The meaning of the word “controversy” is difficult because it is rarely found in everyday speech, which means that most simply do not know its meaning. This grief brings almost no one, for few use the definition. Nevertheless, sometimes the moment comes when we need the word, but we do not know how to use it. To prevent this from happening, consider the meaning, meaning and synonyms of the concept of "controversy."
Value
There is scientific evidence that claims that modern man is much weaker than his brother, who lived 50 years ago. In other words, if we compare the youth of the 70s of the 20th century and the current, it turns out that the first is much healthier than the second. And gadgets are to blame for everything, which, on the one hand, make our life easier, and on the other hand, relax the body and reduce memory, attention. Why do you need to remember if there are search engines? Let's stop at this. If the reader wanted to argue with the above statement and refute the calculations of Western psychologists, it means that we stopped literally one step from the controversy.
In turn, the explanatory dictionary does not want and cannot withdraw from the discussion and testifies to the meaning of the word "polemic": "A dispute in the discussion, clarification of any problems, questions."
Naturally, not every topic is worthy of a scientific debate (another name for the object of study).
Subject
Imagine that two neighbors have a common balcony, and hens are stored on it. And one woman appropriated the bird to another. Do you think it is possible to get a polemic dispute from this subject? Only in one case: if the injured party sues for the theft of chicken and its illegal eating, and the aggressor side accepts the challenge, and they converge in court. And now, the lawyers of the parties may well be able to make a polemic out of the missing chicken. Otherwise, domestic disputes cannot be polemic.
Modern life concepts and its mutation
Now they have already forgotten about the controversy, that is, it no longer has such a wide distribution as in the 19th century or early 20th, when the intelligentsia crossed swords on the pages of newspapers. It is now difficult to keep track of all the possible information that flows to the consumer, so this kind of duel has ceased to exist, or rather, they mutated into video calls over the Internet. For example, one says to the other: “I ate 12 hamburgers, but can you?” Another answers: “I'll try!”
Then a video is shot where the one who lifted the glove tries to shove 12 rolls and the same number of cutlets. And the most interesting thing is that the performance has spectators. The reader will say that we are exaggerating, because once the meaning of the word "polemic" is fixed in the explanatory dictionary, then the phenomenon exists. The reader, as always, is right. Indeed, scientific, literary, and political debates exist, books, articles are written about this, and the intellectuals of our time secretly or explicitly exchange dagger blows, however, victims do not happen often. You can also say that such questions have always been of interest to a narrow circle. This is only partially true. In the 19th century, for example, the peasant was closer to his plow than Hegel with his system, only because the plowman had no education. Now Russia is the most educated country (statistically), but philosophical, literary and other non-domestic problems do not capture everyone. While in Japan people are traditionally interested in many things even in old age - this is part of the national culture. The circulation of newspapers and magazines in the Land of the Rising Sun is going through the roof, and our neighbors do not have a division of print media into mass and highly intellectual. This is all to ensure that the debate is accessible to everyone, we just have not yet developed a habit, everything is still ahead.
Style
The question of what the word “polemic” means does not seem so difficult anymore. In addition to the subject, the style of a scientific conversation can also be polemical. Imagine that the chicken wasn’t lost at the housewife, but a high-class lawyer became the victim of the treacherous neighbor, and by chance, the criminal turned out to be another connoisseur of laws, which, unfortunately, suffers from kleptomania. The chances that polemics may break out on the balcony increase dramatically.
In addition to jokes, the manner in which this or that material is presented is important. When cars are discussed by motorists in a garage, this is one thing, and when designers or engineers are another. Of course, it is wrong to differentiate people based solely on social status, but this is only necessary in order to achieve visibility. But in life, conversations in the garage can be recognized as controversy.
Synonyms
To answer the question "controversy - what is it in simple words", you need to turn to those concepts that can replace it. Naturally, for clarity, you can resort to a certain stylistic decline and the loss of some shades of meaning, but rarely when synonyms are absolute. So here is the list:
- debate;
- a dispute;
- pick;
- debate;
- altercation;
- dispute;
- clash of opinions.
The compiled list seems to exhaustively answer the question that was stated at the beginning of the section. And speaking quite simply, the controversy is a reasoned, polite, reasonable debate on a given topic. A logical question arises: “What is more important - a style or an object?” It’s not easy to answer. Nevertheless, the style subjugates the subject to itself, because in fact it is possible to cultivate almost any object and find incredible complexity in it. And not always such talk is idle talk. The thing is that every phenomenon in the world can be both very simple and very complex, it all depends on the observer and his baggage.
We hope that the reasoning did not overshadow the meaning of the word “controversy,” and I would not want to confuse the reader even more.