I have a hobby - I study how the human mind works, and I run a little club where my friends come once a week or so, and we play with various mind experiments. I also collect books and tapes on the subject, and share them with my friends, so we can play with the techniques in these books. The listings of the library are on the Web, for convenience, but it's only available to the club members.
I bought one of the video tapes from a guy, let's call him John (which is not his real name, of course), and added the video to the library. Some time later, John finds out that his tape is listed in my library, and writes me a rather harsh email blaming me in being untrustworthy and harming his business. In reality though, whoever borrows the tapes from my library would not even know John existed otherwise, much less buy something from him, so how can I possibly harm his business? In fact, I'm actually letting people know about John's tapes.
Sounds like a cause for an argument, doesn't it? It surely does, and that was my immediate reaction... But after reading what I typed in for a response (before I hit the send button), I realized that it's not going to work, and neither me nor John will ever agree with each other. I have to say, John has a tendency for quick and radical judgement sometimes, and flaming back at him only adds oil to the fire.
So, I erased whatever I've written, and started over, this time carefully thinking of the consequences. And here's what I wrote:
Sorry, I didn't realize I can't even show the video to a couple of friends, so we can play with the technique together... (This is what this library really amounts to - I'm not lending anything to random people). In fact, so far nobody else besides me has looked at the video anyway.In any case, I took it off the library list.
No arguing, just admitting that I made a mistake (and on the way I made it sound ridiculous). In other words, he says "X", and I say "I hear you're saying Y, and you're right, and I'm wrong." Surely, he has to agree with "You're right, I'm wrong" part, which implies that X=Y... But now Y is ridiculous!
In addition, replying to his "harming the business" comment, I "digressed" into a story of how many people around don't even have a clue about powerful seft-development techniques, and many could really use them to improve their lives...
Again, no argument, just "thoughts along the way," which I even call a "digression." Of course, it's obvious what I'm driving at, but notice what "no argument" format does -- John has nothing to contradict me here! Hence, he is more likely to look at the situation from my point of view. And, apparently, he did, as I understood from his (this time rather careful and even somewhat apologetic) answer. I have a suspicion that he's now thinking he might have just turned down a slew of potential customers... Quite a change in a point of view, if you ask me! That was a surprise :-)
What did I learn from this?
Winning the argument can be much easier if you always agree with the opponent, rather than trying to "prove him wrong." --How's that? -- you might ask. Let's analyze it in more detail.
What does it mean to "win the argument"? In my definition, it means getting your opponent agree with your point of view, or, alternatively, come up with a new point of view which suits you both (in which case, you both win).
How can that be done? Here's one way to do this, similar to the way I structured my email above: first, agree with the opponent ("Yes, you're right"), and then restate his position in your own words -- but with a subtle change, which either brings it closer to your position, or makes it ridiculous, or contradictory, or at least somewhat shaky. That is, he says "A", you say "Yes, I agrere, B". What this does is it makes the person concentrate on the "I agree" part, and take your statement "B" as an equivalent restatement of his "A". Subconsciously, he will try to solve the A=B equation, and if it is possible to do relatively easily, he might even not notice the trick, and will agree with you in return.
Next, you can go further and claim B=C, and C=D, either getting closer to your point of view, or gradually trashing his position. If your opponent keeps trying to argue with you about other aspects of his opinion, so much the better! Use that to agree with him and restate that again. By the time you get to "Z", you've built an equivalence chain "A=B=C=...=Z", implying that "A=Z", but now "Z" is either exactly your point of view, or is totally ridiculous or impossible. If it is the former, then you've just won the argument - you only need to mention that "Z" is exactly what your opinion was from the start, so you two have been talking about the same thing without realizing it (which is not necessarily the case, but your opponent might not even notice it!). Alternatively, if "Z" is a complete ridicule of your opponent's opinion, and you managed to get him to accept his position as equivalent to "Z", then all you need to do is to say something like, "Wait a minite, are you sure Z really makes sense?" This will get him thinking, discovering all the contradictions by himself! After realizing that he's on a shaky ground, your point of view might come as a rescue.
Needless to say that leading the opponent through the chain of "equivalent" statements must be done very carefully, and you'll need some practice before you can do it naturally and in small enough steps that the person does not catch you. It is also not a good idea (although it might be tempting) to point out that his original statement "A" is the same as "Z" -- at this point the difference may be so dramatic that he will immediately see your trick, and you lose your winning position. It's better to forget about the "A" entirely. After all, you don't want your opponent to submit and suffer from your superiority. All you are after is winning the argument, which, by definition, is getting your opponent to agree with you. So, start by agreeing with him! Wouldn't you agree that it might just work? :-)
This reminds me of some marshal art techniques, when you use your attacker's momentum against him -- rather than trying to stop his power punch, redirect it ever so slightly, push the guy off balance, and let his own force drive him to the ground... The stronger he hits, the harder he falls.
And remember that this is only one way, out of many more... Keep exploring!
