Arguing

Arguing is a temptation for many of us. It is a type of intellectual play, and it is a good way to improve your mind in one way: its ability to win arguments. What is arguing not good for? Contrary to what many think, it is not very good for developing more effective thinking.

Arguing unnecessarily, even when it is just a friendly debate, can begin to limit your thinking. When you defend a position too vigorously, and you want to "win" an argument, you invest your ego into it. Any thoughts of other alternatives are then felt as personal attacks, and so are avoided - even if only on an unconscious level. In other words, argue too much and you cannot easily easy accept and use new information.

When I was ten years old, me and my classmates were taught how to "analyze" a product. In the case of my group, we were assigned a brand of toilet paper. The ideas was to compare it with others, and explain our findings. Of course this was supposed to teach us to analyze and reason. However, since it was a competitive project, each team was soon defending their assigned product, so it mostly taught us to rationalize why our brand was best.

Now, in doing our work and preparing our report, we came to believe our own "reasoning". This little group of ten-year-olds suddenly had an opinion about toilet paper, and we really believed that we had somehow been assigned the "best" brand. Isn't this what happens when you defend a position? You become attached to it, and you put blinders on to prevent other possibilities from bothering you.

Your mind is in a rut, which you dig deeper with each argument. Of course, debate can be a valuable thing, but when ego takes over, the mind closes a little. This is not a recipe for better thinking and decision making.

What can you do about this problem? There are times when you might need to argue, but you can at least balance your thinking. You can try arguing from the other side too, at least in your mind. Try to see the issue from several perspectives if you can.

You may not change your opinion, but that you will be able to if the facts say you should. This is more effective thinking. When I look back on that school lesson, I think we should have been instructed to do a second presentation, one where we point out all the problems with our product. Then we might have learned about the unreliability of thinking when ego starts arguing.