How to Win and Argument

Tom Beaver: How to win an argument? Only do it with people who see argument as a collaboration, not a contest. People more interested in getting it right than being right. People who see facts and reason the same way when they're upset as when they're not. People who help you say what you're trying to say, not people waiting to for a "gotcha." People who subject an obvious or conventional answer to the same scrutiny as a brand new one. People who get more engaged and humble as the problem gets harder, not more angry and sure of themselves. People who don't argue argumentatively. People who discuss rather than "argue" — right up to the end.

Mainly, by considering it a win when you know you've turned in an A- or B-level effort to make good sense, not when the other person agrees that you have. Because people like I described above are few and far between. Most "arguments" will be with people who can't or won't do it, who argue from emotion and hurt feelings and personal interest, who turn discussions into combats, who will who consider "you're right" to be a personal failure instead of mutual progress. I have never in my life "won" an argument with someone like that -- "won" in the sense of them admitting my points were better than theirs. Even though there must have been many times in my life when my points were of that kind. With those people, it's not arguing we have to do: it's something more like relationship management -- which is worth doing, but is completely different from solving a problem or reaching agreement or learning something new together. It doesn't matter how right we are, in those cases. A person who won't argue in good faith is not a person who will admit their argument failed.

We have to save getting it right through discussion with another person — and all the satisfaction and benefits of that — for some some other time and, most likely, some other person.

Pete Baker: Socrates comes to mind.

Tom Beaver: Yes, he was pretty good at it. Why can't everyone just be like Socrates?

Beth Ann Pope: But do you want the 5 min argument or the full half hour?

Tom Beaver: If it's about solving a problem worth solving, I'll give it two, three, four hours. And pick up again tomorrow, if we both have the time. Because a conversation like that is good on many levels. Even if we never solve the problem, we've had a deep mind meld and we've made ourselves smarter.

Beth Ann Pope: Tom Beaver it's from Monty Python

Tom Beaver: I don't remember that line. Time to watch those movies again.

Beth Ann Pope: Tom Beaver it's from an old flying circus. Check YouTube for Argument clinic

Tom Beaver: Ah, I remember that now. Good reference.

Beth Ann Pope: Tom Beaver it's a fav