More and more I have come to be convinced of the fact that "arguments" are a spook

More and more I have come to be convinced of the fact that "arguments" are a spook.
What I mean by this is that in an argument, neither party is aiming for the 'truth' of the matter and attempting to reach it through investigative means. Instead, all arguments basically amount to sophistry. All of them. People behave irrationally in all cases, simply because their focus is solely on 'winning' the argument, and 'BTFOing' the other party, and 'convincing' people. 'Truth' is not the end to reach, it's merely a means to win the argument, because when you have truth on your side you can give a counter-argument every time. It's purely emotional sophist bullshit. But the thing that people are most spooked about is that they all think they are le ebin supreme logical being of pure rationality, and they are basically Plato. But Plato was wrong, and it is impossible to become a 'philosopher' (in the sense of a man who only values the truth).

I suggest that, rather than arguments, there are two different types of conversations we have:
They are basically violent fights on a psychological level. It gets even funnier when there's an audience, now it's also about pleasing the crowd by making le ebin witty comebacks.
This is what arguments actually are meant to represent, and ironically teaching exercises are the ones devoid of conflict - This is where the two parties actually exchange facts and information with an open mind. There is no pre-determined opinions (at least no fixed ones), which is why there's no 'convincing' done as such. People merely attempt to learn from each other by throwing facts around

Every time I start thinking about argumentation I end up with the conclusion that at a certain point you reach axiomatic beliefs of people that are contrary to each other. Thus, there can be no convincing done, it's virtually impossible.
I can't even see this post as an argument because even if I'm not wrong, why would people accept that truth? It's all pointless. Arguments are a fucking meme. They were invented to take physical conflicts to the psychological realm. At the end of the day, when argumentation doesn't work, you are tempted to simply club the other party over their head. You can see this particularly in political extremism where people of antithetical positions more or less admit that debate with the other party is pointless and you just have to shoot them. That's because they realize their sophist manipulations won't work.

When I see people argue politically or morally, I simply think of what the conclusions, even the most exaggerated and extreme ones, of their policies would be, and then assume they are aware of the consequences and accept them. But then, I cannot 'prove' that whatever consequence is objectively bad or any such thing. So we are left with two people disagreeing over a particular scenario that would happen. What CAN you do except physically overpower the other party to have your way?

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Agreed. Why argue at all? Why fight at all? I do so for my own benefit. There is no truth to be gained (ideaology cannot be objectivly 'true'), there is only what manner of social organization benefits me and my friends the most.

Well said user, you've put into words what I've long since held to be true. "Arguments" rarely result in anything, it's "discussions" one should seek to participate in. Though, I would add that arguments aren't wholly incapable of swaying ones opinion. What will happen in some cases is that in seeking to defend their own point, they accidentally stumble upon their own biases and will question their position more thoroughly afterwards. It's still not as good as a discussion where all involved parties are entering with a malleable mindset to begin with, but it's better than nothing. In this way, if you find yourself in an argument and want to convince someone of something, or even turn it into a discussion, you have to change your own mindset and stop beating them to death with your own opinions and facts, and instead try to get them to understand their own points first, and then point out how they are inconsistent of contradictory to their own worldview.

Oh God "Spooks" and "Not an argument" have evolved into a meme more cancerous than both combined

The brute force method would be to have your opponent explain his reasoning in more and more excruciating detail until you find something you can unambiguously refute and topple the whole structure. The socratic method.

warning: may take a huge amount of time for people who are fractally wrong. Or if you go into Holla Forums territory where facts are conspiracies, failings are false, flags, and dissenters are shills, pic related.

I get that. I see people getting brutally exploited by capitalism and then I see how savagely they defend it and then I get in this whole "who am I to tell people what they want?" moods. It's at that point where all empathy breaks down completely. It's as though I'm examining a foreign culture, or a group of animals.

Chomsky talked about this in an interview he was given. Basically how logic was the art of finding truth and rhetoric was the art of obscuring it. It's somewhere in here: youtube.com/watch?v=uBVb6wRdwV4

I would like to add though that trying to prove an objective moral right or is futile. In the end there is nothing behind it but the urge to bop the other person on the head like you said. You might as well kill each other and it would mean as much to the universe as your arguments. Try to have him explain what his values are and then explain to him how his beliefs don't actually get him what he values.

If your values are fundamentally incompatible and compromise isn't on the table, then yeah, violence is the quick way to resolve that. How do values get formed in the first place? Good question. You and the entire advertising industry would just love to know that. There doesn't seem to be a science for that just yet. Maybe Zizek or someone else who talks of ideology could fill that in.

lol that filename

'' Every one criticises, but the criterion is different. People run after the “right” criterion. The right criterion is the first presupposition. The critic starts from a proposition, a truth, a belief. This is not a creation of the critic, but of the dogmatist; nay, commonly it is actually taken up out of the culture of the time without further ceremony, like e.g. “liberty,” “humanity,” etc. The critic has not “discovered man,” but this truth has been established as “man” by the dogmatist, and the critic (who, besides, may be the same person with him) believes in this truth, this article of faith. In this faith, and possessed by this faith, he criticises.

The secret of criticism is some “truth” or other: this remains its energizing mystery.

But I distinguish between servile and own criticism. If I criticize under the presupposition of a supreme being, my criticism serves the being and is carried on for its sake: if e.g. I am possessed by the belief in a “free State,” then everything that has a bearing on it I criticize from the standpoint of whether it is suitable to this State, for I love this State; if I criticize as a pious man, then for me everything falls into the classes of divine and diabolical, and before my criticism nature consists of traces of God or traces of the devil (hence names like Godsgift, Godmount, the Devil’s Pulpit), men of believers and unbelievers; if I criticize while believing in man as the “true essence,” then for me everything falls primarily into the classes of man and the un-man, etc.

Criticism has to this day remained a work of love: for at all times we exercised it for the love of some being. All servile criticism is a product of love, a possessedness, and proceeds according to that New Testament precept, “Test everything and hold fast the good.”[104] “The good” is the touchstone, the criterion. The good, returning under a thousand names and forms, remained always the presupposition, remained the dogmatic fixed point for this criticism, remained the — fixed idea.

The critic, in setting to work, impartially presupposes the “truth,” and seeks for the truth in the belief that it is to be found. He wants to ascertain the true, and has in it that very “good.” ''
-MilkMan

Right, so if you criticize motivations, you yourself have to examine the motivation for criticizing that motivation.

Is there some way to avoid political discussions devolving into just talking about the psychology of your opposition? Once that happens the debate becomes unsalvageable. This seems to happen with a distressing frequency. Like, whenever at any time discussion touches on the subjective, discussion inevitably traces back to the originator of the subjective, the subject. This even happens when anyone tries to make any definite statements about how humans act either in particular or in aggregate. At some point it just turns into "cuck" "bootlicker" "degenerate" "manchild" and all hope is lost.

Expose the contradictions of their position? For example maybe calling out nationalists the need to have a state to enforce the idea of nationality while they claim that nationalism is an idea upon it self presented by the population by means of culture and langauge and customs.
Its alays kidna important to get to know the definitions of the people you are argueing with cause nobody follows the dictionary. And if you ask someone what X is and they link the fucking dictionary then you know instantly that they before that didnt know what the word ment.