There used to be a time when if I encountered an article, youtube video, viewpoint or person I would, at the very least, create a counter-argument in my head. Sometimes if it was appropriate and I thought it proportionate I’d even voice that viewpoint and a debate of some kind would ensue.
Recently (and I’m not entirely sure when this happened) I appear to have reached a state where the area within which I feel I have to argue with someone has grown so small that I virtually never do it any more. Unless I’m at work whether sometimes you have to argue over something because it’s your job to, or with my close friends who I’m having a discussion with and so argument is part of the fun, I virtually never now engage in public argument. Now if I read something or watch something I don’t agree with I just say “eh, think what you want, I don’t care” and move on to something else. I barely even GO IN to great debates any more, let alone contribute to them or (heaven forbid) start a thread.
I’m not exactly lamenting this state of affairs, it certainly leads to lower levels of stress or annoyance in general, but I’m pretty sure this is what apathy is and aren’t we supposed to avoid that? Have I arrived at uncaring, apathetic middle age a couple of decades early? (I’m only 32 for god’s sake!)
Any other experiences of this would be welcomed, I won’t argue with you
I’m leaning towards Maturity - yeah, they’re wrong, but you know they’re wrong, and you know why, and you know that if you argue with them it probably won’t do anything except upset YOU, so you don’t bother.
I “like” argueing here on the SDMB. But its mostly to pass the time.
In real life I almost never do so. I USED to get rather bothered if I saw somebody in real life doing something that was going to possibly lead to a disaster of on sort or another.
These days I just don’t care much in real life. I could see somebody doing something really dangerous. I might be inclined to say “hey Bob, you are going to hurt yourself because of XYZ”. If Bob replies “hey, I know what I am doing, mind your own business!” I am just going to watch Bob kill himself.
Personally, I realized that a person can only piss into a strong headwind for so long…
Also, I don’t really like people who argue a lot. I’ve never disliked someone for *not *being an arguer. Sure, one thing is standing up to someone when they get in your face. *That *I’m all for. But beyond that? Minding one’s own business is just fine. That moron you spent an hour arguing with has another one waiting behind him anyway.
May I ask why you argued in the first place? Was it for pleasure, did you feel a need to correct other people, or was there some other purpose?
I make no judgement of you for any of these reasons why you would have argued before, but if you know what your motivation was then it might answer why you feel differently now.
It’s not Depression (capital D) as I’ve had that and I know what it feels like. I still want to live, still care about things, still have interests, I just can’t be arsed to argue with people any more as it doesn’t seem worth it.
Before I felt there was a point to engaging with opposing opinions and views, because that’s part of what being an adult is all about, right? I take a slightly different view now: if I encounter someone (either actively in person or on the web, or passively in that I’m watching something or reading something that takes a different view to me) that doesn’t agree with me then once I’ve established what it is they think and that it definitely isn’t reconcilable with what I think, I switch off, either literally or metaphorically. This isn’t because I only want to be exposed to views that only align with mine, I’m happy to continue putting myself in positions where different views and I will meet, I just don’t want to engage them.
Either:
We disagree on something I know for a fact is the case, like the world is not flat, the earth goes around the sun, 1+1=2 etc; or
We disagree on something I believe strongly to be the case due to experience and information I have personal access to, like my position on social policy or economics; or
We disagree on something I think or believe but can’t prove one way or the other, like the existence of god or an afterlife.
If it’s 1 then you might as well argue with a brick wall. If it’s 2 then I’m of the view that I’m probably right, listen to what they have to say but ultimately it’s unlikely there’s a definitively right or wrong answer and if they’re coming at it from a very different position the best we can do is probably agree to disagree. If it’s 3 then beyond “that’s what you think? Interesting…” there isn’t anything to be gained, it’s something you can’t prove and it’s probably divorced enough from the real world that it’s theoretical anyway, so there’s not a lot of point getting het up about it (if it were more real it would be in 2).
Before my scope of points I’d be willing to argue with people would be wider, it’s now narrower and I’m only willing to do it with people who I’m clear are capable of arguing rationally and don’t hold views that are so diametrically opposed to mine that there can be a productive discussion (sadly this rules out a big enough number of dopers that I can’t be bothered to hang out in GD any more). Ultimately I’m happy to have my views challenged and changed through new information or a good argument, and I need to be clear the other person is too. I guess that’s why my youtube channel has kind of died because that requires you to essentially state “I think this and am right” and there just aren’t enough topics out there that I feel I can do that on definitively to be interesting.
In meditation once, I came to the realization that what is sometimes called “wisdom” or “maturity” is simply “been there, done that, know what comes next.” It’s a function merely of age.
I think of life as a series of scripts. Sometimes I get a new episode, but most of life is comprised of the same two dozen scripts that keep getting repeated. I get “wiser” not because I’m any smarter than I used to be, but simply because I know the script. It’s come up before. I know how it’s going to end, and I often just cut to the chase (as it were) because predictability is boring. To young people, this makes it look like I have some powers of great perception and prediction. Nope. This is just a rerun.
Maybe you need to find some new scripts. Find something new that’s worth arguing about because you’ve never argued about it before. 17th Century architecture or the merits of sea salt or something.
I used to feel apathetic, not caring if my argument had validity to others, but now I actually listen to see if I might need to qualify, or what’s the term - riposte-? So now, I guess I have become… "unapathetic? :).
Just for shits and giggles, a classic Monty Python skit centers itself around a married couple whose entire life centered around them being argumentative and disagreeable.
“How can you constantly accuse me of being disagreeable”, she queried. “Give me one
example!!!”
“Well”, he said. “You’re always contradicting me.”
“I do not contr—!” , she returned, stopped, and insert laughter here:________
That is, of course, not the exact quoted sketch, but just a very cute way of illustrating a point IMO.
Thanks for the answer. For lack of any better term I would call it maturity or enlightenment. It is wisdom that brings us to understand we can only argue so much, and to see the larger picture in our actions.
And to me it isn’t about ‘giving up’ or anything like that, its knowing that sometimes not arguing can be more persuasive than arguing. That simply being is a form of progression.
I’m 32 as well and while I’ve never been much of an arguer, I have started to be extremely apathetic towards the actions and habits of others.
I’ve noticed that friends and family members (and Dopers) tend to spend a lot of time going on and on about how someone they know did something stupid, or how a stranger was annoying, or how this situation was unjust for someone else. And I just. Don’t. Care.
I have this huge feeling of “this has absolutely nothing to do with me whatsoever.”
Even if my friends have problems in their lives I can feel EMPATHY for them but it doesn’t in turn make me sad as well. You might notice others taking on other peoples’ burdens to add to their list of their own burdens “Oh my knee hurts and my kid is teething and my best friend lost her job I am so sad!” but I can’t get down with that. Other people’s problems are their problems.
Hopefully it’s maturity and not depression…although I did start to ramp up the apathy when I took Chantix to quit smoking and never seemed to come down from it.
But I don’t care. I like it.
The one problem with it is that all my friends start to seem annoying because I realize how much they go on about other people. Ha.
I’ve always been a non-arguer. I always think of the old saying “never try to teach a pig to sing because it wastes your time and annoys the pig.” If someone’s stubbornly set on their position nothing I say is going to dissuade them, even if they’re 100% wrong (i.e. a former co-worker who just KNEW that Ronald Reagan was first elected president in 1976).
There are times when I do have to go the full 10 rounds with someone at work (as my job involves collecting large amounts of money from people who don’t like to pay it) because if there’s a shortage or an error I’m personally liable for it. It’s exhausting and irritating and I don’t like being exhausted and irritated over stuff that doesn’t matter all that much.
I’m definitely starting to feel better about this position now, not that was upset about it per se, just wondering if it was a good place to be in.
Another couple of data points that are probably worth mentioning: I take mood stabilisers due to being bipolar, so they stop me getting too worked up about something (or miserable either) and I think having the extremities of my emotions removed probably keeps me in a place where arguing doesn’t seem worth it. Again, this isn’t Depression, I can still function, I just don’t want to argue. Second, I’ve gone down the therapy journey and come out the other side and so kind of don’t feel the need to engage with a lot of the stuff I would have done when I was younger. For example…
This sums me up perfectly. I have friends who seem determined to make their own lives difficult if they can and I just don’t understand it. It’s their problem, if they want my help they can of course have it, but it’s nowt to do with me. I’d say it’s something that annoys me, but actually it doesn’t, if someone old enough to know better is determined to make life hard for themselves and isn’t actively asking for help to stop, there’s not a lot of point trying to.
Okay, well I guess I’m concluding that this is a sign of growing up and being mature and, possibly, zen like. Funnily enough a few people recently have used the term “zen like calm” on me, which is amusing because I know it’s just regular uninterested disengagement
Thanks for the input people, it’s been really helpful.
I used to believe there was a point in arguing. That maybe I’d get someone to think a little instead of spouting their irrational beliefs. No longer. I argue for fun on occasion, but not because I think it would make any difference. The worst part are the growing number of educated imbeciles in the world who believe they understand something because they read it in a book.
