The Art of Arguing

I recently read an interesting blog post by Barry Eisler, author of 8 espionage novels, which I have had the privilege of reading and enjoying them all. He is an avid blogger, focusing mainly on politics, and I highly recommend that everyone check it out: http://barryeisler.blogspot.com/

This particular post was titled "How to Argue" and Barry lays out nine substantive guidelines aimed at improving the effectiveness of one-on-one argument. I do not have the time or ability to elaborate, summarize, or interpret what Barry explained in his post, but I do wish to take one key point he made early and often, and spin-off from that.

Simple, but intriguing to me: in it's most basic intent, argument is a discussion involving different points of view. All too often, the term "argument" carries a negative connotation, when in reality, argument is extremely healthy and it is something that any social human should engage in daily. The ultimate goal of my blog, is to entice argument in it's purist form, the form of essentially conversing and sharing of opinion, which will naturally differ, inevitably creating argument. Let's be clear, argument does not have to be hostile, or motivated by an internal anger from the arguer.

Allow me to move on to something else I have been wanting to say about "arguing." As stated in a previous blog post, I am a listener, and therefore hear many untrue statements, which go un-refuted. I am often tempted to argue (in the form of civilized conversation I explained above), but I know my rebuttal will receive a retaliation in the form of offensive hatred. Consequently, I keep my mouth shut majority of the time and either pull out my phone, or find the nearest internet source and allow the facts to do the arguing.

This leads me to yet another point: what if the persistent arguer refuses to believe what I consider to be facts, which I have just presented him/her with? Who am I to further argue why these facts are true? I cannot prove that they are true; I thought I was proving the point and settling the argument by presenting these "facts."

What it all boils down to is that argument is an art. Some are good at it, and some are not. I do not consider myself good at all. I read and study a lot, and have a tendency to believe the reliable sources that produced the literature. If someone says something to oppose what I read, and hence believe, my argument is to present the "facts" in the form in which I was convinced they are true.

I try my hardest to avoid controversy, and clashes of deep-rooted opinions. All that this leads to is immature spats supported by personal beliefs rather than factual information. Clearly, this is why I live by the "let the facts do the talking" rule. My question for this blog post is: how do you deal with a person who refuses to take a loss and move on to the next argument? I view argument as an educated conversation between factually supported opinions, while my opposition views argument as a game that they must win, whether right or wrong . . .

I truly want opinions on this, because if you can master the art of arguing, which I am far from accomplishing, you are one step closer to being "All Grown Up."