Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Saturday, April 09, 2011

Huh.

I have two bad habits that tend to exacerbate each other. One, in an argument I tend to disregard people and just hit the facts as hard as I can, with focus. My facts, their facts, everybody's facts. I just hit those facts hard, in my mind. Test them for strength and density, rotate 'em around, and then use the ones I like best - incorporate them into points. If I like one of their facts, I'll pick it up and start using it! And they might even be like, "Hey! That's my fact!" And I'll be like "I know! I AGREE!"

But the point is, I might tend to disregard the person a bit. Because in practice, I never have a problem with a person. If I have a problem with their facts I'll take it up with the facts!

Shouldn't any argument be an exercise based on the cold, hard, no-offense marshaling of all available facts? Marshaling - or, if a given fact needs to be upended - upending. Note: when I say "fact," I include opinions in that. If either person states it as fact, and I can't see where it upends itself, well I'm going to have to consider it fact just for the sake of the discussion, right? What am I going to say, "That's just your opinion?" Yeah, so's your face. If it's just an opinion and you can upend it - do so. Don't talk about how much of an "opinion" it is - as if all opinions are baseless! Do you say all opinions are baseless? No, you don't. Do you say this opinion is baseless? De-base it, then. Show where it has no valid base. "Basis" would be a more correct word: de-basis it. Because if it's just an opinion, and you CAN'T upend it, then that means their opinion is better than your facts. So shut your opinion hole.

That's just my own standard for my own behavior, mind you! I myself try never to pull the "just an opinion" line, because I know how vulnerable it leaves you. Personally if anyone wants to pull that line with me, I'm fine with them doing that, I have a ball when that happens!

But back to my two bad habits. First, yeah, I tend to disregard the person a bit, I tend to disregard the personal. I cut the middleman out and address the facts directly in an argument. And in the moment as I'm trying to put all my focus on what people are actually saying, what I forget is, a lot of people take their facts - and their opinions - very personally. They are personally invested in it. Which I'm not! My only goal in an argument is to come out with the better viewpoint. Whether or not that same viewpoint was mine going in, I could care less! A bad opinion doesn't deserve my loyalty. But still. While the way I go about it, pretty impersonal, it may work for me! But I'm not being as sensitive as I should be, to the fact that to the other person, what they are saying may not be just an opinion they've found true, or a fact they believe. They may see it as something important about them, personally. This thing being true is an important aspect of who they are. So if that's how they feel about it, and you don't realize, you just try to pick it up and deal with it just like any thing to be examined or questioned or potentially sneezed at, well shoot yes! That is being insensitive.

The worse part is, I never seem to notice when I've done that until like, two days later. I'll be thinking that we were both just talking about things (which is usually true). That's where the second bad habit tends to come in: suddenly like two, three days later, I realize "Shit. This was not some dispassionate fact-clash discussion there. I think I may have hurt, upset, or pissed that person off." And so the second bad habit is, I come back in and try to make some big apology, days late, when half the time the person is like "What the fuck are you talking about? I neither noticed your alleged offense nor cared. Now that you mention it though, yes, you can be a dick." But the other half the time - when the person WAS upset - they have already dealt with it by then, usually! And from their standpoint, I'm just reopening the can of sore worms for no good reason. Which is worse than not saying anything!

I don't know what to do about either of these. Awareness too late is not much use. And most of the time, a discussion is not heated - and not upsetting to anyone. And the fact is, I've never been much of an ace at trying to read into what a person's mood might be. I do so much better in terms of communication when I try to stay focused on what the person is saying.

But the person is more important than what they're saying. A person is more important than a fact. A person is even more important than an opinion. So when a person puts more of their SELF into a fact, or an opinion - I need to be able to spot that investiture better. I can't treat something a person believes as a core part of who they are as something to be picked up, twisted around, critiqued and put back down - as something I can just suggest can be discarded. I need to treat it better. I need to treat people better.

Well heck, I probably don't need to, but I'd love to if I can pull it off. I'd consider it a bit of a personal coup.

4 comments:

Lunarchick said...

My bad habit was that I always had to win an argument...do or die...and I never, NEVER died.

I was infamous for it..although I preferred to think of it as famous of course.

In circles that I ran...or touched.. it was widely said "Don't argue with Alice, you'll lose."

Then I met someone that I couldn't win an argument with. I married him.

The end.

dogimo said...

Wow, Alice. I never would have taken you for an inveterate arguer!

Do you still find yourself with the need to beat the rest of the world? Or is meeting one's match the key to tumbling the chip from one's shoulder, do you suppose?

Jen said...

Joe, excellent post. Many people think it would be best if everyone took the purely rational approach you take. They see getting emotionally invested in facts and opinions as a weakness or a fault. It probably is. But as you point out, it's something people often do, and if we want to treat people well, we need to be aware of it.

I am one of those who gets emotionally invested. I can only speak for myself, but in the situation you describe, I would really appreciate the person coming back and apologizing, even days or weeks later. I would welcome the sign of caring, and also the opportunity to re-discuss the issue, because odds are by that time I will have realized how my emotionalism was distorting my thinking, and might want to give you an update on my thinking, and clear my name a bit. But I realize that this trait of mine might be kind of rare. You have to really care what people think of you, and love words and analysis, and have a pretty good memory.
The other benefit of going back and apologizing, is that if you do it enough, the humiliation might help you start to be more aware of the person during an argument, not just after it.

dogimo said...

Hm, I wouldn't want anybody to think I don't get emotionally invested! I mean, I wish I was purely rational - I'd love 'em to think it if only that meant it were true. But I do get pretty emotionally invested.

It's just that I've gotten to the point where if I feel my facts or basis crumble under me, I get very mad - not at the person doing the crumbling - but at my crappy opinion that I thought was worth something and that just let me down. Right when I needed it! And I've even been known to stop the whole works and thank the other person very gratefully, right in the middle of the argument - and you can tell they think I'm fucking with them, except you also tell they can tell I'm not. It's kind of an odd moment when that happens.

But yeah, I'm very much more likely to give the apology than not, if I think I've been a dick. Some people hate that and have told me so, I have a hard time remembering who hates it though - I mean, it doesn't happen so often.

But thank you for encouraging me in that, Jen. We all need encouragement. When it comes to doing the good thing, we all need encouragement.

I believe I've got a lot of humility, really. I'm being sincere when I say that! I think I do have a lot of humility. It's just...kind of a weird sort of humility.

Hm. If I could describe it, that'd be a post in itself.