Arguing Arguments

I think a lot of people argue improperly. I’ve been having discussions recently where the people I was talking with were not necessarily on the same side as I was. They were getting fairly heated. Now don’t get me wrong here, I love a good intellectual discussion, but I’m not so hot on a very heated, animated argument. This sort of caused me to think about why I was having these types of interactions, what I wanted out of them, and what I should do about it next time the situation rears its ugly head. I came to the idea that I believe many people aren’t necessarily thinking the right way when they argue. By default, most of the time this happens, you will strongly believe your own point of view, why else would you choose it? Since you already believe yourself, most of what you think of will be trying to find the right points and methods to convince the other person you’re correct. The other person is naturally doing the same. Furthermore, most of the things they say can anger you at their ignorance or whatnot and will prompt you to argue your point further. So what we have is two people, set in their convictions, being further convinced of their superiority with everything their counterpart says, like two gears trying to grind opposite directions with more and more force. It isn’t pretty (to me at least). Now this does not need to be the case. This only arises when the case is that you want to be correct, then you do anything and use any argument it takes to win. Alternatively, this can happen when you are thinking you know that you are right. Then all you see is the other person continually repeat how stupid they are. Unless the argument is purely fact based, I think there is no way to know that you are actually right (oddly enough even if it is fact based, sometime no one person is correct). A lot of arguments stem from misunderstanding. I think in order to argue properly, you need to know what you think and have points for it, but you should also almost want to have your mind changed. Going into an argument, my thought is you should want to learn something new, that way there doesn’t need to only be one winner (and even if you don’t learn anything new about your topic, maybe you learn something about the person you are arguing with). You may even be totally correct with the argument that you’re presenting about the topic you are arguing about. The thing is, maybe the other person has a different idea of what topic you’re talking about, or a different definition for one of the main points of contention. Both people could have the best argument for what they’re arguing, but they don’t realize they’re talking about different things. Now in case there ever was a question, I prefer not to argue. I don’t like it. I think usually the same can be achieved in a calm discussion. I have never before looked at an argument the way I just proposed until a couple days ago. To me, the goal was always to impart the knowledge I had onto the other person. Sometimes (not often) their knowledge is superior to mine, but almost always I still have something to offer them. To me, it doesn’t even need to persuade them that my point of view is correct; I just want to change their perspective, even if it’s only a little. I hope I have argued my argument about arguments in a way that changes your perspective (unless you already thought this, in which case you were right all along).

So Scott Thought