Fisticuffs
The Power of a Good Argument
“The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.”
How many arguments do you remember? How many knock-down drag-out fights with your husband or wife, your lover, your best friend or sibling, your mom or dad, can you recall with clarity? Probably, more than you'd like. The depressing part of it all is that you don't remember them for the reasons you should, because the conflict brought you understanding, growth, perspective, and maturity. Instead, you recall them because they were traumatic, because the two of you fought your way into exhaustion and disappointment.
Humans waste most of their good arguments. And they really are good. We don't usually fight with someone we love unless it matters, unless they truly matter to us. As a gateway toward change and release, few things can so quickly and effectively access the truth, both the beautiful and ugly, as a good fight. But we spend them aimlessly. The ultimate goal of any argument should be to uncover truth, both about the thing we are debating and perhaps more importantly, about ourselves. Instead, we make winning our goal, winning at any cost, being right, or at least being less wrong. When it's exceedingly ugly, we use it as a tool to break someone else down.
This desire to win at any cost renders the potential upside of a good argument impotent. It's like masturbation in verbal form. It's fun for a few minutes; there is some release, but the experience is meaningless and easily forgotten. Arguing merely to be right or to silence someone else is also a self-involved motive. And this narcissism can damage the one we love. Instead of working together in conflict toward revelation and mutual understanding, we draw lines in the sand, assemble walls, and use our position to alienate, even humiliate the other. You may be the one left standing on top of the hill when the dust has settled. But you'll be there alone.
Arguments should be inwardly fueled but outwardly focused. That is, fed by the truth of our own perceptions and our valid need to share our thoughts and emotions with others. But the direction of the fight should be toward greater understanding and in creating a deeper connection with the one we're arguing with. Fighting should clear away emotional and psychological debris, the roadblocks that keep us from seeing each other clearly. Fighting should enable us to push long-repressed pain and desires to the surface where the light and oxygen of the relationship in action can begin to both honor and mend the broken places.
While most arguments pretend to be a direct engagement, they are often a melodramatic attempt to sidestep or circumvent our problems. We argue about one thing when inside, we really want or need to talk about something else. The core of our troubles is frequently the one thing we don't discuss. And if we do get around to it, we attach too many other angst-ridden disappointments and peripheral issues that the discussion becomes diluted and loses its ability to do proper work in us.
Many of our pains run deeper than we can grasp. Arguments have the ability to force some of these to the surface with great efficiency. When this begins to happen, it's important to slow down and breathe, not speed up and clench with anxiety. Our immediate response is to defend, to self-protect. This is normal, or common, but it isn't healthy. Intense self-protection is one of the biggest potholes we can fall into while arguing. An aggressive defensive strategy leads to a reactive instead of proactive mindset, a mind and heart ready to block and strike, when they should be opening.
You might be surprised by how effective vulnerability can be in an argument, that is, with someone who does indeed care for you. Instead of doubling down on your defenses and sharpening your remarks, do the opposite. Open your mind toward the other's perspective. Listen more attentively. Attempt to see the situation from their point-of-view instead of simply waiting or fighting for your turn to speak...or shout. Equally, don't forfeit your self-respect. Vulnerability in a healthy relationship is an act of humility and intimacy. But if it is abused by your partner, feel free to walk away until both of you are in a better frame of mind to argue more effectively.
It should be said, also, that certain individuals use a feigned calmness as a tool to control or manipulate others during arguments. A certain level of intensity is sometimes necessary. You both need to be able to access your anger and disappointment and express these in heightened but healthy ways during a conflict. It's a good thing to ask that the argument remain respectful and at a reasonable volume. It's not okay to demand that the other person refrains from any show of anger or increased emotion. Release is necessary and healing. But the release is not an excuse to lose sanity and reason, or to dump a mindless pile of vitriol on someone else.
