What’s your argument style?
I’m a rhino-ostrich. Attack! – then retreat. Take THAT! and that! and That! And now… I’m going to run and hide, before you have the chance to respond.
Glen on the other hand, is a terrier. He’ll sink his teeth into the argument and shake it from every angle. He’ll sniff it and roll it and chew it and then come back to it, until it’s eyeless and legless and quivering in a tiny knot of terror.
Here’s some other favourites:
– attacking the person instead of the idea (‘only a moron would prefer Cheese Strings to Cheddar Puffs’)
– appealing to tradition (‘Christmas isn’t Christmas until Grandma’s insulted everyone’)
– repeating your argument with increasing volume
– lying
– changing the subject
and, from Schopenhauer:
- Generalize Your Opponent’s Specific Statements
- Conceal Your Game
- False Propositions
- Postulate What Has to Be Proved
- Yield Admissions Through Questions
- Make Your Opponent Angry
- Questions in Detouring Order
- Take Advantage of the Nay-Sayer
- Generalize Admissions of Specific Cases
- Choose Metaphors Favourable to Your Proposition
- Agree to Reject the Counter-Proposition
- Claim Victory Despite Defeat
- Use Seemingly Absurd Propositions
- Defense Through Subtle Distinction
- Interrupt, Break, Divert the Dispute
- Generalize the Matter, Then Argue Against it
- Draw Conclusions Yourself
- Meet Him With a Counter-Argument as Bad as His
- Make Him Exaggerate His Statement
- Find One Instance to the Contrary
- Turn the Tables
- Anger Indicates a Weak Point
- Persuade the Audience, Not the Opponent
- Diversion
- This Is Beyond Me
- Put His Thesis into Some Odious Category
- It Applies in Theory, but Not in Practice
- Don’t Let Him Off the Hook
- Will Is More Effective Than Insight
- Bewilder Your opponent by Mere Bombast
- A Faulty Proof Refutes His Whole Position
- Become Personal, Insulting, Rude
What’s your favourite?
I’ve been told (on good authority) that my argument style is like a hedgehog, and my wife’s is much more like a rhino.
My favourite form of attack is to make my opponent laugh at what they’re saying without actually refuting them. It is very hard to hold the two ideas that what you’re saying is both rational and comical at the same time.
It works! – genius..