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[orangeophelia]

I've been accidentally starting arguments with people lately. The contexts are ones where I would ordinarily find someone's comment offensive, or incorrect, bullshitty, what-have-you, but would ordinaril decide it wasn't worth it to say something. And in fact, in all of these cases, on oe my thoughts is "You're wrong, but it's really not worth the

Comments

[ceilingtile]

A few weeks ago while eating dinner at a restaurant and meeting a friend's boyfriend, I accidentally started an argument with him by responding to his comment about how the girl on TV in the rap video "wasn't that pretty". I asked him if he'd have said that if it had been a man on TV, and then wondered aloud why it's expected for famous women to be physically attractive but not necessarily men. Then later, he left the table and came back saying that a gay man had hit on him. He described what had happened, and the story was essentially that the man had looked at his t-shirt (which had the name of a place on it) and asked if my friend's boyfriend had been there, since the gay man is from there and goes back for Homecoming every year. I said, "I don't really understand what part of that is hitting on you," and he got really mad and started yelling, and actually pulled the race card on me and said that I didn't understand because I wasn't black. (To me it seemed like he was operating on the offensive thought process that if a gay man

[orangeophelia]

Yeah, you're right, I think that in the context of an intimate friendship, arguments can be much more heated without the negative implications. It becomes something different when all I know about this person is just one of their beliefs-- if I reject that belief, I'm rejecting everything I know about that person, and depending on the context, that can make the entire confrontation feel infinitely more hostile. Also, I think with close friends we have more incentive to assume good intentions from our interlocutors (I love that word!) even when we virulently disagree with them on the issue at hand.

p.s. I just happen to be writing a research proposal on the adverse effects of disagreeing with close friends on important issues, and I'm trying to come up with an intervention that would make people feel more like their opinions are accepted and respected, even if they disagree with their friends. How timely is that? Also, that's why my writing tone has suddenly become that of a research paper.

argument culture

[crimsonavengers]

Hi OrangeOphelia, you said, "I'm trying to come up with an intervention that would make people feel more like their opinions are accepted and respected, even if they disagree with their friends".

Not that this is particularly original, but I found a very cogent description of the confirming understanding method in a newsletter I read (scroll down to "Persuasion Power Point By Michael Cloud