Rules of Engagement: 5 Steps to Better Arguments

Election season is upon us and I’m worried. While I’m concerned about the outcome of the election — and what it will mean for issues I hold dear like equality, justice, and sustainability — I’m equally concerned about the impact the election will have on my relationships and peace of mind.

Author and activist Grace Lee Boggs once said, “Transform yourself to transform the world.” Unfortunately when I look back on the last election cycle, I’m unhappy with how I allowed it to transform me. I don’t like or respect the person I became at times and I think I worked against my own goals by alienating people who could have been allies. 

How we disagree shapes our relationships, our personalities and our world. We can argue with people on the other side of the political spectrum, of course, but we also disagree with people on our own side. And relationships are valuable whether we agree on everything or not. 

Every conversation can be transformative; it can pull us apart or bring us together. Forging alliances is especially important in a winner-take-all political system like ours, and relationships are an important part of any happy life. So I have a vested interest, both as a human and as someone who cares about progressive politics, to get better at arguing. 

Arguments Are Essential

We humans can be full of shit — we are biased and vulnerable to cognitive errors. As Ana?s Nin eloquently noted, “We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.” 

Because biases are unconscious, we have no way of knowing when they are at play. So we need to allow other perspectives to inform our own. Which is why great thinkers like Darwin and Lincoln went out of their way to seek out adversarial points of view. 

But simply strengthening our ideas isn’t enough to create change. We must also align with others and take meaningful action together. This fact is as true in politics and activism as it is in business strategy. 

Disagreement is essential, but it’s also essential that we resolve it if we’re going to move forward together. Ideally this resolution happens through compromise and integration rather than through force or top-down decision-making. 

Politicians and pundits may shape the mass narrative, but our actual political culture is created one relationship at a time. By people like you and me having conversations. These conversations shape our relationships, and relationships shape us and shape our world, so it’s worth taking some time to think about how we engage with each other.  

I’m a white, middle-class, middle-aged guy who tries to stay informed and who takes voting seriously. I’m mostly on the left but can be centrist at times and progressive at others. As such I’ve found myself in deep arguments with progressives, centrists and conservatives. I’ve been shaped by these arguments for better and for worse. 

At times arguments have brought out a side of me that is defensive and mean, which has resulted in me pushing away people who could have been allies. I’ve also learned that, when done well, arguments can deepen relationships and create positive change. 

In the rest of this piece, I’m going to describe how I’ve come to view these essential, personal, political conversations called arguments. These ideas work for me and may work for you too, however my intent is to describe my own process, not prescribe things for anyone else. 

Discourse or Debate?

The first thing I try to do when entering an argument is to assess whether it is a discourse or a debate. I use my own definitions for these words but the distinction is important — too often I’ve found myself caught up in a debate when what I wanted was discourse. 

By discourse I mean arguments where the goal is to eventually align. Debate is discourse’s more flamboyant cousin and happens between people with opposing views who intend to remain opposed at the end of the conversation. 

People come into discourse to discuss, learn, grow and work together. They come into a debate to win. 

Debates lend themselves to clickbait headlines that say one person destroyed the other. They are adversarial, emotional and depend on rhetorical devices. 

Debate can be valuable, of course. I learn a lot by watching them and I’m happy to see bad ideas countered with forceful rhetoric. But they don’t tend to end with a feeling of alignment or shared purpose. 

Discourse, on the other hand, is a means of shared thinking where the goal is to test and improve our thinking and to (potentially) align. In discourse we leave the door open to eventual agreement with our counterpart. 

Debates tend to increase and sharpen polarization and are often used to consolidate political power (e.g., get enough people to vote for the “right” person so the others can be ignored for a while). Discourse, on the other hand, seeks alignment and engagement. 

The distinction is one of intention, not depth of disagreement; discourse may involve deep disagreement and may even feel like debate at times, but the goal is to come together, not beat each other up.  

Debate tends to be appropriate when ideologies and visions of the future are opposed, and when there are undecided people watching who may be swayed to your side. The people you’re trying to convince in a debate are the people watching it, not the people on the other side. 

Discourse on the other hand is appropriate when the people arguing may not be fully aligned but ultimately want to be. Resolution may happen when all parties come to agreement or decide to “disagree and commit”— meaning some intellectual disagreement still exists but the group has decided to take shared action. 

