To go a step further, arguments are healthier if they’re pictured as a way to field test your beliefs to see if they hold up to scrutiny.
If you go into an argument trying to get the other person to change their mind, you’ll often be met with failure even if your points were valid simply because people hate changing their mind, and you don’t want to be tempted to use bad-faith arguments of your own just to secure that “win.”
Instead, just give your argument; if the other person has a good point, see if yours can hold up to it, and change your outlook if you find that it can’t. And if it feels like the other person is just saying whatever they think will “win,” leave, because their argument wouldn’t make a good field test anyway.
In a similar vein, I also try to see it as an opportunity to make my conversation partner smarter (if I happen to be right, of course).
For “winning”, it’s enough to prove that what they’re saying is wrong. But for making them smarter, you need to point out what’s correct and why that makes sense.
Well, and in general, it’s a whole different way of formulating, i.e. less hostile, more helpful.
In the vast majority of cases, that makes all the difference for actually convincing them.
And it certainly hones your own mind much better, too, when you actually give the explanation rather than just pointing out fallacies.
And if you did change their mind, they probably aren’t going to tell you. Or maybe you planted a seed in their mind that helps to change it years and years down the road. You don’t know! That’s the crazy thing. But people just get frustrated and give up because they had an unreasonable expectation about the argument in the first place.
To go a step further, arguments are healthier if they’re pictured as a way to field test your beliefs to see if they hold up to scrutiny.
If you go into an argument trying to get the other person to change their mind, you’ll often be met with failure even if your points were valid simply because people hate changing their mind, and you don’t want to be tempted to use bad-faith arguments of your own just to secure that “win.”
Instead, just give your argument; if the other person has a good point, see if yours can hold up to it, and change your outlook if you find that it can’t. And if it feels like the other person is just saying whatever they think will “win,” leave, because their argument wouldn’t make a good field test anyway.
In a similar vein, I also try to see it as an opportunity to make my conversation partner smarter (if I happen to be right, of course).
For “winning”, it’s enough to prove that what they’re saying is wrong. But for making them smarter, you need to point out what’s correct and why that makes sense.
Well, and in general, it’s a whole different way of formulating, i.e. less hostile, more helpful.
In the vast majority of cases, that makes all the difference for actually convincing them.
And it certainly hones your own mind much better, too, when you actually give the explanation rather than just pointing out fallacies.
And if you did change their mind, they probably aren’t going to tell you. Or maybe you planted a seed in their mind that helps to change it years and years down the road. You don’t know! That’s the crazy thing. But people just get frustrated and give up because they had an unreasonable expectation about the argument in the first place.