A slave rode in a Roman military commander’s chariot during his Triumph.

His duties?

To hold a laurel crown over the conqueror’s head.

And whisper in his ear:

‘Remember, you are mortal!’

Similarly, a triumphant arguer might serve the ego they are slave to by repeatedly telling themselves:

Remember, it was only an argument.

AM IS THE MEASURE

I am an argument.

But not the argument.

Not the physical manifestation of a particular argument.

You concede that the particular is not the universal.

The imminent the transcendent.

Except here.

In argument.

Then, you mistake the arguer for the idea they are advancing.

Regard them as its personification.

So, defending natural justice against law, say, you believe I become natural justice.

Its embodiment.

That if I lose/win, it wasn’t down to my memory.

Mood.

But the objective qualities of the idea I was defending.

As if –

In the throws of arguing case –

I lost character.

Carcass.

Became the idea entirely.

Concerns for fallibility are set aside.

I am considered to have delivered the full potential of the idea.

Its complete expression.

Every inflection.

I tired.

So, the idea is tired.

I failed.

And the idea fell.

For all time.

But an argument is not the idea it promotes.

Merely one attempt to assert it.

That it doesn’t work here –

Now –

Doesn’t mean it’ll never do so.

Any more than the wrestler who loses one match –

One period –

Ought to be judged incapable of winning.

Ever.

YOU AND THE BELIEF ARE NOT ONE

Who is responsible for this?

Socrates assumed that the inability of an individual to account for a belief undermined the belief.

Not the believer.

That believer and belief are one.

An argument the complete articulation of a belief.

Not one presentation of it merely.

That a believer has the ability to express what they believe precisely.

The will to do so too.

Consequently, failure to defend a belief negates it.

Doesn’t critique the believer’s skill/will on the day merely.

This is, itself, a mistaken belief.

Although there is a correlation –

Connection –

There is a difference between the self –

An unspoken argument for my way of being –

And a particular argument.

OUR BEST MENTAL CHINA, ME OLD CHINA

We rarely adopt a belief as a consequence of formal interrogation.

Or test the principles we live by.

Prefer to gad about in pret-a-porter moral vestments.

Pay politicians to maintain our social contracts.

Theologians to manage our metaphysical constructs.

The only time we investigate them is when engaged in social intercourse.

Otherwise, we obey a logic we feel no need to articulate:

Instinct.

Only when another undermines one aspect of its rationale do we attempt to justify it.

Intellectually.

We bring out our finest china when we have company.

Revert to our day-to-day crockery after they have gone.

We behave similarly as soon as an inquisitor leaves us alone.

Revert to our inner un-voice.

I, ARGUMENT

I am an argument.

A living argument.

Ever-evolving argument.

In favour of my way.

All that I am.

A consequence of –

And claim for –

Everything I have experienced.

Necessarily, then, a unique argument.

Testament to what I consider important.

Fundamentally.

Secretly.

Call it inner argument.

In-argument.

IN-ARGUMENT

An argument because it justifies the disparate experiences I accumulate.

Distinguishes them with motive.

Enabling them to coexist.

Me to function under their weight.

SELF IMPORTANT ARBITRAGE

It values no one else’s opinion above my own.

Understandably.

Necessarily.

Considers me the finest arbiter of experience.

Curator.

After all, my decision to yay/nay defines the bounds of reality.

Commands commitment of percepts to memory.

Therefore, I am superior to anything experienced.

Must be.

KANT–CHRIST ILLUSION

I cite Kant here.

Critique him there.

Take-up Christ’s cross today.

Cast him out tomorrow.

Who, then, is Kant, finally?

Christ, ultimately?

HOUSEROOM FOR HOUSE GOD

I share opinions with others.

But, look closer, and you’ll observe as many dissimilarities as similarities.

That eternal-universal values are interpreted in an immediate-particular fashion.

To conform to my in-argument.

In public, I pray to your god.

But, inside, kneel before my house god.

I support your politics.

In the privacy of the voting booth, however, I put a mark next to my own name.

I appreciate a work of art.

Entertainment.

But do so in my own way.

To rally the legion within.

Satisfy the standard-bearer inside.

ME ARGUMENT, YOU JANE

I am an argument.

The argument myself.

My argument.

The argument me.

This is an argument I win always.

Must win.

As long as I live.

All other arguments are subordinate to this one.

Why?

It’s responsible for redeeming everything I do.

