Post No.: 0762
Furrywisepuppy says:
In serious arguments, I don’t know anyone who’s ever been intellectually persuaded by a point because it was shouted at them. Shouting is more of an intimidation tactic to try to forcefully get an opponent to yield rather than a way to intellectually convince them that one’s arguments are sound. Shouting is what we descend to when we realise our arguments aren’t being persuasive in their own right.
So if you’re the one to start SHOUTING during a disagreement, it indicates that you subconsciously acknowledge that your arguments are weak, or at least your debating skills (which includes your ability to stay calm and collected) are found wanting.
One doesn’t need to raise one’s hackles in order to make one seem more imposing than one really is unless one feels like one is intellectually on the back paw, perhaps the weaker side, the side with less convincing evidence and/or with the poorer verbal persuasion skills. Some trolls precisely goad people into losing their composure in order to expose who cannot keep their voice down to win the moral battle. These trolls aren’t really there to debate with you but play with you, so part of the skill of debating is recognising who is really serious about having a rational discussion and whom one should not take seriously.
At the root of aggression is fear, and the fear here is sensing that one is losing the intellectual debate (and this can happen early). You’re saying that you don’t feel confident about winning without using a tactic like volume to talk over someone else’s arguments. A pre-emptively truculent or frustrated tone rationalised as a ‘defence’ rather than an ‘attack’ would also reveal a lack of confidence in one’s own arguments and/or argumentation skills. Sometimes we might pick up on one mistake from our opposite number then aggressively and relentlessly attack it, but in the process ignore all the sound points they’ve made, and fail to find anything else to sink our fangs into. Because we’re not really listening and being open to changing our minds, and so we’re just looking for small holes in their armour to attack their position, a tiny morsel can be enough for us to dine on and believe we’re overall right; even when our opponent has made dozens of points we’ve not been able to repudiate.
So shouting happens more when our aim isn’t to listen, learn and cooperate towards finding the best truth but to win an argument. That’s why ‘beating someone into submission’ will be considered a legitimate tactic. This may achieve a temporary victory but will sour the relationship going forwards.
Violence is a last resort – it’s energy expensive and very risky to one’s own life to attempt violence onto others, and last resorts are obviously used only when all other options are, perceived to be, exhausted; like being able to rely on one’s own social intelligence and skills. (Even regarding wars – nations would rather be able to diplomatically convince another to yield to their demands without resorting to expensive violence.)
The converse is also true – the side with the better arguments and better verbal persuasion skills won’t feel the need to make themselves seem physically threatening to make up for their, and/or their case’s, shortfalls, because they’ll feel confident that their arguments are strong enough on their own and that they can eventually persuade with their verbal skills (or realise that the other side isn’t there to be open-minded, or that it’s ultimately not really worth it to win). Therefore they can stay calm and save their energy.
No one needs to make themselves appear bigger (for which volume is assumed to be correlated with the size of threat, like mama bear compared to baby bear) unless they feel unable to tackle a situation or get a job done by expending less energy. To an astute person, one can smell fear in someone who shouts aggressively because they’re evidently panicking. Dangerous as they might be, they’re afraid (like mama bear is afraid that her baby bear is about to get hurt so must protecc).
In verbal debates, or other situations where there’s no credible threat of physical death or injury, we’ll still attempt to make ourselves appear bigger (or escape) when we’re feeling desperate. Our instinctive fight-or-flight stress response reacts to ‘threats’ like losing one’s phone like it does to threats like being trapped in quicksand. We’ll be loud and potentially obnoxious and abusive because we’re panicking, which would speak about us, even though we’ll believe it’s because of our adversary. It’ll speak about us because other people who face identical situations don’t necessarily feel flustered, hence the difference is in the person, not the situation. To actually physically attack someone because of losing a verbal debate would be quite antisocially low, but some people do feel tempted! But once again we won’t need to make ourselves seem bigger unless we feel too small and ineffectual. We’ll only raise our voices to perceived threats – like intellectual opponents who could defeat us – not perceived harmless things. (Bears don’t growl at voles because they don’t need to. So be the bear, not the vole. Although don’t underestimate Burpy Jr. – he can probably take down a grizzly.)
It might feel natural to raise our voices when we’re getting nowhere with someone. One may claim that the other side is causing us the frustration – and tough situations, which include smarter opponents, will indeed tend to make us feel frustrated. One will feel frustrated because of one’s inadequate ability to persuade another individual to yield to one’s wishes; including when feeling frustrated that an infant won’t stop crying – for which we might consciously blame the child, when we subconsciously know that we’re really frustrated about our own limitations as a parent. One’s failure to speak the local language in a foreign country often leads to slowing down one’s speech and speaking louder – as if this’ll help(!)
Our thesis may actually be better supported by the logic and evidence but we lack the personal eloquence or charisma to get it successfully across; but shouting won’t make us more eloquent or charismatic. We’ll blame the other side for not listening, when we’re not being cogent enough – or at least reasonable, patient and calm enough – to be listened to. People tend to be more willing to listen to those who listen in return. We might need to blame our own naivety or arrogance in thinking that there can only be one correct view for everything, and that we hold it (e.g. many ethical debates present dilemmas with no clear right answer, and no one 100% knows the future thus predictions can be debated until the outcome is determined). Others may not perceive the world as we do, and vice-versa, because we can all have different priorities and desires. Sometimes there’s no wrong answer except to think that there’s only one right answer, without the benefit of hindsight that is.
Like during road rage, we might believe that shouting at someone with abusive words will ‘get in their thick skull’ a lesson they should learn – even though we know from our own experience how ineffective someone is at teaching us something when they yell at us like this; especially if we didn’t voluntarily give them any authority over us in the area of expertise that’s relevant to the situation i.e. we didn’t accept them as our teacher. It’s as if our aim isn’t really to teach others but to massage our own egos. (Now I’m not bragging but I get compliments on my driving. Yesterday someone put a sticker on my windscreen that said ‘Parking… Fine’!) If the other person appears to learn, then the mistake and correction would’ve been obvious to them already and they would’ve learnt it without being abusively shouted at.
We might’ve learnt to shout from how our parents led by example. If you witness your parents have short fuses and routinely angrily bellow and perhaps punch walls then you’ll more likely learn to react in similar ways to stresses or frustrations.
It might’ve been a firsthand learnt behaviour to escalate rapidly to barking because in the past people haven’t paid attention to you until you’ve yelled at them. It might be a response to someone else shouting first. (There’ll classically be disputes about who shouted first though! If only every argument was recorded for evidence.) But after the initial instinctive reaction, we must learn to recompose ourselves before we do something we might later regret.
Post No.: 0492 explained how violently releasing your anger isn’t recommended.
There are appropriate contexts to shout, and these are when one needs to unambiguously grab someone’s attention to instruct them to do something in order to avert an immediate disaster. But that’ll only need to be for until their attention has been grabbed.
The volume of voice may also be appropriate if the environment is noisy and one needs to be heard above that noise. But an abusive tone is never appropriate.
We might also instinctively shout to relieve some pain, like after we stub our toe on a table leg; or to express immense joy, like when you feel like saying, “I’m the king of the world!” But these exclamations don’t need to be directed at anyone personally but to the world.
Silence from one party doesn’t necessarily mean the other party is factually right or has intellectually won. Silence often signals a recognition that it’s futile to waste one’s breath. If we consider the other party to be an idiot then we’d be the greater idiot to waste our own time trying to reason with them(!) If we keep howling at a brick wall for not moving out of our way then who is the stubborn dunce? Walk around it.
It’s somewhat bizarre to feel infuriated about people who seem thick – they’re thick! It’s like shouting at a baby for ‘not listening to me’(!) Either try to educate them with a tone that they’d like to be educated with, or accept they don’t have the capacity to learn something yet. What more can you ethically do? We do also need to consider that it might be us who is, at least partly, wrong during stalemates.
…All in all, shouting is usually a sign of one’s own deficiencies in being able to get one’s own point across to another person – a sign of one’s own frustrations for not being eloquent enough – even though we’ll pin the blame on the other party for being the nitwit. It’s a switch from using reason to trying to threaten someone into submission. So those who resort to aggression, bullying or trolling during arguments have effectively lost because they’ve tacitly admitted to running out of cogent arguments and/or the ability to clearly communicate their thoughts to others.
Yet have you ever truly changed your mind – as in been truly convinced through reason rather than forced into compliance – by someone shouting at or threatening you? It probably only made you want to internally strengthen your position even more. You’ve probably wanted to retaliate in kind. So shouting doesn’t really work. It can even be embarrassing if we could look back on ourselves losing our rag!
The skill is also in ascertaining who is able and willing to change their views and who isn’t ever going to, and the best approach for different people based on their values and priorities. Sometimes people are intellectually able to change but aren’t publicly ready to because they’re looking for a gentle way to transition in order to avoid losing face – so never rub victory into other people’s faces either. Be humble. Decent people find it harder to hate and attack considerate, kind, calm and reasonable people. If they’re not decent people then save your emotions. If you’ve tried your best with reason then just accept what you can’t change, and move on.
Woof.
Comment on this post by replying to this tweet:
