arguments - alain de botton.md

Arguments - Alain de Botton

Gems

• "We can come to see the domestic sphere for what it really is: a superficially trivial arena in which we meet, in disguised form, the most important themes of psychology -- the tension between the longing for freedom and the fear of entrapment, the horror of constraint and the desire for protection, the risks of rigidity and the anxiety of chaos."
• "By contrast, it is sometimes our exposure to grim realities -- to bleak stories of war, to tragedies and misfortune or to places where nature is hostile (a barren desert; a cold, craggy, storm-swept island) -- that make our inner distress feel less important or pressing. We're more inclined to overlook our partner's annoying details in situations where having anyone at all feels like a privilege."
• Spouses "are generally no worse than any charming stranger, but as they are familiar, their every failing has had a chance to be minutely charted."
• "We need to mine the secret reality of other people and so learn that, beneath their charms, they will almost invariably be essentially 'normal' in nature -- that is, no worse yet no better than the candidates that we already have in our lives."
• "People concede points not when they're aggressively told they're wrong but when they feel loved. We get stubborn and withhold the truth when we're scared and suspect that the person challenging us hates us, means us harm."

Intro

• "Beneath the surface of almost every argument lies a forlorn attempt by two people to get the other to see, acknowledge and respond to their emotional reality and sense of justice. Beyond the invective is a longing that our partner should witness, understand and endorse some crucial element of our own experience."

The interminable argument

• "I feel you don't respect my intelligence."
  • From this springs sensitivity to differences in judgment.

The domestic argument

• "When conflict does occur, it is handled impatiently, with a certainty that it shouldn't be occurring and a determination to end it as soon as possible. Unconvinced of the legitimacy of our domestic disagreements, we end up bullying and nagging on the one side, and shirking and waving away complaints on the other."
• "We refuse to take our complaints seriously, and so our arguments end up scrappy, lazy and oblique."
• "We can come to see the domestic sphere for what it really is: a superficially trivial arena in which we meet, in disguised form, the most important themes of psychology -- the tension between the longing for freedom and the fear of entrapment, the horror of constraint and the desire for protection, the risks of rigidity and the anxiety of chaos."

The defensive argument

• "People don't change when they are gruffly told what's wrong with them; they change when they feel sufficiently supported to undertake the change they (almost always) already know is due. It isn't enough to be sometimes right in relationships; we need to be generous enough in giving out signs of love in order that our partner can admit when they are in the wrong."
  • (This applies for children also)

The spoiling argument

• In which we spoil the mood of a bubbly spouse.
• When you're feeling negative: "A dark instinct in our minds experiences their upbeat mood as a warning that the uncheery parts of ourselves must now be unwelcome."
• How to interpret the actions of the negative person: "They are, through their remorseless negativity, in a garbled and maddening way, begging us for reassurance."

The escalation argument

• We might term such disputes 'escalation arguments', where a discussion about topic X swiftly unleashes an only tenuously related but much larger accusation around Y, which the recipient dismisses as having been incorrectly introduced."
• "The person making the accelerated vindictive remark looks like they are being disproportionate and seems at fault for suddenly turning up the heat, but a dangerous wall of steam has been building up for which both parties are arguably responsible."
  • Past areas of tension had not been adequately dealt with and flushed.
• "The accuser is moving swiftly and directly to the core of an issue that should have been covered long ago. The escalated argument is signaling some unfinished business."
  • (Even if the timing is inconvenient and inappropriate).

The eve-of-journey argument

• Why does one spouse fight with the other on the eve of a departure?
  • "What's happening is that our yearning for love is meeting with a dark, intimate dread: that we are deeply dependent on a lover who we don't control, whose affection is out of our command and who is about to be taken away from us for a long time."

The absentee argument

• To soothe ourselves from the other disappointments in life, "we reroute all the humiliation and rage that one else had time for onto the shoulders of the one person who cares most about our well-being."
• (Despite what the author says, this sounds to me like a really crummy argument type, with no real redeeming quality behind it).

The argument of normality

• This is resorting to "majority opinion."
• "When it comes to personal life, we have no sound idea of what is normal, because we have no easy access to the intimate truths of others."
• "We should cease cynically lauding the idea of the normal when it suits us by acknowledging that almost everything that is beautiful and worth appreciating in our relationship is deeply un-normal."
• "We should stop badgering our partners with phony democratic arguments and admit to something far truer and possibly more effective in its honest vulnerability: that we would love for something to happen because, and only because, it would make us very happy if it did -- and very upset if it didn't."

The argument from excessive logic

• "The deployment of an overly logical stance may come across not as an act of kindness, but as a species of disguised impatience."
  • Analyzing the partner's reaction rather than empathizing with them.
• "It could be that the application of excessive logic isn't an accident or form of stupidity. It might be an act of revenge. Perhaps the partner is giving brief logical answers to our worries because their efforts to be sympathetic towards us in the past have gone nowhere."

The attention seeking argument

• "We may find ourselves carrying out one of the strangest maneuvers witnessed in relationships: We may seek to get their attention accompanied by their anger, as an alternative to securing their attention accompanied by their love."
• "We wait until they are tired and fed up and launch a volley of accusations."

The argument in paradise

• "Because everything outward is particularly nice, the unhappy parts of our minds become more conspicuous."
  • The author argues that this is why arguments can even break out in idyllic locations, when we're on a trip to enjoy each other's company.
• "By contrast, it is sometimes our exposure to grim realities -- to bleak stories of war, to tragedies and misfortune or to places where nature is hostile (a barren desert; a cold, craggy, storm-swept island) -- that make our inner distress feel less important or pressing. We're more inclined to overlook our partner's annoying details in situations where having anyone at all feels like a privilege."

The crush argument

• Comparing a crush to a spouse: "who seems to us not merely interesting, but more powerfully, the solution to our lives."
• Spouses "are generally no worse than any charming stranger, but as they are familiar, their every failing has had a chance to be minutely charted."
• "We need to mine the secret reality of other people and so learn that, beneath their charms, they will almost invariably be essentially 'normal' in nature -- that is, no worse yet no better than the candidates that we already have in our lives."
• "We should accept, with good grace and a touch of dark humor, that life simply gives us few opportunities to be totally content."
  • (This school always concludes this way about relationships and happiness. It's depressing, almost defeatist. Maybe the truth is that there are ample opportunities, but we make ourselves discontented because of selfishness and sin.)

Towards less bitter arguments

• "The enemy of mature arguments is self-righteousness: the sense that we might be beyond fault and that our partner must be... wicked."
• "People concede points not when they're aggressively told they're wrong but when they feel loved. We get stubborn and withhold the truth when we're scared and suspect that the person challenging us hates us, means us harm."
• "The specifics of why we're in an irritating dispute may be local, but that we are in one is a universal destiny. We should laugh darkly at the human tragedy."