As I’ve reflected on my own relationship to arguments, I’ve realized that discourse is my preferred mode. While I believe debate is essential to the political process and broader social change movements, I don’t think I do it all that well and it’s not currently in my lane. 

I value debates and love to watch them but I’m not a public figure arguing for an audience, I’m a facilitator and writer whose goal is to bring people together into more trusting and effective relationships. 

When I argue, my goal is to make those arguments productive and do as little damage as possible to relationships. I’m essentially trying to do what the Buddhists call “right speech” and, to quote Thich Nhat Hahn, “Words that damage or destroy are not Right Speech.” 

This is not an easy line to walk because I believe it is our duty to (aggressively at times) counter speech that is causing harm.

I also value self-care because I know that when I get triggered or tired I tend to overreact or underreact — swinging from doormat to asshole in the blink of an eye. 

So I’ve developed a few rules to help me stay on track when having arguments. These are aspirational standards, which means they are ideal touchstones I return to when the going gets tough, not hard and fast rules which I never break. 

Five Rules of Engagement 

Here are my five rules of engagement for arguments. These are a personal practice, not a hack or a solution. The intent is not to get what I want, win arguments or be more successful. The goal is to become a better person overall and create relationships that create a better world. 

1. Argue in Good Faith for Good Reasons

We all like to think we are on the right side, and this assumption often leads to a situation where I’m tempted to try to win by any means necessary and let the ends justify the means. 

This is arguing in bad faith and usually means using manipulative or dishonest tactics like a Gish gallop that overwhelm your opponent with irrelevant or misrepresented facts simply so you can beat them. It’s a common debate tactic that has no place in a discourse. 

Arguing in good faith means to offer considered points backed by data, experience and as free from logical fallacies as possible. The good faith mindset says, “I’m here as much to learn from you as I am to school you.” 

Not only is it important to argue in good faith, but it’s also important to make sure we are entering into an argument that has a potentially positive outcome. Arguments take a lot of energy, after all, and it’s important that we spend that energy wisely. 

Good faith starts with having a good reason for being in the argument rather than just being sucked into it mindlessly. 

I’ve frequently found myself — usually at gatherings of extended family or on social media — pulled into arguments that when I examine them later seem inconsequential. I’ve been arguing with people whose minds I will never change, who I don’t know, or who don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. I just got caught up. 

What constitutes a good reason for arguing is personal but in my experience they are few. Either I want to convince someone to take an action — like voting and becoming more politically active or I want to create or do something with them. 

There are other times when I may want to prevent someone from silencing others — I value diversity and participation — so I can be aggressive with people who are themselves aggressive. However, this can easily become an excuse for an ego-driven “saviorism,” which it’s important to be careful of. On the other hand, not speaking up can also equal tacit approval of what’s being said. 

So at times I find it essential to speak up to counter misinformation or to shut down a toxic personality. But often these ends are accomplished via a single statement rather than an extended back and forth argument. 

2. Avoid Gottman’s Four Horsemen 

Psychologist John Gottman rose to fame because of his ability to predict with 90% accuracy whether or not a couple would break up. His work serves as a good foundation for all relationships, not just the romantic. 

Gottman identified communication habits that, when left unchecked, spell doom for relationships; he calls them The Four Horsemen. I find them essential to keep in mind during discourse-style arguments because we are interested in both having the argument and preserving, or even strengthening, the relationship. 

Criticism is when we focus on the person, not their behavior — essentially an ad hominem attack. A criticism will describe someone’s character, frequently in an absolutist way. Statements like “you are: selfish, racist, ignorant, stupid, etc.” are examples of criticism. Instead, focus on the ideas or facts being asserted, not the person you’re disagreeing with.  

Contempt is treating people with disrespect through sarcasm, ridicule or calling them names. This can be verbal or nonverbal — a well-timed eye roll can communicate contempt as much as an insult. The goal of contempt is to devalue the other person and make them feel worthless. According to Gottman it is the single greatest predictor of relationship failure. There is no good way to show contempt and the antidote is to remember to treat your opponent with respect — even (perhaps especially) when you don’t feel they deserve it. 

