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You can use a couple strategies to win your basic argument with a normal person. It just takes a preset response or two and a quick wit.
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Signing UpStep 1Pull the rug out from under them
Before I start even talking about these strategies I would like to say a couple things.(thanks goes to kiteman for the reminder) This is an instructable on arguing. I do not advocate arguing just to be beligerent or arguing to get attention. This is intended to be used to add strength to ones argument when the other person actually is wrong by the standards of logic. In other words don't say "he's wrong because I don't like him."
The other thing he reminded me to mention is this. Consider the consequences of having the arguement. If you win will you have shown yourself to be better than the average minion or will it just piss them off. If there is no plus side to the argument, don't have it. Let them win for the time being.
I will use the capture of a hilltop castle as an analogy.
First one needs to just take the low ground and establish a base. There is little battle in this. This is done by taking the first argument they present you with and turning it on its ear.
Here is a real life example (This is almost directly quoting the teacher):
"Don't you think its disrespectful when every day I tell you to remove your hat and every day you come back wearing it?"
This is where you surprise them. Its quick simple and very likely to leave them scrambling for a new strategy.
Say "No." ("No" does not work for all occasions, adjust accordingly)
This removes the foundation of their argument by not allowing them to start gaining momentum. They were planning to build an argument off of what your expected response would have been. When it isn't what they are expecting they have to change how they are going to go about the task. Congrats,
you have just taken the lowground.
The other thing he reminded me to mention is this. Consider the consequences of having the arguement. If you win will you have shown yourself to be better than the average minion or will it just piss them off. If there is no plus side to the argument, don't have it. Let them win for the time being.
I will use the capture of a hilltop castle as an analogy.
First one needs to just take the low ground and establish a base. There is little battle in this. This is done by taking the first argument they present you with and turning it on its ear.
Here is a real life example (This is almost directly quoting the teacher):
"Don't you think its disrespectful when every day I tell you to remove your hat and every day you come back wearing it?"
This is where you surprise them. Its quick simple and very likely to leave them scrambling for a new strategy.
Say "No." ("No" does not work for all occasions, adjust accordingly)
This removes the foundation of their argument by not allowing them to start gaining momentum. They were planning to build an argument off of what your expected response would have been. When it isn't what they are expecting they have to change how they are going to go about the task. Congrats,
you have just taken the lowground.
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Like if you're arguing about the hat above. Should your long-term objective(s) be affected by a predicted outcome such as an argument, then just take it off, because it's bad for your long-term goals, and it makes to sense to argue about the hat.
If I were watching this unfold, I would for sure have to side with whoever you're arguing with.
I don't think I can imagine a scenario in which this would be a good idea. I remember arguments just like this from when I was in middle school and high school. I always just felt embarassed for the student, and then there's the added nuisance of detention.
Why would anyone even want to kill something? :-(
- "a lifesaving guide to getting into, out or on top of all kinds of conversations"
http://www.amazon.com/Phrase-Droppers-Handbook-John-T-Beaudouin/dp/0440367905
Has this 'ible gone further? Have the strategies taken growth at all?
"I am not asking you to assume anything. The ocean bed extends above the reach of the water, and I do not see why I have to label the same thing twice, just because it is above water at one part." Do not smile, as smiling extends to show complicity.
Make short sentences that make sense, and don't bog yourself down. If you find it helps hold something in your fist, but do not hold a fist just for the sake of showing violence/competitiveness. Don't wave things like pens/fingers or implements at the other person. Look them in the eye and look at your work as well. If you feel your coming on too strong - look and gesture at your work. Keep your work inbetween you and the arguee. Do not allow them to move it to one side. You know you have won when they take it to revise the mark.
This teacher like others, most probably lost you marks on other things like presentation and theory, and you should ask why and what you have lost marks on.
I disagree. How can you say he was right when you wasn't there. It is beyond right and wrong. The phrasing was cheap, nasty and clever, and shows the teacher doesn't really pay attention to his students.
He just plumbs them with with pipes and then tests them.
He builds them like bricks, then he takes a hammer to them.
aloud = out loud
allowed = permitted
PS: a comma every now and then would be lovely.
But good logicality here, albeit targeted toward autority figures. It's not good to pick a fight with a teacher that did nothing except give homework, but then again, what can they do---ten days of suspension? Expelling? Those are rewards, so there may be some merit in these almost despicable actions.
Sorry, but that completely undermines what little credibility this "instructable" had as an idea. All you've done is give instructions on how to be a stroppy, disrepectful, juvenile delinquent.
And, yes, I am a teacher. Off the top of my head I can think of several ex-pupils who tried taking similar approaches to the one you describe. Please note two significant letters: ex-pupils. Persistently disrespective pupils get expelled from my school, and it's just an ordinary state school in a deprived area.
That's not a victory for me, being removed from the argument and on top of that being ridiculed.
A victory in argument is to me at least what happens when the other side comes round to your argument, sadly this is rare with authority figures unless they already sympathized making argument unlikely...
I've found the pupils that I've seen thrown out and the ones I've seen be asked to leave are the ones that show zero respect to a teacher, those that argue with respect seem to be the only oens that ever win and only when they're right, sometimes a newer teacher will change tacts and let the pupil be because they're not settled yet and would rather not do the argument but the older wiser teachers that know enough to know when to keep going seems to be quite indifferent to a good argument and won't hold a grudge if mutual respect is held up.
on one occasion I tipped my old media studies upside down because he took my food away, the result was laughing and such because we treated each other with civility until he stole my crackers, however a vice principal came by and saw this, at which point I had to very hastily explain myself since he got revenge by asking me to explain what was going on... The vice principal was pleased to hear the teacher had volunteered to help explain in case another pupil got damaged by this...
Ok that wasn't a confrontational issue so much but in my eyes I think it's an example of how something completely unreasonable can go just fine...
Whereas it is our school's policy that other pupils do not deserve to have their education disrupted by rebellious pupils, and teachers should not have to handle them, but should be allowed to concentrate on teaching.
Pupils have a right to as good an education as possible, but they have a responsibility as well; not to deny that same right to others by preventing teachers from teaching.
On a lighter, less argumentative note, if there was a teacher who had a terrible hate for hats, the entire class should go and buy yarmulkes and show up wearing them. When the teacher bothers them about their hats, they can all say that they have converted to Judaism and that they cannot remove the hats. That would be funny, but then again it would remove their ability to learn while they were getting in trouble, so it would be against the above-said statement that your school operates under.