Well, I don’t think I do “rationalist arguing” especially.
But I do think I’m OK at approaching disagreements as cooperative efforts at communication, rather than as debates to be won. I try to adopt the attitude that winning a discussion is like winning a game of catch.
No particularly interesting story, just a gradual realization that debate wasn’t getting me anything I wanted, regardless of whether I won or lost, so it was time to try other things, and the place to start was figuring out what I did want. Which, after a while, turned out to primarily be that I wanted to be able to walk away from a disagreement understanding what the other person believed, why they believed it, and what precisely it was we disagreed about… and, secondarily, to feel confident that they understood what I believed, why I believed it, and what we disagreed about.
After a while I mostly gave up on that second goal, as it became increasingly clear that mostly people weren’t interested in that, but they were usually quite happy to tell me all about their own beliefs.
I’m still getting the hang of it, really; it’s not uncommon for me to get sufficiently caught up in a disagreement that I end up trying to win it.
Well, I don’t think I do “rationalist arguing” especially.
But I do think I’m OK at approaching disagreements as cooperative efforts at communication, rather than as debates to be won. I try to adopt the attitude that winning a discussion is like winning a game of catch.
No particularly interesting story, just a gradual realization that debate wasn’t getting me anything I wanted, regardless of whether I won or lost, so it was time to try other things, and the place to start was figuring out what I did want. Which, after a while, turned out to primarily be that I wanted to be able to walk away from a disagreement understanding what the other person believed, why they believed it, and what precisely it was we disagreed about… and, secondarily, to feel confident that they understood what I believed, why I believed it, and what we disagreed about.
After a while I mostly gave up on that second goal, as it became increasingly clear that mostly people weren’t interested in that, but they were usually quite happy to tell me all about their own beliefs.
I’m still getting the hang of it, really; it’s not uncommon for me to get sufficiently caught up in a disagreement that I end up trying to win it.