Justifying my every action.

Inaction.

Malefaction.

I may sacrifice social standing.

But never yield an inch here.

If I have to lose a limb –

Feel obliged to donate an organ –

So be it.

But I may never surrender this piece of me and survive.

Indeed, the inability to zero everything else –

Against the sum inside –

Is the reason I choose not to live.

As long as I do –

Remain alive –

I wage this argument.

Win it.

DIALECTICAL BIOLOGY

My life is an argument.

One I win always.

In all ways.

And everybody else loses.

My process, then, is dialectical.

My progress.

I SING THE BARNEY ECLECTIC

Are these thoughts random?

Disparate?

Apparent haphazardness attains cohesiveness because all of them emanate from me.

Co-exist within me.

Coalesce under a single entity.

Every sentence achieves purpose in me.

Their host.

SOCIAL DIS-EASE

I am a valid argument.

A justified opinion of life.

From the vantage point of my experience.

Refutation of it is impossible.

Apparent in a social context only.

For the sake of society merely.

LAW NO BAR

Any attempt to evaluate an in-argument objectively –

Under the law, for instance –

Is a social fudge.

Justice developed out of a brute effort to enforce harmony.

Facilitate the coexistence of many innocuous in-arguments at the expense of a few noxious ones.

Were a true evaluation of an in-argument performed, however –

Were this possible –

Mapping the full path towards it –

All the way back to its impetus –

Without compressing a single step into a meaningless abstraction –

Every in-argument would be vindicated –

Proven –

By logical means.

KOBAYASHI MARU

No matter how unsatisfactory my person –

My persona –

I persist with it.

Assert the argument me.

Captain the enterprise myself.

Through thick and wrong.

Right and thin.

So, always find a way to justify it.

As natural.

Necessary.

Logical.

Because I believe it is?

For the same reason some maintain unsatisfactory social circumstances.

Job.

Relationship.

Because they have invested time and effort in them.

OUT-ARGUMENT

The two orders of conventional –

Intellectual –

Extra-personal –

Inter-personal argument.

Or out-argument:

First:

Articulation of an observation.

Suggestion for a new term to frame a percept.

Define a quantity.

Experience.

These tend to be long-lasting.

Because uncontentious.

Second:

Investment of percepts with motive.

Purpose.

Connectedness.

These prove ephemeral.

Because fantastical.

Forced.

EXECUTION OF SUMMARY

Our greatest intellectual achievements:

One:

Statement of the obvious.

Two:

Dream of passion.

PRESENTING THE TRANSCRIPTION FEATURE

Two methods of presenting out-argument:

In person:

Dialogue.

Debate.

Dispute.

In print:

Paper.

Essay.

Both –

Across a stage –

Above the lines –

Are against an opponent.

OBJECTIVE: PERSPECTIVE

An out-argument is an attempt to get another to see events from your point of view.

And works in so much as it succeeds in this.

Nothing is more important than anything inherently.

Everything must be argued for personally.

There is no right/wrong, then.

Merely a particular conception.

And others at odds with same.

An out-argument tries to limit conception such that your contention seems inevitable.

Look at things from this vantage point only, and you’ll conclude similarly.

It is true if you start here.

Not if you don’t.

And only the latter because presentation didn’t fit circumstance.

Was incomplete rather than invalid.

Thus, an out-argument is not an attempt to reveal, widen.

More to suppress, restrict.

The biologist, for example, who claims we are our genes –

True.

Tautologous, even.

If you limit your conception of inheritance to physiology.

Forget about memory.

History.

Similarly, I contend that everything in existence is dark matter.

You object.

I bid you close your eyes.

EMPHATIC EMPHASIS

Out-arguments are subjective instructions –

Insinuations of emphasis –

Verbal misdirections –

Masquerading as objective discoveries.

The arguer wants you to focus on this.

Not that.

Have you agree that their leading motive is the leading motive.

This explains how, say, different philosophies of being coexist.

Each developed out of concentrating on a particular aspect of the experience.

Then proceeded from it.

None are wrong.

Given the same starting point –

Impetus –

We would have arrived at the arguer’s conclusion.

There are no disagreements proper, then.

Only misunderstandings.

Attempts to understand one interpretation from the standpoint of another.

Apparent failings point up differences in premise.

Emphasis.

Interpretation.

RIGHT IS WRONG

We imagine we are processing an objective idea when we engage in out-argument.

