude of horror and focus on victims of war and suffering compared to the eventual evolution of the cynical and intellectually critical attitude of more modern society. "Twelve deaths in the last 24 hours... six deaths in 24 hours, malaria now almost as the cholera was... lost 69 men in 10 days..." Arneil highlights these appalling details because of the apparent horror at the suffering the character witnesses, as he himself would have reacted similarly as a member of his own target audience. Adams begins his anti-war argument in War Worship with contemporary references to recent examples and events. He does this in order to set the scene for his target audience, and introduces themes relative to their own attitudes. This creation of relatability allows for him to then move into his deeper argument of intellectual contempt and condemnation of war. He talks about the Gulf War and ironically quotes President Nixon, "It may seem melodramatic to say that United States and Russia represent good and evil,

but if we think of it that way, it helps to clarify our perspective on the world's struggle." This quote is a perfect precursor to Adam's following argument that war is something ingrained into humanity and in particular man, something genetic that will never be countermanded or reprogrammed. What follows is recognition of the general attitude of anger towards war's general immorality and the inherent dishonesty of those who wage it, the repeatedly common attitude of modern intellectualism. As already mentioned, Adams takes a much more scientific and intellectual approach to presenting his anti-war argument, while remaining satirical and sarcastic in his personal commentary. The best example of his selection of scholarly evidence is his referencing to Arthur Koestler, a Hungarian essayist and novelist, and his contemporary theory on the psychology of war, "Koestler theorised that, beneath the neo-cortex that makes us human, lurked the ancient, reptilian brain that makes us killers. He believed that evolution had cursed us with a counterpart to original sin. And when the drums are beating and the sabres rattling, it's easy to believe him." This modern scientific analysis adds weight to Adams' argument, and is representative of the modern attitude of reliance upon facts, statistics and expert opinions to help one to support their beliefs. War is a monstrosity, yet it is an inevitability. It is ancient yet infantile, passionate yet calculated, destructive yet great art results from it. Both Phillip Adams' article War Worship and Stan Arneil's One Man's Army condemn every facet of war, from the physical suffering directed upon its victims, to the intellectually damnable continuation of its waging despite centuries of atrocities and supposed "developments" in humanity. These writers have constructed their texts in such a way as they reflect the dominant attitude towards war held by their target audiences, these being moral condemnation of war's inherent dishonesty, and horror and outrage at the human suffering it causes respectively. This has been achieved through Adams' and Arneil's employing the conventions of structure, language and selection of detail. These attitudes reflect the observation that over time and with greater exposure, ideals and values held by a society can be altered and changed, and thus attitudes ingrained into social identity are developed. A quote by Voltaire beautifully sums up the position of both writers, especially Adams, and is a poignant reflection upon the meaning of war, "It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.