Today I went to lunch with my dad and saw a guy wearing a shirt that said, "I see your point, but I still think you're stupid." I couldn't stop laughing because it really struck a chord with me. I used to be a debater. Not a technical goes-to-competition debater, but I loved taking politics, religion, anything I had an opinion on and talking it to death until I convinced the other person I was right. I did this any chance I got, so much that I even had my picture on MTV's Choose or Lose website during the presidential elections because I wrote a really well thought out post that caught their attention. A lot of times, convincing people I was right was pretty easy - several of my friends were severely uneducated on current affairs and would basically believe anything I told them. But every now and then, I would meet my match with someone just as opinionated as me, just as stubborn, and on the opposite side of the issue. Even if I knew I was 100% right and could prove it, these people would argue with me on and on because they thought they were 100% right.
In the past year or so, I have discovered that this debating is completely pointless. No matter how many concrete facts I present, no matter how much knowledge I have on the issue, if I am talking to someone who is just like me only opposite, the conversation will go nowhere because neither one of us will change our minds. My life has been a little easier over the last year or two after recognizing this. I have just decided that if it is an issue that I will never sway on, why should I expect someone else to? So from now on, when someone tries to get me into a debate about George Bush by saying he is the worst thing ever to happen to this country and trying to throw quotes from Farenheit 911 in my face (Michael Moore - another topic completely!), I will just smile politely and think to myself, "I see your point, but I still think you're stupid."
***Disclaimer***
Before people jump all over me in comments, I don't think that if you dislike George Bush, you are automatically stupid. People are entitled to their own opinions and I respect that. I just think that a lot of people use flawed reasoning in their dislikes, but I probably use some flawed reasoning in my dislikes of other politicians. The last sentence of the post was merely an example of a very common debate that people have attempted to drag me into.
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1 comment:
No need for a disclamer... nobody seems to care.
You are right, do not enter a debate if you are not willing to change your own mind. Or don't expect that for others. Just yell at each other for an hour and leave thinking, "that guy is nuts"
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