In fact, we are competing over our understanding of it.

The idea remains untouched.

We have no means of measuring neutral validity.

Can only say that an argument is well presented or not.

And only so for us.

Now.

Incorrectness is apparent only.

Relative to the comprehension of the audience.

Any proposition may be defended if comprehensively defined.

Incorporates the arguer’s every impulse.

Maps the route to their conclusion.

Inside and out.

RANDOM ACTS OF FACT

Our knowledge of the world is limited.

Inexact.

Arbitrary.

Even if it is considered expert.

Why?

Out of everything in existence these few items –

That I happen to have noticed –

Are critical.

An out-argument is a compote of such knowledge.

Vulnerable because it is based on an arbitrary selection.

LANGUAGE YOUR MIND

The means of conveying an out-argument –

Language –

Imposes abstraction.

Reduction.

To say anything is to compromise.

Exclude too much.

To stop to form an out-argument –

Think –

Risks something essential passing you by.

IMMORTAL ARISTOTLE WAS MORTAL

An out-argument may convince.

Though subsequent analysis reveal it to be specious.

Inconsistent.

Illogical.

How is this possible?

Even philosophy is a sucker for beauty.

Out-arguments are welcomed that look bonny.

But may prove ugly.

Aristotle was important to the history of ideas.

But was mistaken about the earth’s position in the known universe.

Aristarchus wasn’t as seemly intellectually.

Had he been, his heliocentric out-argument might have been accepted millennia earlier.

HERE, OUT-ARGUMENT BECOMES IN-ARGUMENT

The object of an out-argument is to put an opponent in the frame of mind to see matters as you do.

Your in-argument.

An out-argument isn’t personal in the sense Socrates insinuated.

But it is motivated by the arguer’s in-argument.

Only in that sense personal.

IT’S PERSONAL

Out-arguments stand in opposition to someone.

Everyone.

Engage with an assailant.

Their personality.

Not their purport.

Finally, then, an out-argument delineates self.

They appear to be impersonal.

But are as personal as platonic dialogues.

Always arguing a face-to-face case.

Immediate circumstance.

However objective the subject.

Consequently, no matter how convoluted the game –

Whether my opponent is human or machine –

I’m always playing against myself.

They do this.

I must do that.

To defend my in-argument.

They respond in this fashion.

My next move must be that.

To satisfy my instinct.

I react to a fresh challenge after every move.

A new game.

Interaction doesn’t enter into it.

The obstacle created by my opponent’s move is always impersonal.

However earnest the effort, I evaluate the form of the presentation merely –

Demeanour of the presenter –

Not the desirability or validity of their argument.

Never separate premise from exposition.

Message from medium.

CANVAS IN CONCRETO

No matter the stadium –

Crowd –

It’s always my personality –

Very person –

On trial.

The distinction seems to be between professional wrestling bout and street brawl.

But one of us will finish on our back.

It’s a matter of pride only, then –

Pretension –

Whether we succumb to canvas or concrete.

IDEA IS ID

We believe that an idea is on trial in an out-argument.

But it is those involved only.

Their verbal dexterity.

Motives.

Wills.

These contentions describe the interaction.

Not the virtues of the subject idea.

The insistence that it’s a duel of ideas is another sop to the ego.

DESIROUS MOTIVE

Out-arguments are fictions intended to vindicate desire.

They bear as much relationship to true motive –

Always secret –

As a political manifesto does to the daily operation of government.

They are aspirational.

Hopes.

How we wish we –

Humanity –

Behaved.

EGGOS FOR THE EGO

A written out-argument appears to be an intellectual event.

Solely.

But the arguer is in competition still.

Attempting to assert something personal.

What?

Their ego.

So, their out-argument is means to an end.

The defining of a universal standard?

No.

Overcoming others.

The haters inside.

ME AND SYMPATHY

Out-arguments are forms of special pleading.

Whether the arguer is conscious of it or not.

Why?

The argument favours something with which the arguer is in sympathy.

Were before they verbalised it.

Recognised it.

Something that defends their own circumstance.

Even if it appears to undermine it.

Or denounce them.

Even if it sentences them to death.

AVENGERS DISSEMBLE!

Out-arguments are compelling dissemblings.

Not least for the benefit of their author.

First, they must convince them that what they want is what they need.

What we need.

And virtuous, too.

IN-ARGUMENT, OUT-ARGUMENT, SHAKE IT ALL ABOUT ARGUMENT

How do out-arguments stand in relation to instinct?

