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10 things people should know about arguments.

Peter
10 months ago
  1. Arguments aren't only worth having if you succeed in changing people’s minds. There are lots of other benefits:
    1. You might change your own mind.
    2. In the process of arguing you will learn many of those who disagree with you are reasonable people with thought out views, not monsters or morons.
    3. Others will see you are not a monster or a moron.
    4. In the process of having to argue and justify your points you will gain a greater understanding of what you believe and why you believe it. You may even have an epiphany.
  2. Argument is not a democratic exercise even though it's foundational to democracy. If you have one voice supporting a position and 100 decrying it, all making the same arguments, what you have is 99 redundant voices in the argument. Arguments are not about personal preference or popularity. All positions no matter how unpopular need to be heard.
  3. Be wary of arguing based on generalising your personal experience to others. You generally only see one side, your side, of the situations you are in. You can generally only infer or guess if others truly share your experiences. And even if your personal experience is dispositive for you, it's not something you can generally prove to others, they can't look inside your head and memories to verify your claims.
    1. Don't accuse people of calling you a liar because they won't accept your personal experience as evidence.
  4. Never confuse someone trying to invalidate your beliefs and them trying to invalidate you as a person. Attacks on your arguments are not that same as attacks on you personally.
  5. It is wisdom to overlook an offence. You rarely further your arguments by returning others insults.
  6. You don't have to support a position to argue against a bad argument offered in support of that position. Playing devil’s advocate and arguing against your own weak arguments will make your arguments stronger. Not everyone who argues against your opponent’s agrees with you. Not everyone who pokes holes in your logic disagrees with your ultimate conclusion.
  7. Pick and choose your arguments. You only have so much time and energy in life. If your arguments don't benefit your insight or others why spend time on them.
  8. The arguments that work aren't always good. Appealing emotively to the crowed may be effective but wise people will see through it (even if they agree with you).
  9. Don't be afraid to contradict people wiser and more experienced than you. Anything you tell a wise person will only make them wiser and it's better to be corrected than live in ignorance thinking you are right when you are wrong because you never posed the question.
  10. If you're getting angry, and you don't have a stake in the outcome, it's probably time to stop arguing.
  • 10 months ago in reply to Charla
    Charla said:
    Even if you totally demolish them with arguments that seem sound to you, they will often leave the argument thinking in their heads "he just didn't get what I was saying" or "I should have said that in this way instead" rather than actually thinking of the validity of your arguments.

    Again I refer you spicificly to point 1 subsection b through d. Even if no one's mind is changed it's not a pointless exercise. Simply demonstrating your opinions are the product of a rational process has value, as is seeing that others have engaged with such a process. And as I say you often gain new insight via arguing.

  • 10 months ago in reply to Peter

    I agree but generally whatever you're hoping for you won't achieve unless it's an online war.

    People are set in their ways and when a discussion gets to the point of arguing almost never will you actually convince the opposing person and get them to truly change their minds and see things from your side. Even if you totally demolish them with arguments that seem sound to you, they will often leave the argument thinking in their heads "he just didn't get what I was saying" or "I should have said that in this way instead" rather than actually thinking of the validity of your arguments.

    This is what I meant by no one wins.

    What is almost a certainty is that it will get heated and usually result in people getting hurt as well as people not wanting to stay on the forum.

    To me it is a pointless exercise. All you result in doing is wasting your own time when arguing with somebody.

  • 10 months ago in reply to Charla

    I refer you to point one. It's not always about 'winning.'

  • 10 months ago

    The wisest thing to do would be to not argue in the first place. There's no point. No one wins in the end, it just results in the mods locking the thread and normally a few members will leave.