I like getting along with people

Being a hockey player does not require sun-tan lotion.
 
Narz said:
And I like life & myself better when I'm not locking horns on a regular basis.

Arguing overall is a weak life experience. It's something to do when you've got nothing better to do.
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What he said. All wasted energy and emotion and nothing accomplished. Several times recently I've started posts and then deleted them because its not going to be a positive experience.

Arguing just locks people into their positions anyway.

That's assuming people that aren't taking those positions just to troll, elicit a negative reaction. Why? I don't get that particular cheap thrill.
 
"Smarmy"? Were you addressing me? I certainly hope so because smarmy would be a first. An added bonus, I learned a new word today! :D Thank you PupzHaze.

ingratiating and wheedling in a way that is perceived as insincere or excessive.
"a smarmy, unctuous reply"
synonyms: unctuous, ingratiating, slick, oily, greasy, obsequious, sycophantic, fawning; More
 
In a thread about getting along I thought I did pretty good in my above post.

Consider Shaihulud, that this was a troll, I was being trolled and a reaction of temper is what was sought from me. Why should we give them what they want? In a thread about civility to come in and insult two people with one post, what else could it be? Who is this person to you or me in our daily lives? Nobody, so treat him accordingly and move on, yes? Don't lose your temper, its not worth it. :)

***Its not so easy, I know.
 
CavLancer said:
In a thread about getting along I thought I did pretty good in my above post.

Consider Shaihulud, that this was a troll, I was being trolled and a reaction of temper is what was sought from me. Why should we give them what they want? In a thread about civility to come in and insult two people with one post, what else could it be? Who is this person to you or me in our daily lives? Nobody, so treat him accordingly and move on, yes? Don't lose your temper, its not worth it. :)

***Its not so easy, I know.
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View it as a game. If you like it, then keep playing. If you don't like it, then don't play. If it affects you IRL, then turn off the browser and the something else. It's not that hard. :)
 
Winning any arguments on the internet wins no price. It isn't much of a game if the scoring is opaque. I don't mean on the internet. In real life, when people cut me off, I often experience such a rage that makes me afraid that I will do something I will regret. The pity is that I was once much milder temper, but the enviroment that I am living in and the constant pressure is making me go mad.
 
If I never had to argue my opinions I wouldn't figure out which ones were wrong. Without arguing I would be wrong about way more stuff and I wouldn't know it. Society needs more self-critics.
 
Perfection said:
Getting along with people doesn't mean being a pushover or not arguing.
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Course not. But you don't have to debate with every nut either. I think we have this feeling out "must be right" from our hunter-gatherer days where convincing others to take our view might mean the difference between life & death but now it doesn't matter much what others think & the world is too large to influence most people.

The drive to argue is like the drive to overeat, it's maladjusted in today's world (most of the time).

LucyDuke said:
If I never had to argue my opinions I wouldn't figure out which ones were wrong. Without arguing I would be wrong about way more stuff and I wouldn't know it. Society needs more self-critics.
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Well, you should be able to find your mistakes yourself. But pointing out mistakes of others (or oneself) need not be "arguing".

LucyDuke said:
Society needs more self-critics.
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I agree on that. But society doesn't need more people arguing. Arguing doesn't necessarily mean learning, look at YouTube comment wars.
 
Narz said:
Well, you should be able to find your mistakes yourself.
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One might think so. But my experience is otherwise.

Left to my own devices, I just fall into a stagnant way of thinking. It's only when others seriously challenge my cherished views that I take a sober look at them.
 
Borachio said:
One might think so. But my experience is otherwise.

Left to my own devices, I just fall into a stagnant way of thinking. It's only when others seriously challenge my cherished views that I take a sober look at them.
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You're right, I rescind my comment, it's unrealistic for people to discover all their mistakes alone (though you can notice alot if you really pay attention).

That said, you can have someone correct you while still "getting along with them".

Most heated battles don't change minds ("A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still"). How many heated political or religious arguments on CFC for instance has converted people? Maybe a few certainly but probably it's the exception.
 
The problem I have is that, sometimes, some people take my disagreement with them as a personal insult or an attack on them personally. E.g. the other day on a whatsapp group chat, one of my friends posted a link that said that house prices were about to fall. I said that my advice was to ignore average house prices and just work out whether the house you're interested in is worth the money; if it is then it doesn't matter what other houses are selling for, because yours will be worth it. Anyway she took offence to this and thought I was saying that she should shut up and not post the link. She started to get defensive and while I tried to diffuse it it was no good, I was just making it worse. Eventually she said "sorry I won't post it next time! I just thought it was interesting!" I said, "don't apologise, it is interesting, that's why I was discussing it!" If it wasn't interesting, I'd have just ignored it.

