Humans logo

Why Arguing is Good for Us

Arguing is essential for the health of our beliefs

By Steve LlanoPublished 4 years ago 5 min read
Like
Why Arguing is Good for Us
Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Arguing is hard. Arguing is frustrating. And arguing is essential for our political health.

If you haven’t been running, or to the gym in a while, during that first workout or first run you want to quit. You are frustrated, exhausted, and suffering. You start to discount what you are doing as valuable. Does this really matter? At the end, when you see how many calories you burned, you might even consider it a total waste of time.

But exercise benefits us in ways that are not direct exchanges, or changes, in our situation. Likewise, arguing with those who have different political positions than we do provides benefits to our mind and our beliefs that are not measurable, obvious changes.

What engaging in argument does is good for all participants. It forces us to articulate our reasons for our beliefs, and hear them out loud, while looking at another person who does not see, agree, understand, or accept our belief. This requires us to adapt what we are saying as we say it. We see how they react and we guess what they are thinking, and we say things a bit differently, then a bit differently again.

If we never have to state anything other than our beliefs, we start to think that beliefs are self-proving. We think of them as the worst definition of truth - that of the fact. Facts are misunderstood as incontrovertible truths, things that cannot change, exist, and it doesn’t matter if you agree with them or not. They are the way things are.

The rhetorical understanding of a fact is that it is a building block of a larger reason for us to change our thoughts or actions in a particular situation. For example, the fact that a hurricane has much higher winds than any hurricane approaching our coast has ever had can support a reason that we should evacuate this time, even though in the past we have made it through hurricanes just fine.

A better understanding of truth is a realization of what everyone involved should feel, or think, or do in a particular situation at a particular time. We get hung up on truth as a principle that applies to all people, all cultures, all times. We start to think that we should be consistent with our beliefs rather than the situation. We forget that truths must be supported, explained, and must change as information and situations change. What is true is important, and must be realized. This is a call for effective communication, persuasion, and yes, arguing with those who refuse to agree.

There is also the part of argumentation we don’t like to think about that often: What if we are wrong? Douglas Ehninger pointed this out in his brilliant essay Argument as Method from 1970. In that essay, he explains that argument is the highest form of respect one can give to another person, because it indicates that you are willing to change your mind about your beliefs based on explanations, reasons, and speech yourself. Otherwise, why would you engage that person with this kind of speech? What would be the point?

Arguing with someone is respectful. It means you believe they have the capacity to judge, evaluate, and change their way of thinking. It means you respect them as a human being, someone who is an equal. Isn’t every argumentative appeal a recognition of commonality, of communion? Isn’t every claim in an argument equivalent to the statement, “These reasons moved me to this conclusion, so since we are both thinking beings, they should move you?”

Tied directly to this respect is the fallibility of one’s position. It is natural, normal, and healthy to have moments where you try to change a mind, and your own is changed. The point of arguing is not to be right, but to find the right. The point of arguing is to figure out why and how we believe what is right. This belief is worth nothing if it can’t be changed through exchanging ideas with another person.

When someone argues a point with us, one that we feel cannot be supported our initial response might be something like, “that is so stupid,” followed by a “here’s why.” If facts speak for themselves, and truth is apparent upon encounter, why do we feel we need to explain away ridiculous claims? Why not rely on the truth and the facts to do it for us? The reason we speak this way is that we realize that such things require a lot of help from human beings. They have to be framed, explained, contextualized, and applied to the situation, life, experiences, encounters, and doubts that appear around two people, on the street or in a cafe, arguing about politics, sports, whatever. Instead of seeing them as wasting their time, we should admire them as we do those who are engaged in healthy workouts, or those who are being respectful to one another. The start and continuation of an argument is recognition that beliefs must be cared for, fed, watered, and walked if they are to stay alive.

Daily argument about beliefs forces us to think about how other people think. Instead of relying on the belief to be "true" or to be "obvious," we are forced to articulate it in ways that are uncomfortable to us, but comfortable to our opponent. This forces us to try to think like another person for a minute, often in ways that we would never think on our own. The alterations in our articulated reasons make us reconsider our own attachment to our belief. Reconsideration is healthy; it encourages us to find new ways to support what we think is right, and find new right things to support if we suddenly realize that what we thought was good is not that great at all.

It's hard to argue because we are never given time or teaching, practice or space to do it for its own sake. The stakes are always high when we have to argue. The way we treat argument is as if we never trained firefighters, assuming that when the building is on fire, running in there and wanting to save people will be enough. Although this is a natural inclination most people have, it's not enough for the situation. This is the same with argumentation. We need to practice it at times other than when our core beliefs are being threatened, and we need to be able to speak about how to do it well, apart from whether we are right or wrong on an issue.

So practice! Try to argue with friends or colleagues about an issue and see how it feels. Consider it going on a jog together not for your cardio health or weight management, but for thought management and belief health. See how it feels. Make it a regular practice. We need our ways of belief and engagement healthy if we hope to keep our society healthy.

advice
Like

About the Creator

Steve Llano

Professor of Rhetoric in New York city, writing about rhetoric, politics, and culture.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.