How to Earn the Right to Argue

Designing an argument to inspire a change of perspective.

With the exception of genuine injustice (where your view needs to be unconditionally stated), aiming to outright win an argument is rarely the best outcome. "Winning" is a destructive exercise. I argue it is more likely to be counterproductive to your goals of persuasion.

Ideas explored:

• Are you are having the same argument?

• Listening for trigger words

• Use questions rather than statements

• Making your opponents argument better than they can

• Sabotaging your own wins

We each have our own miniature models of the world, and the ideas we defend in argument should help us test the assumptions those models are built from.