We often fight dirty. I could say unfairly but that's an overused term and an inaccurate way to describe the exchange. I don't think fairness, per se, is exactly what we're talking about. Most things in life are rarely entirely fair. But we should fight cleanly. That is, during our heated exchange, especially when things reach their most intense level, the words and body language we use should articulate the truth of what we think and feel, and support the other in their desire to articulate the very same about their own interior world. It is not the time to start reaching for our loved one's weakest or most vulnerable points just to gain a leg up in the fight.
There are ways we can hurt each other, deep places only accessible by those closest to us, by those who know how and where to find them. This power is a gift, and it should be used to call up hidden truths and old wounds to the surface for the sake of learning and healing, not to inflict even greater wounds. But when our fights hit their breaking point, we lash out. We reach for the places that hold the most juice, the greatest amount of stored energy. By this act we can make injuries far worse than they already were. We think it will make us feel better about our own pain and shame. We also unconsciously hope that by making someone else look and feel worse, that we will be able to avoid having to reveal our own weaknesses.
We should have some say over the act of processing through our pain. Only those with our best interest in mind should be able to go to those deep places with us. As friends or loved ones, we are given, at least unspoken permission to call some of these up from time to time, but only when the calling is done for the benefit of the other and with the desire to increase understanding and closeness. When we pull these things up at the wrong time and in such a combative way, we lose the ability to navigate them with any sense of direction. They become little more than fuel for our unconscious sadism and tyranny and a filthy and counterproductive way at attempting to process our own brokenness by focusing on someone else's.
When you step back and look at the whole affair objectively, it all looks silly and abusive, both individuals yelling but not really communicating, not listening, two people talking in circles, talking around instead of about things, hurling insults at the very person we've committed to uplifting, pulling up their pain violently so we can draw a new blade over an open wound. It's a good idea during any argument to mentally step back and away for a moment. Look at it from a third-person point-of-view. Analyze the fight as if you were watching from the outside. Your choices and motivations become a great deal more clear when you do this. You'll be able to ask yourself why you're discussing certain points, why something makes you as furious or hurt as it does. You'll be able to see the misdirection in each of your arguments and focus in on the core of what's really fueling the exchange. And you'll be more likely to open your mind and listen to what the other is trying to say.
As I've explored before in another essay, conflict is a powerful tool for change. And arguments in relationships can be a gateway toward a level of personal and mutual revelation and healing often inaccessible by other means. It's not surprising that many couples say that some of the best and most intimate sex they have comes right after a big fight. Whether we want to believe it or not, we all need a bit of breaking from time to time. We need to crack open and allow some things to escape and others to finally operate in the light. It also allows us to welcome some good things in.
This breaking, though, while painful, should ultimately be for one another's benefit, the way a physician must sometimes rebreak a bone so that it can heal correctly. Instead of fighting to break something or someone even more, a good argument, just like the benevolent kind of breaking the doctor performs, should have the ultimate goal of wholeness in mind, of seeing yourself and the one you love reach a new level of strength, peace, and wisdom through the passageway of a well-navigated conflict.
Avoiding needed arguments or ramping them up unnaturally are both a waste of time and severely damaging to our relationships. When you must fight, do so deliberately and humbly. Keep in mind the end-goal throughout, and argue with a long-term mindset instead of a short-term win strategy. Love, in the end, when it is real, can often be uncomfortable. It opens places we didn't know were closed. It calls up things we didn't know even existed. This is a sacred thing we share with few people in this life, and we shouldn't waste that power on cheap victories.
Sometimes, we can use the gifts of truth and vulnerability in surprising and effective ways by filtering them through a good conflict, creating an arena where the heightened energy of the moment can realign the broken, stubborn, and wandering realms within us. Whether you argue for your own sense of power or do so to bring about goodness and revelation is entirely up to you. Just remember, you only get one go-round in this life. Don't throw away the most powerful and revealing moments between you and the ones you love. Argue well; fight with a purpose, and always with unconditional love and wisdom behind the wheel.