There are a number of words that have firmly established themselves in human culture, not just as nouns denoting an object or event, but rather as symbols, some metaphors. "War" is one of these ambiguous words.
Instructions
Step 1
In historical texts, "war" is nothing more than an event. The word emotionlessly reflects only the fact that an armed conflict took place between the two states, resulting in human casualties. You should not attribute to the term some subtext in textbooks: with the exception of rare historians and philosophers, this approach to writing is not practiced.
Step 2
In the texts authored by veterans and participants in armed conflicts, "war" has a clearly negative connotation. Here she is not just a historical event, but something she experienced on her own. The emphasis in such works is that "war" is something unnatural, inhuman and terrible. Therefore, even if we are not talking about a specific event, but the word is used ("A real war was going on on the landing platform"), it characterizes the phenomenon as chaotic, cruel and partly meaningless.
Step 3
In philosophical treatises, "war" is often a metaphor. For example, this can include Friedrich Nietzsche with his "war against everything human." The distorted interpretation of the works of this philosopher led to the fact that many consider him a Nazi. However, all the "wars" proposed by the author (this is especially characteristic of the work "Thus Spoke Zarathustra") are nothing more than "a struggle with oneself." “The only worthwhile occupation is war,” says the author. However, he does not require bloodshed, he says that each person should be in an eternal state of struggle, the search for truth and conflict with his own shortcomings.
Step 4
Sometimes a declaration of war can be interpreted as a threat. “To declare war” in personal communication and in a certain context means “to start fighting hard”, “to make every effort to fight”. The housewife can “declare war on dust in the house” and the cleaning products in commercials “declare war on germs”. The classic cliche is also the phrase of one of the opposing characters in the fiction: “Do you want war? There will be war for you."
