Introduction
In an article by Todd Schwartz entitled American Jerk: Be Civil or I’ll Beat You to a Pulp, the author takes on some very ambiguous issues and proves them wrong. specifically concerns about the times in which humanity, and especially the American people, live, not forgetting about inequality, poverty, and tolerance.
Discussion
Unlike other authors, Todd Schwartz is critical of these terms and offers the reader his perspective. The author himself says so at the end, which once again makes it clear how thoughtful he was in writing and what his goals were in writing his article (Schwartz, 2009). Chief among these goals is the need for Americans to see the world from a perspective that is not imposed by society but that everyone formulates for themselves.
One of the most striking details that can be seen in the article is that the author questions the civility of society in the present day. He makes one statement that says that civility rules, but in the following sentence, he says that it does not. By doing so, he shows the ambiguity of the world’s decisions in various fields and casts doubt on the development of civilization as a whole (Schwartz, 2009). He backs up this argument with personal arguments about the extent to which America’s growth has stopped since ancient times and compares it to the Roman Empire. On the one hand, he states that, like the Romans, Americans have reached the peak of their evolution but are slowly going downhill.
The article ends as unusually as the style of writing itself, where the author admits that one should not take his word for it since he is part of that uncivilized mass and is also under the influence of other people, so the reader should not take his word for it (“Just don’t get in my way. I’m on my cell in the Escalade, and I can’t be bothered.”) (Schwartz, 2009, para 17).
Conclusion
Schwartz’s approach can be called creative, as can his way of presenting information. His ideas are relevant and worthy of special attention. The information the author provides is different from what is generally accepted, which allows one to take an alternative point of view and look at the situation from a different perspective.
Reference
Schwartz, T. (2009) American Jerk. Utne. Web.