We respond to existence instinctively.

Fluidly.

Attempt to articulate same when required to do so only.

To meet immediate social need.

Consequently, out-argument is –

Ultimately –

In-argument.

Challenged, we invent a culturally acceptable motive.

A logic.

Refract ego through the prism of syllogism.

The idea in question is a mere MacGuffin.

A dramatic device for advancing our plot.

One that satisfies the intellect.

Proves ourselves special.

Other than animal.

Our burden is that we must live with this petrified argument.

Carry the weighty monument about with us ever after.

INSTINCT GROWN INSTANT OLD

I tap my instinct in the course of an out-argument.

But do not discover its opinions.

I form them.

All I’m certain of at the outset is that I’m right.

Must be.

No matter the competition.

Interaction affords an opportunity to assert this socially.

Demonstrate my superiority.

In pursuit of this, I dredge up facts.

Percepts.

Force connections between them.

For the first time.

In response to a psychological need.

Not a logical one.

I defend myself against an attack on my person.

Not the subject idea.

That I maintain the fiction concocted on the fly afterwards doesn’t affirm its validity.

Suggest it’s a genuine opinion even.

Rather, it reveals the nature of my personal mythology.

Heroisation of self.

That a proclamation later seems sound –

Worthy –

Useful –

Is coincidental.

Incidental to its original mission.

It was advanced to meet a social need.

Defend me from a mauling.

An opposing ego’s attack dog.

TRAGIC TECHNIC

A wrestler must acquire technique to enter the game.

Satisfy its society.

Though it’s their will that prevails.

Character.

Desperation.

Syllogism offers a technic by which an out-arguer may convince.

It is not the cause of the conviction.

CONSPIRACY OF THEORY

A conspiracy theory posits a peculiar configuration of unrelated events.

Invests them with an importance they aren’t believed to possess singly.

The particular interpretation vindicates the theorist.

Imbues them with a sense of worth.

Ennobles them as seers.

An out-argument offers an opportunity to join-the-dots on unconnected experiences we accumulate.

Vindicate the arbitrary acquisitions of our senses.

Insinuating relations between them.

Associations.

Conspiracies of purpose.

Of social-worth only.

Every out-argument is a form of conspiracy theory.

SOME PEOPLE SAY HE’S GOTTEN A LITTLE TOO BIG FOR HIS SPATS

Out-argument betrays itself as in-argument when it degenerates into a spat.

Facts are plucked out of the air.

At speed.

Desperately.

Nevertheless, they do the job.

Convince.

So, the idea must be valid?

This is the case with cool out-argument too.

Calculated reasoning.

The product of years.

Not hot seconds.

Why?

The arguer snatched up the material they believed would do the job.

Snatchedup?

They selected choice facts?

Deliberated over them for years?

Yes –

From thousands of library shelves across the world.

Millions of books.

Billions of sentences in them.

Abstractions of trillions of events in timespace.

If the selection convinces others in the debating chamber –

Actual/virtual –

The arguer congratulates themselves on having selected the right items precisely.

Miraculously.

What motivated this frantic collation?

WITHDRAWING TECHNIQUE

The application of technique is similarly suspect.

Random.

Arbitrary.

Wrestlers attempt to drag an opponent to a position on the mat they are comfortable with.

That gives them an opportunity to work a move they have confidence in.

Or block one they are susceptible to.

If they spot an opening, they work their signature move.

They practise for such eventualities –

But was that –

There –

Then –

Planned?

It couldn’t have been.

They had no idea that their opponent would do/not do that just then.

Here we resort to reductio ad absurdum.

There to begging the question.

Your offence turns ad hominem.

My defence becomes mechanical.

And vice versa.

The object is to achieve the upper hand.

No matter the means.

So, the arguer flits from technique to technique as need dictates.

As long as they win, who cares whether they stay in lane?

After all, the object of out-argument isn’t to prove a truth.

It’s to assuage the arguer’s in-argument.

Ego.

The arguer suspects this may be achieved by conforming to convention.

They do so.

They believe strict adherence to it looks set to undo them.

They frustrate it.

Whatever does the job.

What governs choice of technique?

Instinct.

On another day, another way will seem suitable.

There’s no objective means of deciding which is appropriate before the fact.

As in law, the correct form of argument is one that sways the jury.

The only proof the verdict.