Anyway I don't know whether this was my fault or hers or no-one's, just a difference in personalities. But this is the way that some people view things: if you don't agree with them, then you are attacking them in some way. That's not the way I view things: if you don't agree with them, you discuss it until you have reached a mutual understanding of each others' positions. You might still disagree with them, but you'll learn something.

I find it easy these days to separate a disagreement from a full throated argument. The problem I have is with the mentality that opposing opinions are personally offensive. I used to be like that, as a look at my posting history from 5 years ago will show. So yeah, I like getting along with people, and I like discussing big ideas, issues, politics, science, religion, football, etc etc. Problem is, other people take disagreements personally, as I used to, and that puts the two into conflict. (I mean, the number of times I have to explain that I'm not even disagreeing with them is unreal!)

Going back to what aelf and warpus were talking about, I find that some friends I can argue with til we're blue in the face and still be best mates afterwards. Friends that I've known since school (so, like, since we were 7) are easy to argue with, because after 20 years of friendship, we've had so many arguments that one more (even a whopper, as inevitably happens when we go travelling together) isn't going to matter. We'll still be friends no matter what. But it's not just old friends - it's the personality of the person in question. There are people I've known an equally long time, some of whom I can discuss big ideas with, some of whom I have to avoid disagreements at all cost, lest they get pissed off and sour faced for the rest of the evening.

So I tend to have to work out who I can discuss things with. These people are typically my closest friends; perhaps their pre-existing closeness means we can have arguments without taking it personally; or perhaps their ability to not take things personally is why we're such good friends. Either way, it's something I value rather highly in a friendship.
 
Mise said:
Anyway I don't know whether this was my fault or hers or no-one's, just a difference in personalities. But this is the way that some people view things: if you don't agree with them, then you are attacking them in some way. That's not the way I view things: if you don't agree with them, you discuss it until you have reached a mutual understanding of each others' positions. You might still disagree with them, but you'll learn something.
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This sort of mentality seems to be on the rise, for some reason, especially in political debates. If, for whatever reason, you disagree with someone it won't take long before you are branded "ignorant", "bigot", "racist," or whatever word is the flavour of the day. People just get too offended at differing viewpoints and instead start hurling insults.
 
Isn't that because we cherish our own views about things? If it's something you don't really have a firm opinion about, then, sure, someone disagreeing isn't going to affect you. But we identify very much with our dearest opinions: they are, in a sense, who we are. So if someone disagrees, they really are attacking us. Or what we think of as being ourselves.

It takes an extremely mature personality, I think, to both very firmly hold an opinion and not take a disagreement with it as a personal attack.

Yet, as Mise says, the better you know your interlocutor the easier it is to take disagreement.
 
Borachio said:
Isn't that because we cherish our own views about things? If it's something you don't really have a firm opinion about, then, sure, someone disagreeing isn't going to affect you. But we identify very much with our dearest opinions: they are, in a sense, who we are. So if someone disagrees, they really are attacking us. Or what we think of as being ourselves.

It takes an extremely mature personality, I think, to both very firmly hold an opinion and not take a disagreement with it as a personal attack.

Yet, as Mise says, the better you know your interlocutor the easier it is to take disagreement.
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I have two responses to this. First is that many people take personally disagreements over trivial subjects, such as TV programmes or football. I understand that one can easily feel personally offended if someone criticises e.g. their religious beliefs (that perhaps helped them through the death of a loved one, unbeknownst to the critic). But it's hard to take seriously the notion that I am attacking a deeply held belief when I'm saying that Deep Space Nine was the best series in the Star Trek franchise.

Second is that, while this might explain it, it doesn't mean that it's right to take it so personally. I am categorically not attacking a person, I'm disagreeing with a deeply held belief of theirs. I have my own deeply held beliefs; we all do. We can't all be right, and we are allowed to have disagreements and differences of opinion. Treating disagreements over deeply held beliefs as personal insults might be easily explained, but it's hardly right to do so. I understand that people identify personally with their beliefs, but beliefs are fallible, they are often wrong, and the process of continual self-reflection, self-criticism, and self-improvement only works if one is open to that possibility.

In either case, however, the problem I have remains the same. I want to discuss big ideas, and the biggest ideas are often those that are most deeply held. Doing so with some people is next to impossible.
 
the process of continual self-reflection, self-criticism, and self-improvement
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And here, maybe, we have the crux of the matter: this sort of thing is hard work.

It's simply easier to get on one's high horse, take disagreement (even over trivial things) as a personal attack, respond in turn with a counter personal attack, fall out with someone, seek out the company of people who agree... and move on....

... I, very tentatively, suggest.
 
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