The Cause of Disagreements and Bad Arguments
I’ve spent a lot of my life arguing with people. In the time I spent as an atheist, I especially spent my time arguing with theists. Using social media, it’s almost too easy to seek out those who disagree with you to enter an argument. As with all things, this comes with benefits and drawbacks. The ability to hold a discussion is great for free thinkers who want exposure to new ideas; however, the general poor quality of discussions can help push people further into their echo chambers. Based on my personal experiences arguing with people over the years, I am going to describe a handful of the major reasons for disagreements as well as many tips to improve your arguments.
I hope you consider yourself to be a free thinking, open-minded individual. If you do, you may like to learn how to think scientifically as well, which is effectively a refined form of critical thinking. I am going to be working off the assumption that you believe that discussion is beneficial and worth engaging in. If not, well, that’s a problem that would take an entirely different article to tackle. Our starting point is that of an open-minded individual that wishes to have more fruitful conversations with people they disagree with.
There are a handful of key ideas to keep in mind when having a discussion, but there is one primary reason I have found for disagreements. Most disagreements have nothing to do with what is being discussed; most disagreements are between unspoken assumptions held by both parties involved. The fact of the matter is, we all lead different lives and have different experiences. As such, we take certain things for granted — self-evidently true based on your life’s experience. These axioms help build up your opinions. Even if you are completely logical, if you start with different assumptions, you can come to different conclusions using logical arguments. Your opinions are founded on implicit assumptions that you take for granted. Thus, when you talk to someone, you might think you’re disagreeing over that opinion, but the issue is much deeper.
Recognizing this, we can work to improve our discussions; however, people get stuck on the lower-level issues. Let me clarify what I mean by “lower-level.” These axioms, from one sense, are more foundations and thus are “lower.” However, in this context, I am referring to these axioms as a more general, abstract, or higher issue pulled from the conversation. The problem is a higher issue but, if you do not make that clear, then it seems like you are trying to evade or directly criticize the lower issue. This is why it is crucial to make your intentions clear and to have a discussion-partner that is going to give you the benefit of the doubt. The goal should be to discover a new idea together for mutual improvement, rather than to win. It is especially important to make yourself aware that this is what you often do in a discussion. Often, a statement strikes you as wrong, even if you can’t place your finger on why. It may be because of your bias blinding you, or simply because it violates one of your fundamental axioms about the world. This introduces a place for emotions and intuition in logical discussion. As far as I’m concerned, emotion and intuition is a form of proto-thought. It enables us to think on a deeper level, to try to make enough connections to enable logical thought. We discard with it at our peril, in my opinion.
We can improve our discussions by making our primary goal attempting to locate and define these fundamental axioms that are the true cause of the disagreement. I believe that, if these axioms can be refined and exposed, many disagreements can either be solved or held firm, without negative emotion. Many of these axioms are simply definitions of concepts that were never discussed. Of course, not all disagreements are based on more abstracted ideas. Sometimes, a disagreement is just a disagreement. Nonetheless, there are still reasons for many of these disagreements.
It’s possible that you or your “opponent” are oversimplifying the issue. We all create models of the world, analogous to models in physics. If a model is too simplistic to accurately describe part of the world, then you must adapt your model to improve it. Understand that humans fundamentally attempt to simplify everything. Notice even as you read what I’ve written, I often make wide-sweeping generalizations or simplifications — even right now. This is simply because it’s impossible to truly recognize all the complexity within anything. So, we must remain aware of that and always work to consider different angles on every issue. This sometimes gets hard, however, when arrogance gets in the way.
Arrogance has no place in discussion; however, it is one of the major reasons that people disagree. The point of a discussion is humility — to learn and become more wise. Arrogance can blind you about the quality of your model of the world, or the quality of your argument. Often, arrogance shows itself as an entitlement to virtue. Many people disagree because they have boxed their opponent into a box of evil and themselves into a box of virtuous, and they do not let themselves see it any other way. This is crucial for a free-thinker to avoid. Understand that your largest opponent in any discussion is yourself. It is the opponent that remains after every single discussion ends, and it remains across the entire set of discussions. You can think of yourself as your ultimate opponent in the meta-discussion. It is crucial for you to not get caught up in this mentality. If your opinion is truly virtuous, then it shall carry itself as such without your intervention. Attempting to define yourself as virtuous removes the virtue from any act. It is only necessary if you are truly not virtuous and thus is an implicit recognition of that fact.
Similar to arrogance is underestimation of your opponent. Often in discussions, someone will attempt to straw-man their opponent. This is a logical fallacy that usually manifests itself in two distinct forms. The former is where one person sees a few of the other’s opinions and blindly assumes that person must believe other things. The latter is where one person rewords what the other has said in an attempt to make their argument weaker. It is called a straw-man fallacy because, in combat, a straw man is a weak opponent to practice against. In the argument, you are making your opponent’s argument weaker to make it easier to attack. This is, once again, an implicit confession of how weak your argument truly is. The goal of a free-thinker should be to steel-man their opponent’s argument; that is, to make it as strong as possible. If you can defeat their argument in its strongest form, then you have truly succeeded in proving their argument wrong. So, help them formulate a stronger version of their argument. Take the time to really think about it. Always remember that you might be wrong and need to change your mind.
A very similar idea to the former is that of not trusting your opponent. Often in discussions, we make leaps of logic, which are often straw-mans. This is because we believe the opponent is trying to manipulate us, trying to lie, or does not have good intentions. It is crucial that we do not blindly assume this is the case; it will simply make your argument weaker. If you believe your opponent is trying to manipulate you, point that out. Question them openly about their motivation in stating certain things, but don’t push too hard. Asserting your opponent has ill-intentions without evidence is a form of having ill-intentions. Always remember that, if your opponent is truly manipulative or lying, you can often walk away. This doesn’t mean you lost the argument; it just means you respect your time and sanity more than the discussion, which you believe to be corrupt and non-fruitful.
I have spent years arguing politics, religion, and science, often unsuccessfully. As a computer scientist and mathematician, I also have experience in mathematical proofs and logic. Despite that, I can never just assume that I make valid arguments simply because of my education. If you lack such an education and truly want to have more rich discussions, I implore you to learn logic and philosophy. I think it is a skill too rarely taught in recent years. The biggest thing in all of this is to be your own biggest critic. Always try to catch your own biases and always try to play the devil’s advocate against yourself — which is to say you should try to find every possible angle by which you may be wrong. Listen to others because they know something you don’t. After all, what truly matters is people and not ideas.
