Arguing and How to Argue Part I

Can you hear them? Listen carefully. You're surrounded by them, they roar between you and those you despise and they creep into your thoughts when alone. Arguments. Can you hear them now?

Try to be aware of how many external and internal arguments you encounter. Now an argument isn't necessarily bad. It can be an incredible source of creativity and construction. But as you no doubt know, arguments can easily disintegrate and dissolve into utter catastrophe. So if we're constantly forced to deal with arguments it's important that we perform them well and properly, in hope that they can bring us closer to truth and prosperity through the long term.

What makes an argument good and proper? The question has any number of answers but, like any skill, argumentation has a foundation of fundamentals. Knowing and practicing these fundamentals allows you to make reasonable and well articulated arguments. Being well articulated requires a clear mind and organized thinking. On the deepest level, a clear mind and organized thinking allow you to make virtuous, productive and honest decisions throughout life. These fundamentals are fundamental.

Making virtuous and honest decisions requires virtuous and honest arguments. If we think of it in this way arguing can become constructive. I think the end goal of any argument (outside of debate and court, among other exceptions) is to come up with a solution that both parties are satisfied with, bringing the most amount of prosperity in the short, medium and long term. On a foundational level, the end goal of an argument is to bring its participants closer to the truth of the matter at hand. Obviously this is an ideal and arguments often devolve into mockery, anger and domination.

To illuminate this positive-negative relationship we can look at an argument between husband and wife. In this situation, the wife feels as though her husband isn't paying enough attention to her and not showing enough affection. She chooses to confront him about it, it's now an argument. They can either navigate the argument constructively, by listening to each other, defining the problem at hand and finding a set of steps that would make the wife feel more affection without making the husband feel like he is being taken advantage of. Or they have the choice of terror, in which both feel personally attacked and they resort to insults.

Five year of the latter would lead to certain turmoil. We can avoid this by adhering to the fundamentals.

Fundamental I: Define your terms.

In order to venture into any kind of progress in an argument it's vital to know what the argument is even about. It's common that we don't define what the argument is about that we end up arguing about different things altogether. We have to define our terms.

By defining the terms of the argument we can narrow its scope to something specific. Definitions also act as a mechanism that detects when someone is venturing outside of the bounds of the argument. For example, in a debate about whether capitalism is good or evil we must agree upon definitions for capitalism, good and evil. If we don't, these vague terms are so flexible that they can be manipulated to suit any agenda.

Lovely populace of Steemit, even in a fiery and emotional argument it's vital to have a target and a path to get to it. Let me know what works or doesn't work for you when arguing. I have plenty more of these posts lined up.