Sunday, February 15, 2009

Arguing Philosophy to Win


I'm not a great arguer, but I have had plenty of experience doing it with my ex-wives, girlfriends, family, and students. I don't tend to argue with my friends because I think I choose to be friends with people who are either easy going or think along the same lines that I do, or both.

Anyways, here's some tips straight from the Slacker's Handbook to help you win your next argument:

**Repeatedly force others to "define their terms" to buy time to think.

**Employ threatening hand gestures.

**Make things up as you go along (keep a straight face).

**Casually throw out fabricated quotations from important research studies or books that they will be too ashamed to admit they haven't read.

**Try to work in these key words: phenomenological, Jungian, deconstruction, phallocentrism, marginalization, etc.

**Make periodic use of non-verbal sighs and sounds of exasperation.

And as a last ditch resort:

**Call into question their mental health.

**Insult their mothers.


No comments: