Arguments

I feel like everyone in my life argues quite a bit. It seems that people will argue with anyone who will listen and is wiling to disagree with them on anything they say. Mainly, arguments that I hear going on focus around personal views, whether it's something serious like religion or race, or something trivial like whether football or baseball is a more quintessential American pass-time. The arguments that my peers have rarely accomplish anything because they don't actually want to debate and compare ideas, they just want to throw their "superior" ideas at other people and prove how right they are. These arguments help some people and hurt others. Overall, it helps to be surrounded by annoying arguments and foolish points of view because it helps develop maturity, much like caring for small children. However, sometimes it can hurt people because in informal arguments, not many people know how to respectfully disagree. I just returned from lunch, where my vegetarian friend got made fun of by an ignorant person because "meat is so delicious.. how can you just not ever eat any food that tastes good?", followed by that person holding their chicken nuggets in the vegetarians face and telling him to eat them. This same person argued that NASCAR is the best sport (an opinion) and was dumbfounded when people had the audacity to disagree. This particular person is not mentally mature enough to learn from arguments- he needs to learn how to compare ideas, like many others who argue incorrectly. This respect (or lack thereof) is the main factor in how formal environments like a classroom can nurture an argument. Professors in my experience are always happy to entertain a debate where both parties are genuinely interested in sharing view points and trying to better themselves, but professors rarely respond well (if at all) to students who disagree to simply prove that they know more than anyone else, instead of offering their knowledge to teach others while inviting others to do the same. Strangely, in my experience the less important the argument is (for example, coke vs pepsi), the more vicious the words are that are directed between the participants. Interestingly, some of the better arguers that I'm ever around don't ever bother getting into such trivial arguments, despite having their own personal views that disagree with others'.