An argument is an injury.
An argument is an injury.
As much as a sore muscle, an argument is a training for strength.
An argument can also destroy you–or you can betray your intellect by clinging to a sinking one.
Attachment is bad with arguments.
You are not an argument, and if you find the notion that you are one persuasive, perhaps the inevitable fate that awaits you is well earned.
Perhaps that is what is meant by karma.
Sometimes it is best for all concerned that an argument is abandoned–which is better than one being abused. Many would–and have, and are, and no doubt will–contend this in the case of Christianity. So warped and distorted by the mad priests and broadcasters is Jesus’ simple and humble message that it might be better scrapped and recycled into something po-mo, or maybe New Age. Put back out to pasture and allowed to stew in the rich broth of history, maybe it stands a better chance, upon rediscovery, of being taught as radical social policy and not made to wear the martial colors of political aggression. My money isn’t on it.
History is littered with cast-off theories, with crackpotism later proved true, with notions tossed out with the bathwater of broken cultures and old-boss regimes. An anthropologist might discover one just as the last believer dies and realize it is the answer to our prayers, or it is the last unheeded warning for our own doomed state. What we failed to learn from the Maya can hurt us now, and they press their case in bare stone and shattered pots.
But that’s the point: an argument has got to have an audience, and we have largely quit that job. We don’t want an argument; we want assurance that we’re ok–that or a fight. What a better blood-sport than politics? What a better buzz than patriotism? What a better forum than TV?
Like all team loyalties, though, we’ll ride these into the ground. We’ll indoctrinate our children. We’ll honestly start to think that our team is the best team for no other reason than it’s ours.
It may make for heartwarming convention coverage and a hell of a balloon drop, but it’s hardly an argument.