An Arguer's Evolution

How I changed my mind about changing minds

I used to argue a lot. And I have to say I was pretty good at verbal confrontations, at convincing others of something I believed in. Winning a debate would energize me and put me in a good mood. But losing one would devastate me. I felt so bad the many times I couldn’t convince someone that I would keep ruminating on it for days, retracing the conversation in my mind in an infinite loop and wishing I could go back in time and place that phrase here instead of over there, or use that special word that wouldn’t come up to me right then and there. 

For me, changing other people’s minds was an end in and of itself, regardless of the content and merit of the opinion I was arguing for -- my mission in life was “being right”. And I’ve never even been a salesman. All I cared about was convincing others that my opinion -- not theirs -- was the one worth having. So I used to embark on tiring and often unpleasant conversations that would go on until my opponent, exhausted, would cave in. And I was proud and content. And all that time-consuming and energy-draining work that could have been dedicated to other, really fruitful, activities -- like playing some music, writing a few paragraphs or laying on the couch thinking -- was gone forever. 

Then it became a torture, a painful practice, something to shun. What made this game (cause that’s what it is; and politicians, for example, play it flawlessly) increasingly unpleasant and discomforting for me is that -- plainly put -- I started not giving a fuck about whether people agreed with me. Slowly and then suddenly, I found myself in the enviable position of carelessness about changing others’ minds. Enviable because I found it liberating, refreshing, healthy, and respectful.

Being right makes you feel good; nothing wrong with that: it’s human nature. Also, being right makes you want to go out and convert those who are wrong. A sort of favor you’re doing humanity. Everybody’s opinion should be like mine, so let’s go on a crusade and make the world better, the thinking goes. And that’s perverse. Human, but perverse. 

So, I started thinking about this mind-changing addiction, and one fine day realized that it was a waste of time that created only embarrassment and resentfulness, a recipe for losing friends and jeopardizing relationships. Often, people would concede just to let me win the argument, but then, from that point on, my relationship with them was tainted, things would no longer be the same. Or, they would agree with me only because they already agreed with me -- subtle, but true. Frank Zappa used to say “One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds”. He was right. 

But the truth of the matter was that I no longer cared to be recognized as the one who’s right. Thinking that I was right was enough -- external validation was no longer needed. I would increasingly keep my thoughts for myself. One day I came across a simple line by Paul Graham (I remember it very specifically, but I forget the name of the essay it was from) saying “The most important thing is to be able to think what you want, not to say what you want”. And although it was written for a different context, it made me think that freedom of thought is underrated, because we tend to think that we can entertain any thought. But that’s not the case: our culture and the times we live in pre-package our thoughts for us, taking advantage of the “thinking laziness” that has been affecting our minds for generations now. And the media obviously play a huge role in this scenario. The bottom line here is that, sadly, we unconsciously confine our thoughts to the ones that our culture deems as “allowed”, making our minds increasingly unable to venture to unorthodox fields. Being able to think what we want may sound like a banal statement, but it’s more profound and complex than it appears. 

I also thought that maybe freedom of thought is more important than freedom of speech, that I don’t need to say everything out loud, let alone have others agree with what I say. And that, most importantly, whenever in an argument, I can wait and think before responding, or even not respond at all. There’s an interesting Derek Sivers essay on this titled “I’m a very slow thinker”, where he says that he’s a disappointing person to try to debate, or attack, because he usually doesn’t have anything to say in the moment. “This probably makes me look stupid in the moment, but I don’t mind. I’m not trying to win any debates”. He just likes to think about things, and then get back with a response later; even a few days later. I like this idea. “People say that your first reaction is the most honest, but I disagree. Your first reaction is usually outdated. Either it’s an answer you came up with long ago and now use instead of thinking, or it’s a knee-jerk emotional response to something in your past”, I wouldn’t know how to paraphrase this better. 

So I went through this evolution from having the urge to argue, with the objective of being right, to not caring about whether others would think that I was right, to keeping thoughts to myself. I’m not sure it’s an evolution, but that’s certainly what it feels like: the psychological pressure of having to say things and make sure others agree is not good for you, and achieving a state of (real) freedom of thought is such a relief.  

Not only that, more and more often I actually think that I’m wrong, and something weird and interesting happens: I like being wrong. 

But that’s a subject for another essay.

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