Among many other sources, online disagreements can stem from commentors, readers, e-mailers, instant messenger buddies, and also from other bloggers in the form of direct disagreeing posts. Many disagreements come from the passion that a person may feel towards a certain topic. Usually, many people stand their ground in disagreements or avoid them altogether. Different steps to dealing with disagreements and arguments can either result in appreciation for all parties involved or can result in the involved parties ending all and any connecting relationship and communication.
Today I would like to tell you of another option: giving up in an argument that you may be winning, for the sole purpose of maintaining the relationship and a good level of respect with the person disagreeing with you. This option can help you maintain a lot of online and offline relationships that would otherwise simply dissolve away. For the rest of this article, I am assuming you never knew the meaning of the word “ego“, and that you do not exhibit it either.
Why should you give up winning arguments, specially if you are right?
One of the biggest reasons to simply give up an argument that you know you are winning would be to save any relationship you may have with the other person. Many arguments are worth fighting for if you believe in them, and many arguments are worth losing or ignoring if the benefit you get from winning them are not as important as the relationships you may be affecting along the way. What is the use of upsetting a reader or a commentor if you keep arguing about something very simple and something you do not consider important?
Around 20% of the American population in 2005 believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Would you go about ending your relationships simply because someone you know or knew believes or believes that, considering the fact that the majority of the world is taught in schools that believing such a thing is a sign of illiterate culture? If the now-current theory was your passion, theory that the Sun does not revolve around the Earth, you probably would have disagreements with those that believed otherwise. If such an idea was not important to you, you could simply agree or let the other person know that they are or that they may be right. In that latter case, having a huge disagreement that could affect your relationship with them would not be a good thing, and thus you would avoid such a conflict completely by not disagreeing in the first place.
When to give up winning arguments?
When can you give up a winning argument? I do this by the considering importance of the relationship, the other person, and the disagreement in question.
Let us imagine an example in order to figure out why giving up the chances of winning some arguments are better than winning some arguments. Imagine if a close friend of mine strongly believed in some religion, and I did not. If I disagreed with my friend about her or his religion, my friend would either have a choice to ignore me or disagree with me. Let us assume that ignoring me in such a case only makes me disagree even more. In such a case, my friend may choose to actually disagree with my disagreement or with me, since she or he may feel offended that her or his beliefs were being disputed by me. In such a case, some people may think that winning an argument supporting their religion may be more important than maintaining their friendship with me. In that example, the person realizes that the importance of the disagreeing argument to them may be more important than their relationship or friendship with me.
Now imagine the same example from my perspective. If religion is not of much importance to me, I could simply give up my argument and agree to anything that my friend tells me, since for me the friendship and the relationship may be more important to me than the discussion about religion. In such a case, simply holding on to an argument, even if I knew I was completely right, would yield to nothing beneficial for me: if the other person agrees to my argument, what benefit would I get? On the other hand, if the other person cuts of all the ties with me due to this single argument, I would have made a mistake holding onto my side of the argument. For me, simply agreeing to my friend or caving in would be better than holding on, mainly because the topic in question would not be as important to me as the friendship that was being affected.
How to give up winning arguments?
There are several ways to maintain or even improve your relations with someone offline or online on your blog and give up a winning argument. Following are some random ways of doing such a thing:
- Giving up an argument by NOT ignoring the disagreement.
Many people simply say “Let us just drop this topic and move on.” In many cases such a sentence is a sign that you do not want a disagreeing conversation to adversely affect your relationship with someone. In many other cases, such a sentence is a sign that you are too stubborn to let go of your point, just like the person you are disagreeing with, and thus you simply want to hold on to your point and still have any kind of a relationship with the other person. In many cases, the latter scenario results in the relationship being affected in a huge manner.
- Tell the other person you do not care about the topic, and that you agree with them since they are so passionate about it.
Admitting to the other person that you will agree with them, even when you do not agree to the point itself, can sometimes result in the other person assuming that they have won an argument. That can result in a few things, including the other person realizing that you are considerate of all of their points, including their disagreements.
- Admitting that you may be wrong, and allowing the other person to explain more while you do not disagree with them afterwards.
Unless there is something that you witnessed yourself or did yourself, there can be a lot of different perceptions to a single fact. Sometimes the other person may be misinterpreting something and not realizing it. Admitting that you may be wrong and not doubting the other person while they explain themselves can be a very good thing to do when you want to get to the bottom of something while not affecting your relationship with that other person.
- Not disagreeing over unimportant things.
It can be very easy to tell someone that they are wrong. It can be very hard to simply listen to someone explain their viewpoint about something. Sometimes, right in the beginning of a disagreement, you can realize whether or not an argument is worth pursuing, and whether or not being perceived as someone who was wrong, even if you were right, matters to you. For you, pursuing a religious topic can be important, but disagreeing a topic related to cats or blogs may not be important, or vice versa.
Should you give up winning arguments? Sometimes you should, in order to appreciate
The answer is simple: it depends on you. Do you want to place a topic above a friendship or a relationship with an online reader or a commentor? Go ahead and argue all you want in such a case. If there is a situation where you feel that winning an argument will prove your point but may result in your relationship with someone being ruined or affected negatively, you can simply cave in and move on with that person. Figuring out the right priorities for you will help you realize which situations and topics may result in either more or less appreciation for your blog or fellow readers and comments, and also for yourself.
What do you think? Thanks for reading. 
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I think one of the big problems, especially on the internet, is that arguments tend to become ‘religious’ in nature very quickly, by which I mean they move from the facts, which can be argued, to emotional and personal, which cannot.
The Mac vs PC arguments are a great example as often both sides tend to ignore the facts completely. Neither is open to another opinion and no amount of facts are going to change that.
Once it gets to that point walking away is generally the best option if you care about the relationship.
Winning an argument, at least in my book, is not really about being right, it is about changing the opinion of the other person, or perhaps changing your own opinion. What matters is what is right, not what side you started on.
Taking your example of religion, it is all well and good getting an admission that all the facts point to the absense of God, but unless that person comes away thinking that perhaps they should re-evalutate their beliefs with an open mind, then have you really won?
Hi Andrew,
Thank you so much for the response. I also think that what you say is right: people online take a lot of arguments and points too personally, and tend to stick to any resulting emotions as online one can supposedly do a lot of things and not be pinpointed the way one can be pinpointed in the offline world.
The Apple vs Microsoft argument is indeed a great example, just like IE vs Mozilla. There is usually no point in arguing about such things, as the main purpose of such arguments is to simply feel better, feel that we are right, and to prove the other person wrong: I think that is a wrong combination of things we wish to achieve through such disagreements or disagreements.
Yes, you nailed it well! “What matters is what is right, not what side you started on.” A bigger and better person is that who does the things she/he believes are right, and not the person who does things in order to prove themselves right, regardless of the validity of their belief or the cause they are siding with.
Excellent point about the religion too: at bars and many gatherings, it is funny and sometimes sad to see people arguing about religion only to prove themselves right, usually because of being intoxicated and mainly because of wanting to feel better by being proven right and by proving someone else wrong in front of others. What good is any argument when the other person loses the argument, but does not change their mind at all, and instead becomes more dedicated to their differing opinion? Majority of the arguments and disagreements online and offline serve no purpose other than to blab on and to prove ourselves right and to prove someone else wrong: majority of the parties involved do not focus on the actual topic at hand, the topic that lives on outside of the argument also.
Thanks again so very much, I am glad you explained some things better than I did, yet again.