OBJECTIVITY NO OBJECT

Out-arguments insinuate a hypothesis the arguer wants to be the case.

That is why truths –

Even logically proven ones –

Fail.

We want this to be true.

Search for evidence to make it seem so.

Only then call on logic.

In an attempt to normalise disparate elements.

Convey consistency.

Cohesion.

So, there’s an object in the equation.

Not, however, an objective one.

And it hasn’t even had the good manners to sport a symbol.

If an out-argument were an objective construct –

Based on evidence only –

There would be no need to argue it.

All the arguer would need do is lay out the artefacts they believe inspired it –

In any order –

And await return of the inevitable conclusion.

No argument is presented in this fashion.

Because no argument is a product of objective inquiry.

THE EVIDENCE AGAINST EVIDENCE

The importance of evidence is overstated.

Why?

Firstly, one never acquires enough of it to prove a case.

Understandable.

This would require labelling everything in existence.

Pragmatists, we collect only as many samples as seem necessary to inculcate belief.

Secondly, we begin with a point of view –

Then search for evidence to demonstrate it.

So, a barrister presents forensics, yes.

But precedes it with an opening statement.

Tips the jury on what to look out for.

Follows it with a closing argument.

Suggests what they ought to infer.

WITNESS PAMPERING

Out-arguments I witness as a third party out no victor but myself.

I replace the imperfect articulations of the arguers with perfect versions contained within.

Not arguments proper.

The motives for same, rather.

So, win the argument by proxy.

This explains how opposing factions following a debate each believe that their side carried the day.

Their in-arguments trumped the out-argument of their opponent.

And their representative’s out-argument also.

THIRD PARTY ANIMAL

An opponent is never competing against me.

I’m never competing against them.

Each of us is reacting to the creature our joint actions conjure.

Actions necessary –

Inescapable –

Inevitable –

Given our in-arguments.

Thus, an out-argument rears an animal distinct from those involved.

Bigger.

Each arguer begins with a particular idea.

In the throes of confrontation, however, they are compelled to yield ground.

Till their starting position is forgotten.

Retiring should be the only option.

This doesn’t happen.

Disproving both out-arguments.

Proving that a third animal has taken over.

Won.

That is why out-arguments often deteriorate into confusing spectacles.

As ugly as Judo matches.

The combatants may be gifted individually.

Move elegantly when solitary.

But because their skills are honed in isolation –

Against imaginary opponents –

Who never counter repeatedly –

Interject annoyingly –

Block frustratingly –

Practise proves imperfect –

When two come together.

Not at all platonic.

Degenerates into a comical series of half-throws.

Clear misses.

Sad guesses.

OCCASIONED BY OCCASION

Differences of opinion may be occasioned by our social need to say something –

Anything –

Followed by an obligation to defend same when challenged.

After a neighbour expresses a contrary opinion –

Over the merits of, say, a work of art –

My faint interest in it bloats into a passion.

The comment I had hoped to dismiss the subject with –

Dismiss you with –

Is challenged.

My throwaway line crystallises.

Slows to a plaster-caste of my ego.

Consequently, I must defend it at the cost of my social standing.

A sudden politician, I believe I’ll win by conceding nothing.

Maintaining my position no matter what.

Formerly indifferent to the artwork, I now adore/revile it.

And risk losing everything because I fear conceding a thing.

INSTINCT SHOUTS LOUDEST IN EXTREMIS

Opinion is experience applied to the interpretation of a phenomenon.

An out-argument attempts to trace the steps towards an opinion.

In an effort to convince others of its validity.

Show working.

This doesn’t prove the opinion valid.

Merely demonstrates the arguer’s conscientiousness.

Not even that.

Out-argument appears to afford means to discover an opponent’s opinions.

But is mostly concerned with my own.

Formerly, I had no cause to inquire into my instinctive reaction to the idea.

Even at a preverbal level.

The anxiety of agon liberates my instinct.

So, I learn most about self when yaying/naying your instinctive reactions.

Confronting an alternative viewpoint –

Equally personal –

As much out of marrow as mind –

I set myself against it immediately.

Personally.

Because it’s distinct.

Different.

Hence, a challenge to my own.

Then I attempt to intellectualise this reaction.

Logicise it.

Though it was an animal response.

Unconsidered before now.

Nevertheless, I must convince my opponent –

Myself –

That an impressive architectonic supports it.

Yes –

Your out-argument is a syllogistic shack.

