The Art of Argument

Argument is a distinguished sport, pervasive in every activity and individual’s experiences, yet rarely appreciated as it ought to be.  It is vastly dissimilar to quarreling and well-educated and gifted linguists are still fascinated by its depths.    It’s intricacies are consistently revealed thru intensive, life-long practices utilizing every part of the human brain.  Rudimentary analysts, by contrast, assume that argument is a contest with prizes of exclusive wins; they will approach every argumentative discourse as a charging bull, initially puffing and snorting, head lowered with a scathing countenance of disdain, intent on flustering the herd masses viewed as one wrong opponent to be run over by a massive amalgamation in unkempt hooves.  How many of us enjoy that encounter?  Were it possible to temper such an approach in such an animal by solid logical streaming, our world would be a much healthier place.  

Communication is a gift to be nurtured and fed until every discourse is enjoyed in its limitless possibilities.  It’s nutrition is comprised of understanding; its growth is fed with practiced empathy and carefully selected additives giving it pleasant color and enticing accoutrements.  It is smothered by artificial elements, whether or not they are supplied by attractive presentations.  Artificial elements include popular fallacies such as ad hominem, straw man, and red herring.  They draw on unreliable or mistakenly chosen sources and usually are used as hasty resolves for the sole purpose of simple-minded defeat.  While this initially appears easy, since it lacks disciplined study, it wreaks havoc on the subjects involved because it has so little basis in total reality, and so much emphasis instead on building belief out of falsities, which can be like building a shelter during a storm by grabbing haphazardly at anything within reach, already under pressure and adding exponentially to this by quelling self-awareness of the futile efforts of such endeavors.  Add a storm to a storm and what will be the result?  

We are all understudies of universal laws in behavior etiquette.  One way or another, we learn that human interaction requires patience, in every situation, self-control, even amid conflicting emotional interplay, and compassion, far enough beyond oneself to acknowledge seven billion symbiotic souls entitled to the same basic human rights.  We can build bridges of communication, and we can destroy them, uplift those with whom we interact, as well as debase them.  We show genuine care by consistently making efforts to argue respectfully, just as we demonstrate pompous disregard for others by clouding our logic until it’s a palpable mess.  In essence, we choose consciously to make the world’s suffering less enigmatic, just as we search frantically for another place as “hospitable.”