Argument from an aggressive stance...

Mill warns us against it, actually. He says that it's the last thing that one should do when you're trying to convince someone that they're wrong.

And he's right. Like my derivative analogy says: "You don't get an angry bull to see it your way by cracking it over the head with a wooden mallet."

But what about when it's not a bull you're dealing with? What if it's simply an impassioned person trying to do the right thing? In that case, certainly an agreesive stance is wrong as well. When I argue against someone, whether I realize it in the moment I argue with them, I often present my facts with such a tone to be degrading to their character. Even if the words in my argument are 100% accurate, making a person feel silly or stupid about their beliefs is not the way to encourage them to learn.

I am guilty of this. I am guilty of this aggressive stance more often than not. I'm terrible to get along with as a result, and unless my opponent has a strong sense of confidence and personal worth, what I'm really doing is tearing into them like a hawk into a mouse.

I've never been very aggressive in the world of sport, and it seems that my natural tendency to savagely compete has fallen wholly on the arena of argument. As an arguer, then, I am mostly a failure, since the point of argument is not to gut your opponent in front of your audience, but instead to make your opponent understand your stance and your logical arrival at that stance.

My hypocrisy, then, with the exception of the rare argument from a Socratic stance (one of asking questions to the point where your opponent traps themselves, something I hold in reserve for opponents I suspect are more knowledgeable than I am), falls upon my claim that the purpose of argument in to understand. Clearly my purpose, evidenced by the Pterodactyl Terror lyric "his wits are his claws," is to make sure my opponent knows that I'm smarter and louder than they are--that their points are meaningless and that mine are paramount to truth.

For this reason, I'm very good at giving people a distaste for my presence. The infinite critic--degrading people for their likes and dislikes as well as their religious, moral, and philosophical beliefs unless they fall in line with mine--I am adept at silencing my opponents without ever allowing them to explain their positions.

This is a disservice to all. When I raise my voice, when I use insulting language--we are no closer to understanding each other than then we first started speaking--my opponents thinking only of my brutal tone instead of the accuracy of my words, and me having learned nothing from my opponent--a result of quieting them before I have a chance to learn why they came to their conclusions.

Once the tone has shifted to aggression, the damage is done; it's unlikely that an opponent will be willing to open their opinions to me again for fear of being treated like a subordinate.

Something I need to work on; indeed, the thing I need the most work on. I also owe someone an apology, if you couldn't tell from my reconciliatory tone.