Lacee - I see that you're asking the question sincerely, but I don't think the question has an answer. Or it doesn't have a SINGLE answer. Motives for arguments are as diverse as the circumstances that create them and the people who participate in them.
Asking "Why do we argue?" is like asking "Why do we get married?" The answer might be: love, companionship, attachment, emotional security, financial security, to have children, to fulfill cultural expectations, to individuate from your parents, to reenact the relationships of childhood, to obtain citizenship, to avoid the draft, because she got pregnant...
The same thing is true of the question "Why do we argue?" It's a question with a thousand answers. And many of those answers are elusive, because people's motives for arguing are largely unconscious, just like people's motives for getting married.
Having said that, I believe that there are some COMMON reasons why people argue, both on Audiogon and in the real world. Here are some of them...
1. Rivalry
2. Narcissism
3. Truth
RE (1): Rivalry. We are animals that evolved under conditions of scarcity. Access to scarce resources, particularly reproductive resources, is determined by dominance. Dominance is established either through violence or through SURROGATES for violence.
IMO, many arguments are surrogates for violence. That is reflected in the principal metaphor people use when talking about arguments, namely that ARGUMENTS ARE WAR, as in He ATTACKED my position. I DEFENDED my point of view. I SHOT DOWN his ideas. I WON the argument. etc.
Arguments replace physical conflict with verbal conflict. As surrogates for violence, arguments are a way of establishing dominance without killing each other. The struggle for dominance, whether violent or non-violent, is synonymous with rivalry. Because of the scarcity of resources over the course of human evolutionary history, rivalry is written into our DNA. Literally.
RE (2): Narcissism. We are all, to some extent or other, narcissistic. Narcissism has been a character flaw since there was such a thing as character flaws, as evidenced by myths about narcissism, fairy tales about narcissism, biblical passages about narcissism, literature about narcissism, psychological theories about narcissism, movies about narcissism.
Narcissism is, among other things, an excess of pride and a shortage of humility. IMO, the denial of ones own shortcomings and mistakes tends to make people argumentative, since the only way to maintain the idea that you're perfect is to attack people who can see that you're not.
Narcissism is easy enough to find here on Audiogon or in the real world. Having said that, it does not follow, nor do I believe, that ALL arguments are a consequence of narcissism. And that brings me to
RE (3): Truth. A great number of arguments are about WHAT IS TRUE. A smaller but still significant number of arguments are about HOW WE KNOW what is true. In both cases, people have an investment in the truth. The investment can be emotional, ideological, financial, religious... any number of things. The investment people feel in the truth applies not only to important things, like whether climate change is real, but also to trivial things, like whether fuse direction is audible.
IMO, theres nothing wrong with being invested in the truth. And theres nothing wrong with arguing about the truth. The problem arises, IMO, when you are so invested in your beliefs being true that you cannot argue about the truth without behaving badly. Put another way, the problem is Dogmatism. Dogmatism can be a consequence of vanity, ignorance, indoctrination... the list is long.
So long as people are dogmatic, arguments will go badly. And so long as they go badly, arguments will get a bad rap. But the problem isnt the argument. Its the person doing the arguing.
IMO, IME, etc.
Bryon
Asking "Why do we argue?" is like asking "Why do we get married?" The answer might be: love, companionship, attachment, emotional security, financial security, to have children, to fulfill cultural expectations, to individuate from your parents, to reenact the relationships of childhood, to obtain citizenship, to avoid the draft, because she got pregnant...
The same thing is true of the question "Why do we argue?" It's a question with a thousand answers. And many of those answers are elusive, because people's motives for arguing are largely unconscious, just like people's motives for getting married.
Having said that, I believe that there are some COMMON reasons why people argue, both on Audiogon and in the real world. Here are some of them...
1. Rivalry
2. Narcissism
3. Truth
RE (1): Rivalry. We are animals that evolved under conditions of scarcity. Access to scarce resources, particularly reproductive resources, is determined by dominance. Dominance is established either through violence or through SURROGATES for violence.
IMO, many arguments are surrogates for violence. That is reflected in the principal metaphor people use when talking about arguments, namely that ARGUMENTS ARE WAR, as in He ATTACKED my position. I DEFENDED my point of view. I SHOT DOWN his ideas. I WON the argument. etc.
Arguments replace physical conflict with verbal conflict. As surrogates for violence, arguments are a way of establishing dominance without killing each other. The struggle for dominance, whether violent or non-violent, is synonymous with rivalry. Because of the scarcity of resources over the course of human evolutionary history, rivalry is written into our DNA. Literally.
RE (2): Narcissism. We are all, to some extent or other, narcissistic. Narcissism has been a character flaw since there was such a thing as character flaws, as evidenced by myths about narcissism, fairy tales about narcissism, biblical passages about narcissism, literature about narcissism, psychological theories about narcissism, movies about narcissism.
Narcissism is, among other things, an excess of pride and a shortage of humility. IMO, the denial of ones own shortcomings and mistakes tends to make people argumentative, since the only way to maintain the idea that you're perfect is to attack people who can see that you're not.
Narcissism is easy enough to find here on Audiogon or in the real world. Having said that, it does not follow, nor do I believe, that ALL arguments are a consequence of narcissism. And that brings me to
RE (3): Truth. A great number of arguments are about WHAT IS TRUE. A smaller but still significant number of arguments are about HOW WE KNOW what is true. In both cases, people have an investment in the truth. The investment can be emotional, ideological, financial, religious... any number of things. The investment people feel in the truth applies not only to important things, like whether climate change is real, but also to trivial things, like whether fuse direction is audible.
IMO, theres nothing wrong with being invested in the truth. And theres nothing wrong with arguing about the truth. The problem arises, IMO, when you are so invested in your beliefs being true that you cannot argue about the truth without behaving badly. Put another way, the problem is Dogmatism. Dogmatism can be a consequence of vanity, ignorance, indoctrination... the list is long.
So long as people are dogmatic, arguments will go badly. And so long as they go badly, arguments will get a bad rap. But the problem isnt the argument. Its the person doing the arguing.
IMO, IME, etc.
Bryon