Defensiveness is often our very natural response to criticism. We go into self-protection mode and play victim or become indignant. It’s easy to slip into a defensive stance, but it often creates a downward spiral since our defensiveness can show up as criticism of our counterpart, which in turn causes them to feel defensive. The antidote here is to acknowledge our own fallibility and add a bit of humility to the discussion by conceding a point or taking responsibility for things going off track, then moving on. 

Stonewalling is when one person withdraws from the conversation without any resolution. Leaving a conversation can be the right thing to do in the interest of self-care when the person you’re in conversation with is not arguing in good faith or displays the three horsemen above. But it effectively ends the argument and will likely damage the relationship in significant ways. A good option when you’re feeling the urge to stonewall is to pause the conversation, collect yourself, and come back when you’re feeling cooler. You still may want to end the conversation, of course, but it’s best to end it consciously and deliberately rather than out of frustration. 

3. Ask Questions 

When we argue we often try to prove our point rather than understand our counterpart. But listening and asking questions is essential to effective arguments and good relationships. 

There is a timelessness to this idea: the prayer of St. Francis includes the line “grant that I may not so much seek … to be understood, as to understand,” which is echoed in Steven Covey’s 5th Habit of Highly Effective people. And Chris Voss, a former FBI hostage negotiator goes even further and calls listening a martial art.  

Listening starts with asking questions and being curious about your opponent’s position. You can even “steelman” their argument by stating their position as clearly as you can, then ask them if you’re right and to help you understand if you’re not. 

Friendly and curious questions are incredibly helpful, but don’t shy away from asking questions that feel invasive or like you’re making an assumption. Voss teaches a technique he calls “labeling” where you call out the intention or belief that sits under a statement. 

Labeling can be as simple as saying “it sounds like x is important to you.” My experience with this tactic is that it’s a great place to go when I’m tempted to criticize someone. Rather than saying “you’re racist,” I might say “it sounds like you believe Black people are responsible for their poverty relative to white people.” This can be a disarming technique and one that forces someone to be clear rather than use vague implications. 

4. Calling In over Calling Out

A while back my wife was deeply concerned about her friend, “Anne,” who was sharing Facebook posts from a right-wing group known for disinformation and the use of coded racist language. She came close to disconnecting from Anne and was tempted to argue with her posts publicly on social media. 

Instead she chose to reach out to Anne with a phone call and shared her concerns about both the content and its impact on people of color and even on Anne’s reputation. 

The result was that Anne admitted she knew nothing about the group and had just seen a headline that sounded good and had hit the “share” button without much thought. 

This personal outreach led to a rich exchange between the two women where they found common ground and became closer. It also meant that my wife’s friend became more conscious about where she sourced information and how her sharing of it impacted her reputation and community. 

This is an example of calling someone in. 

Calling someone out in public, especially with righteous indignation, can feel good. Social media makes it easy too. But it’s a flavor of criticism and defensiveness and is toxic to relationships. In my experience it tends to increase divisiveness rather than bring us together. 

While calling out someone in public is at times the right thing to do in my opinion, if it is someone I care about and a relationship I want to maintain, then calling someone in first is the right move. 

 5. Agree to Disagree   

There are people I love with whom I am unlikely to agree on important topics. I’d go so far as to say that I disagree with everyone on at least one thing. With some people these disagreements can be so deep, or come up so often, that I’d rather step away from the relationship or at least limit it to certain settings and topics. 

But there are many people for whom stepping away is not the right option. This can be because we are working together on a project we both find important, we have years of shared history that makes them important to me, or they are people I’m entangled with due to family or community relationships that I want to maintain. 

In these cases I find nothing wrong with simply avoiding certain topics of conversation or situations. This is sort of the inverse of “arguing for good reason” mentioned above, but it amounts to being willing to stay in a relationship but not argue — at least not all the time. 

Avoiding the topic both preserves the relationship and my sanity. 

Parting Thoughts 

As we move into the more divisive phase of election season it’s my hope that the people I care about will find ways to come together and align rather than become more polarized and divisive. 

I believe this movement starts with each of us and how we commit to behave with each other when we argue and disagree. 

I hope my thoughts above help you become more intentional in your difficult conversations. Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences with me. My rules, like everything in my life, are a forever work in progress and I value your thoughts and input — even if they make me a bit uncomfortable.