How to Win Every Argument
Ah… arguing. The great American pastime. Whether it’s shouting at Cataract Cathy at a traffic light or schooling your racist cousin Craig on Facebook, we spend roughly 85-90% of our lives in verbal conflict with the idiots around us. And sure - the real solution is for us to get into therapy, realize how unhappy we are, and then make meaningful life changes so we’re not just stewing in the misery of the side effects of late stage capitalism and then lashing out, ruining the day of everyone around us. But who has the time for that shit, am I right?
I love confrontation. It’s not one of my proudest qualities, but I’ve gotta own it. I also happen to be eerily good at it. I’m not sure what my pathology is, but when other people are uncomfortable? I get suuuuuper comfortable. My better self believes in kindness so I genuinely try to let a lot of things go. But when I have a justified (in my mind) opportunity to unleash my arguing skills in a real life situation? I argue to win, baybay!
I strongly recommend not being like me. But let’s face it - if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance I’m your personal hero. You want to learn how to argue like the best. So if you must go down this yelly road of destruction, here are a few tips:
Give up the idea of changing someone’s mind. Not going to happen. People aren’t going to change. Even if they’re asking you seemingly curious questions, it’s just a ploy. They’re just waiting for their turn to talk and unleash whatever stupid point they learned on talk radio or cable news. This is particularly true in online arguments. People pretend to engage in seemingly good faith discussions, but really they’re just trying to use “logic” to poke holes in your argument so they can win by being the “reasonable” one. It’s all about winning.
If your goal is to change hearts and minds, get off the internet. If your goal is to win the argument, let go of the idea that what the other person thinks matters. You don’t win by convincing them. You win by humiliating them.
Adjust to your venue. Social media is great for well-crafted word daggers. But sometimes you don’t have the time for editing. That’s why it is good to have some quick, humiliating one liners in the tank depending on where you are.
Personally, one of my least favorite places to get into arguments is traffic. There’s usually only time for one line before everybody leaves. Luckily, most people are only going to give you a cursory “fuck you” so the bar isn’t high for cleverness. Here are a few handy, versatile one-liners to yell at someone who cuts you off in traffic:
“You bad at drive drive!”
“Your parents resent you!”
“You smell like cabbage!”
“You lack nuance!”
My favorite car-on-car argument (or “cargument”) was with a guy behind me in a car wash. There were two lines leading to two car wash ports. I was next in line and so I waited to see which line would open up first. The guy behind me yelled through his window “Pick a lane!” leading to the following interaction.
Me: “I’m next in line. I’m waiting to see which one opens.”
Him: “That’s not how it works. You need to pick one.”
Me: “Are you suggesting that I should not be next even though I’m ahead of you in line?”
Him: “That’s how it works.”
Me: “So take me through the logic of this - I am in front of you in line, but if I ‘pick a lane’ that takes longer, you go ahead of me. How does that make any sense, sir? Sir?”
It went on like this for like 5 full minutes. He had a car behind him and I was ahead of him. So he couldn’t escape. I engaged him in a Lincoln-Douglas style debate on the illogic of his argument. I was incredibly thorough. He couldn’t move at all. He just had to sit there and take it. It was glooooorious!
Don’t try to keep the moral high ground. This is a mistake. Stop trying to be the good guy. Remember: in their eyes, you are the monster. So be a monster. In terms of arguing, I am the Bizarro Michelle Obama. When they go low, I burrow into the sub-basement.
For example, I found myself reading a predictably nuanced discussion about abortion rights on my friend Tad’s Facebook comment section. Tad is from Florida, so he has collected quite a few busted gourds in his friend group. One particular bro was spewing the usual rhetoric about snowflakes and libtards and blah blah blah. Everyone else was attempting to engage him in logical discussions. Because truly - most people are easily talked out of their views on abortion via social media threads, right? Of course, I couldn’t let all this good faith engagement stand, so I unleashed a single shot:
“You know - for someone who is calling everyone else snowflakes, you sure are being a pussy about a few dead babies.”
Normally, I try to opt out of using ‘pussy’ as a pejorative term because it is pretty sexist. But sometimes, the word that needs to be used is the word that needs to be used. He needed to be shut down in a language he understood. The snowflake bro tried to respond with a few flails, but it was clear that the fight was over.
Don’t raise your voice and try not to swear. I know this seems counterintuitive, but anger is easy to dismiss. People expect anger. When you meet their anger with another emotion, they have no idea what to do with you. I’m a big fan of responding to anger with faux concern, amusement, and (my favorite) pretend confusion.
This is particularly effective if someone makes a racist joke. Pretend you don’t understand it. Get them to explain the premise. Act like you have never heard of their racist premise before so they have to say it out loud. It’ll eventually get to “Well, that’s funny because Belgians smell like sewage.” When they finally say it, you can react with “Oh, wow. You really think that?” They’ll back pedal like a motherfucker or double down on their hate. Either way, you’re confused by the whole thing and they feel like shit.
Which leads me to…
Get confusing. We often think that logically sound arguments are always winners. This isn’t the case. If your adversary has no response, that’s the definition of a win. I like to employ the confusion technique, especially in a short confrontation. My favorite one of these was from an ex of mine who used to respond to every cat call with “I can’t hear you - I’m listening to Huey Lewis!” She would do this whether she had earbuds in or not. Genius.
People will always come at you with anger so anything other than anger is confusing to them. Here are some examples of actual interactions I’ve had with people on the streets:
Them: “What the fuck?”
Me: “Sure, you say that now. But we’ll see how you feel in September.”
Them: “Hey buddy - fuck you!”
Me: “My Aunt Lisa used to say that. She died of Lou Gehrig’s disease!”
Them: “That’s my parking space, asshole!”
Me: “You can’t have my kidneys! I’m not falling for that one again, bub!”
Practice practice practice. Get as many arguments as you can! Start looking for opportunities to engage in confrontation. Comment sections are just one of the many venues into which you can practice your craft. In my younger days, I used to like to jump into other people’s arguments. There would be a traffic dispute and I would be there to ‘help’ by informing them who was correct. “No, you are wrong. She had the right of way. You’re wrong to be yelling and you’re a bad driver, sir.” Whenever there was an argument around me, I felt free to jump in as an opinionated third party. As you can imagine, it was always well-received!
Get ready to be lonely. Shockingly, people don’t tend to like to hang around with someone looking for an argument all the time! As it turns out, even winning arguments doesn’t really matter. It only took me about three and a half decades to learn this and I still only practice it about 50% of the time. So I’m doing great. Thanks for asking!
Chances are that you’re a decent human being with better things to do than get into a bunch of arguments online and in real life. Let things go. It doesn’t matter what some bonehead cousin says about Biden or a complete stranger says about the Barbie movie. Arguing is ultimately pointless.
What - you don’t agree with me? Sure - you say that now. But we’ll see how you feel in September.
Boogie Writes is a completely independent endeavor by one hard-working funnyman trying to make his way in the world today (which takes everything you’ve got.) If you like what you read, please subscribe, support, and tell a friend! Also - do you need advice? Of course you do! Send your queries to brendan@brendanboogie.com with “Dear Boogie” in the subject and get some solid or at least passable advice!