All University of Florida students can agree that student-government crusaders are the worst, right?
No, I don’t want your flyer. And no, you cannot buy my vote with your fake smile.
I was glad to see them go once elections wrapped up, but that relief didn’t last.
As I made my way to Chick-fil-A and walked through Turlington Plaza, one of UF’s infamous “free-speech zone,” I came across poster boards depicting bloody fetuses. Suddenly, I longed for irritating student-government hopefuls.
The gruesome posters were an ineffective attempt at guilt-tripping. Instead of sympathizing and wanting to support the pro-life movement, I resented it.
Pro-life activists’ approach to arguing very closely resembles the prototypical asshole approach to arguing. Both camps — activists and assholes — will stop at anything to feel self-righteous, meaning no form of asshole-ry is off limits.
Via: Greenpeace Blogs
Hence, a guide to arguing like an asshole, as inspired by Turlington pro-life activists:
Step One: Make every possible attempt to keep the discussion field entirely polarized. Ignore the fact that there is common ground, shared values and similar objectives underlying every argument. Always strive to keep the conversation as black and white as possible.
For instance, if you are pro-choice, you are a baby-killer. If you are pro-life, you don’t value a female physical autonomy.
Never be mindful of the fact that this argument only started because both sides value life in different ways. Focus on accusations, and make sure they are as personal as possible.
Step Two: Make sure to be unbearably inflexible and unwilling to consider anything put forward by the opposition. Your side is the True Side, so you can always go and circle the discussion back around to the same point instead of assessing any disputing evidence or constructively building upon any opposing argument.
Even many parents love this one. It’s the “Because I said so,” or “Back in my time this wasn’t a problem.” This is always a wonderful way to encourage resentment instead of understanding, regardless of the point you’re trying to get across.
Step Three: Establish moral and ethical superiority. Guilt-trip, guilt-trip, guilt-trip. (“How can you think like this?”; “I thought you were smarter!”) Always an excellent way to completely derail the conversation.
Visual cues of condescension can be your friends here as well: shake your head while the opposing argument is presented. Click your tongue and sigh melodramatically to express your impatience at the other person’s evident lack of intelligence. Sprain every eye-roll muscle you have. If you can’t win an argument based on your actual argument, you can always turn it into a contest of egos.
Step Four: If the argument is not going well for you, always remember that you are never wrong, under any circumstances. “I don’t care about what you’re saying because I am entitled to my own opinion” is the golden show-stopper here.
Make it about freedom of speech! The general framework we’re working with here is: “I am so unilluminated a persuader that all I can do is call upon my constitutional rights in casual conversation.” Ignore the fact that your words and actions will trigger reactions from others. Bonus points for hypocrisy. There is nothing more outrageous than other people freely expressing the problems they have against the opinions you have every right to express, right?
Via: Daily Blog
If all else fails, just shrug and “whatever!” your way out of it. That’s a very adaptable escape route. For instance: “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” as in, “I never cared anyway.” Or, “Ugh, whatever,” as in, “you’re so dumb, I won’t dignify that with a word with real meaning, much less a complete sentence.”
After “whatever”-ing your way out of an argument, sit down and turn your frustrations into sarcastic passive-aggressive articles about how other people should and should not behave.
We are all hypocritical assholes every now and then, and if you don’t think you are, you’re most likely being a hypocritical asshole in denial.
But it’s okay, admitting the problem is the first step and all that.
So here it goes: the problem is that, as it turns out, being intolerant and inflexible during an argument, using shock tactics or cornering other people, is almost always detrimental to the point you’re trying to make. Just ask anyone who encountered those Pro-Life posters in Turlington last week.
Always acting like this might get you some applause from people who already agree with your points, but someone who disagrees (hint: the target audience of a well-directed discussion) will just dismiss you as the asshole you seem to be.
Feature photo courtesy of: IMG Ace