Mine a Parthenon.

PREVERBAL NOT PRENATAL

An out-argument is drawn by the in-argument that inspired it.

The words are secondary to the impulse.

All subordinate to instinct.

How likely is it that Socrates –

Even Socrates –

Reasoned his way towards his conception of, say, pleasure –

In its entirety –

Before the Philebus?

Plato’s fiction arose after he had experienced an inner twinge favouring it.

Preverbal.

Non-verbal.

Socrates’ circumlocutions were attempts to defend his instinctive response.

Not the response itself.

INTELLECT CONDUCTS INSTINCT

Having acquired self-consciousness –

A never-ending need to review our story –

We feel obliged to justify our acquisition of recondite knowledge.

This is why the learned engage in out-argument often.

Formally.

Proudly.

Why debate is their principal form of communication.

The mental affects they acquire over the course of a day are more abstruse than ours.

Disparate.

Diffuse.

Less essential to their careers as animals.

Thus, require greater justification of the effort invested in their accumulation.

Animal competitiveness inspires the acquisition of more knowledge.

A heroisation of mental acquisitiveness known as intellectualism.

A self-reinforcing tendency.

Mania.

Not innately worthwhile.

Only possessing relative value.

Social currency.

Adumbration of the intellect not being the object of sensory acquisition.

Merely a carrot-stick goad that inspires further accumulation.

Necessitating the belief that knowledge itself is worthwhile.

Ironically, then, intellectualism is in-argument at its most self-conscious.

Savage.

As close to instinct as we get.

Though a vulgar articulation of the superior faculty.

No wonder it invites the sneer some affect when confronted with the theory of evolution:

All very fine for animals –

Plants –

But not relevant to us.

WINNING IS ABOUT IMPETUS NOT NOUS

We imagine an out-argument to be an objective inquiry into truth.

Find ourselves believing the words spewing out of us.

As if our lives depended on it.

Had depended on it to this point.

Why?

No sooner have we engaged in it than we realise that out-argument is mere means to end.

Namely, proving ourselves.

Not the truth being pursued.

No one argues to clarify.

They argue to win.

Thus, even a congenial discussion is a trial of wills.

A method of resolution as primal as wrestling.

Brawling.

FIFTEEN DIFFERENT WAYS OF LOOKING AT BEING GIVEN THE BIRD

I

Soldiers are encouraged to believe they are at war with an opposing ideal.

But they combat people merely.

Personalities.

Not immortal tolerances.

Much is such with out-argument.

Victory is over the arguer –

Not the quantity they purport to represent.

A victory, moreover, over them as they were then.

Not as they will be tomorrow.

Consequently, triumph is ephemeral.

Defeat an imperialist a thousand times and you won’t have defeated imperialism.

Merely one imperialist.

For now.

II

As with conventional combat, the object is to destroy.

Not to learn.

Or know.

Argument is a physical interaction masquerading as an intellectual one.

III

Out-arguments are a clash of personalities –

Immediate –

Temporary –

Not ideas –

Transcendent –

Eternal –

They challenge will.

Wit.

Stamina.

Not truth.

IV

In any interaction, there is always a dominant and a submissive will.

Apparent.

Must always be a winner.

To satisfy society.

But, if each of us possesses faultless internal logic –

Instinct –

Are equally desperate to preserve ego –

How can an out-argument out a winner?

Your out-argument prevails –

Appears to do so –

If winning means more to you –

Here –

Now –

Than me.

If I believe as much, I beat you.

And for the same reason:

I needed to assert myself thus.

Elsewhere, I may lose –

Concede –

Seem to –

For the same reason.

Because I have more to gain from doing so.

Believe I do.

Consequently, there are no profound out-arguments.

Only profoundly needy arguers.

Losing is a social affair merely.

As much about personality as logic.

Or facts.

One wins/loses on this account.

Within these terms only.

The in-argument propaganda machine keeps filing copy.

Convinced of its client’s supremacy.

Faultlessness.

Blamelessness.

V

Any argument may be defended.

Given opportunity.

Unsettling ironies/paradoxes/contradictions mentally excised.

That an arguer doesn’t do so is incidental.

Not indicative of lesser talent.

Only lesser intent.

Social need.

VI

Even when I concede defeat, I win.

After all, I chose to concede.

Recognise your out-argument as superior.

Certified it.

VII

No arguer ever routs an opponent entirely.

The bloodiest battlefield is trampled by the vanquished along with the victor.

Searching for discarded arms to deploy in the next phase of war.

VIII

A publisher searches for technical faults to trigger the pro forma rejection.

Their highest hope is for a howler in the introductory letter.

A faux-pas so egregious that it gives them leave not to leaf the title page.

Similarly, no idea is repudiated entirely.

Because it’s never evaluated thoroughly.

All that is assessed is the arguer’s ability to convince us of it.

On that day.

Such that we rarely find time to discuss the idea as idea.

Its inherent worth.

IX

Out-arguments are all about egos.

Not ideas.

The words are means to asserting self.

When they fail, faith in their cause doesn’t fall.

Can’t.

The apparent loser resorts to alternative means of self-affirmation.

Emotional.

Physical.

So, leaves the arena undefeated.

Undaunted.

The victory was apparent only.

External.

Social.

Not actual.

One remains convinced of one’s pre-eminence.

Though one didn’t find means to assert it socially.

X

In a court of law, a case pivots about the slyness of the advocates.

Not the sureness of the conviction.

Guilt of the suspect.

An out-argument is as strong as its representation only.

XI

One derives pleasure from securing a victory in a tug of warring opinions.

Though common-sense asserts that no idea is superior to any other.

That victory is apparent.

Of and for society.

Not the idea fought over.

XII

It is a measure of the human spirit that we seem incapable of maintaining our own sense of worth without undermining another’s.

Without prosecuting all-out war on the ways and meanness of others.

XIII

In order to pacify my ego, it is necessary to pulverize yours.

To validate my in-argument I must –

Via out-argument –

Rubbish yours.

Our own sense of inherent validity is relational, then.

Relative to the size of the audience, too.

XIV

Out-arguments turn testy after one party has tired of the process –

Tired period –

But fears that admitting as much would be tantamount to a concession of defeat.

So, instead, they go all out to end the bout quickly.

Via throw down.

Disqualification.

Whatever brings about its cessation.

XV

The ability to best an opponent in out-argument is confused with the will to do so.

It’s always possible to spot a flaw in a verbal proposition.

Assert an advantage based on this.

Any form of supremacy we can insinuate.

Whether we do or not is dependent on our mood –

The perceived value of the intercourse –

Our regard for the aggressor –

Et cetera –

Not our skills.

Or the objective virtues of the idea.

BELIEF OFFERS RELIEF

An out-argument is concerned with face.

Not faith.

The object is to tear the opponent down.

Better still, wall them up behind a belief.

All of us believe in something irrational.

A hope masquerading as a philosophy.

Something deliciously ridiculous.

Bricked-up, an opponent may be socially suffocated.

NEED IS GOOD

Intellect is not sufficient.

No, nor education neither.

Though one reasons poorly, then –

Knows little –

Bigly belief in one’s innate rightness –

That trumps everything.

To win every argument one must be Socrates.

Believe in nothing.

Except one’s eternal rightness.

And care that others know of it.

OBJECTIVE TRUTHINESS

The object of an out-argument is not the revelation of truth but conviction.

Not right but rectitude.

It doesn’t matter what we know.

Whether we possess the best argument –

Only that we believe we do.

DESIRABILITY ABILITY

The object of an out-argument is to assert my desire.

But dress it up in syllogistic finery so that it seems like what you ought to desire.

What I should have desired, moreover.

Objectively.

With forethought.

It’s whim got-up as will.

Accident made design.

Passion duty.

ELSAS TRAUM OUR TRAUMA

Elsa believes that the knight she glimpsed in a dream will rescue her.

Because she needs him to.

Now.

Twice the herald calls for her champion to come forward.

He doesn’t.

Desperate, Elsa prays to God to send him to her.

And, lo, he appears.

A knight in shimmering armour.

In a boat drawn by a swan.

Our faith in out-argument –

The dreams of our intellect –

Are equally desperate.

Tragic.

Like Elsa, an out-argument depends on us getting others –

Everyone –

To dream our little dream.

If we succeed, a nameless knight comes to our rescue.

(Our in-argument, of course.)

A warrior true.

Splendid.

Shining.

Pure.

Virtuous.

Floating towards us in a barque.

Pulled by a swan.

At the end of a golden chain.

Below our water level, it paddles furiously to ensure that our champion keeps up with us.

Under the social Plimsoll line, our in-argument swan-berg ballasts the nine-tenths of us above it.