The ability to participant successfully in an argument is a rare skill. I’m not sure if it’s a dying art or just something that’s always eluded English speakers but its absence is never more evident than in every series of Big Brother. There is a strange logic that arguments are won by the speaker who speaks more, speaks the loudest, or speaks last and if you can achieve all three you should be awarded the gold medal of the argument. I say strange because by speaking louder and more you miss the very arguments you’re supposedly countering meaning you cant possibly win as you lack the necessary knowledge of the opposing argument. So how can the intellectually lacking in the Big Brother house claim repetition of “you get me” and “deal with it” is a successful means of winning an argument? Therefore as they seemingly have no argument you theoretically win the argument but this seems to go unnoticed as they strut off crying “whatever!”
It’s not just Big Brother’s society dregs who seem incapable of communicating their views, the Apprentice contestants take a different tact which focuses on commenting on each other’s turn taking skills. So mid conversation speakers will launch into rants about being interrupted and how they hadn’t interrupted anyone which ends up consuming more of the conversation time than the actual points of the argument.
An underlying rule of arguments should be that if any repeated points which have already been counter argued are raised then the argument should be awarded to the other participant and conversation should move on. I would hazard a guess that 80% of argument conversation is irrelevant and been said before, the sooner an argument can become concise the sooner I can win and move on.
