Argument

The other day I found myself on the emotional verge of engaging someone in an argument, but it was so clear that it would have been inappropriate or offensive to even do so that I actually had to get up and leave, so great was my rage and frustration. I was at a party, sitting with some colleagues/friends. In the group was a co-worker's husband. Someone mentioned a vacation in Glaciar Park, and the husband thought it would be a good idea to launch into a discussion of why global warming was a conspiracy by venal scientists who were just chasing grant money. After about ten minutes of this, my mind blew a BS fuse, and I experienced shut-down. To avoid shouting the equivalent of "OVER THE LINE!" I left rather abruptly because I didn't trust myself not to violate the social norms of Minnesota, which as we know, determine that if one replies to inane and insulting discourse with logic or facts, one is likely to be perceived as channeling Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski: as a rage monster who wants to win an argument at any cost, even to the point of pulling out a gun. It took me several hours to figure out why this particular incident pushed my buttons so hard; it's not as if I don't interact with ignorance on a regular basis. I guess it was a healthy thing that I removed myself from the scene rather than give in to the impulse to launch into an argument. Validity and soundness are better criteria for an argument than husbandhood (it was clear that this particular man thought that his dudeliness trumped all the PhDs earned by the women sitting at the table). Had we been in Spain, the opportunity to challenge, insult, joke, or engage in an argument would not have been ignored, and even if nobody's mind had been changed, everyone would have felt free to express disagreement without being considered a rage monster. I needed to go home, mediate, think about my own drive to have the last word, and the way that my family upbringing involved a particular culture of argument that is not necessarily always that healthy. There is a part that is mine, and there is a part of this experience that reminds me that I am a person of Mediterranean heritage living in a Northern European culture of conformity. As an antidote, I found it useful to review these useful lessons on argument, which also end with displays of force: