Resisting the temptation of arguing with fools is a necessary condition for spiritual and mental peace. It is easier said than done though. The root of the difficulty, ironically, is a very desirable attribute: namely, allegiance to sense and reason. When somebody says something exceedingly stupid, one cannot help feeling obliged to set the record straight. This is usually accompanied by a feeling that one is duty-bound to show the person spewing nonsense why and how badly he needs to modify his stance. There is nothing wrong with the urge to set the record straight, provided one can do it calmly and succinctly. But the desire to reform the idiot is foolish in the extreme. Since that is unlikely to ever happen, frustration is going to be the only result.
It appears that there is no limit to foolishness. Every time you think that some thought or act is the stupidest thing that you have ever heard, you can be sure that you will encounter something even more stupid very soon. The fool can drive any sensible person crazy by the unlimited repertoire of on-sequiturs at her disposal. He or she would even give arguments that prove your point rather than his or hers but would be blissfully oblivious of the fact. He or she would habitually ridicule the items you happen to use in analogies, comparing one to the other, rather than trying to appreciate the relationships between them. He or she would demonstrate his or her inability to wrap his or her head around concepts such as averages and probabilities by saying (for example) that alcohol is not necessarily bad for health since his or her grandfather, who imbibed all his life, managed to live to 98.
The fool would insist on treating the most complex of matters as single-variable problems. He is apt to think that the few data points of his experience warrant his sweeping generalizations of universal application. Like the female author of pulp novels, he is the hero in all his moral narratives, and his enemies the villains. He would think nothing of believing two opposite things at the very same time and picking one or the other (or even a third one), depending on what suits him on a given occasion.
While it is frustrating enough when somebody does such picking and choosing on purpose, it is a real test of one’s patience and resolve when he apparently has no idea what he is doing. There is no shame in running for dear sanity when one confronts such an individual. It is no defeat; in fact, it is a heroic retreat if ever there was one.
There are those, of course, who are too intelligent to try to knock some sense into a rank idiot. What torments them, however, is this thought: How can a rational human being be so stupid? Few things have the capacity to irritate a thoughtful man more than a notion of how things ought to be, and how drastically the reality differs from that picture. Wisdom demands acceptance of stupidity as an inevitable part of life. While many medical conditions that previously used to be incurable have remedies now, the sad truth is that there will never be a cure for stupidity. The reasons behind human folly are complex and various. Everyone has his own difficulties and hang-ups. Human stupidity is a fact of life that is here to stay. This must be understood and accepted, not fought against.
Debates, even between seemingly sensible people, are rarely conducive to changes of heart. Defence mechanisms get triggered, usually putting paid to any positive outcomes. It is better to just make one’s point and move on. If the person ever reforms or changes his stance, it is almost always due to self-reflection at some later time, never an instantaneous result of some magic argumentation from somebody.
The worst variety of harm is self-harm, a particularly deadly form of which is prolonged contact with fools. The sensible man finds himself at a distinct disadvantage to the fool. The latter will not understand sound reasoning. The former, on the other hand, will be appalled and frustrated at the latter’s unreason.Â
While their merits cannot outright be denied in the rare cases where men are genuinely interested in learning; as a rule, debates are grossly overrated. Typically, they amount to little more than displays of egoistic one-upmanship. In which case it is best to move on. It pays to understand that many of the issues that people keep disputing will be made clear to them not earlier than the Last Day.
The world, as we know it, is brimful of nonsense. So, if you are the kind that is too logical and sensible to tolerate nonsense, you are in for a rough ride. The conscientious man often feels that not responding to ranked nonsense would be akin to fleeing the battlefield, although he would be hard pressed to tell exactly what purpose is served by his repeating things (no matter how sound and sensible) to a person who is hardly listening and understanding even less.
The worst variety of harm is self-harm, a particularly deadly form of which is prolonged contact with fools. The sensible man finds himself at a distinct disadvantage to the fool. The latter will not understand sound reasoning. The former, on the other hand, will be appalled and frustrated at the latter’s unreason. The fool, having no sense nor scruples, has no shortage of tools in his repertoire. In contrast, the thoughtful man is usually too sensible to stoop below a certain point. Even when he breaks character for a while (as he may occasionally do trying to respond to the fool in the latter’s currency) he is likely to be no match for the fool, who by virtue of years of practice is much more accomplished and experienced in that domain. The thoughtful man loses either way.
A sage once famously remarked: ‘Every time I argue with a fool, I lose.’ Ordinary folks like you and me can hardly fare any better.
