Silencing Arguments

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Here are three examples of arguments that end in silence rather than acrimony:

1. ...This committee had men like Compton and Tolman and Smyth and Urey and Rabi and Oppenheimer on it. I would sit in because I understood the theory of how our process of separating isotopes worked, and so they'd ask me questions and talk about it. Then Compton, for example, would explain a different point of view. He would say it should be this way, and he was perfectly right. Another guy would say, well, maybe, but there's this other possibility we have to consider against it. 

So everybody is disagreeing, all around the table. I am surprised and disturbed that Compton doesn't repeat and emphasize his point. Finally, at the end, Tolman, who's the chairman, would say, "Well, having heard all these arguments, I guess it's true that Compton's argument is the best of all, and now we have to go ahead."

It was such a shock to me to see that a committee of men could present a whole lot of ideas, each one thinking of a new facet, while remembering what the other fella said, so that, at the end, the decision is made as to which idea was the best---summing it all up---without having to say it three times. These were vary great men indeed.

...Feynman Joking

2. 'Yes, Jeeves?' I said. 'Something on your mind, Jeeves?'

'I fear that you inadvertently left Cannes in the possession of a coat belonging to some other gentleman, sir.'

I switched on the steely a bit more.

'No, Jeeves,' I said, in a level tone, 'the object under advertisement is mine. I bought it out there.'

'You wore it, sir?'

'Every night.'

'But surely you are not proposing to wear it in England, sir?'

I saw that we had arrived at the nub.

'Yes, Jeeves.'

'But sir - '

'You were saying, Jeeves?'

'It is quite unsuitable, sir.'

'I do not agree with you, Jeeves. I anticipate a great popular success for this jacket. It is my intention to spring it on the public tomorrow at Pongo Twistleton's birthday party, where I confidently expect it to be one long scream from start to finish. No argument, Jeeves. No discussion. Whatever fantastic objection you may have taken to it, I wear this jacket.'

'Very good, sir.'

...PGW in Right Ho, Jeeves

3. In 1944, at a time when the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the struggle against Nazi Germany, it was important to convince Stalin that the Western democracies accepted him as an equal. 

“‘In the world of the future, for which our soldiers have shed their blood on countless fronts”, the British Prime Minister said in his bombastic style, “our three great democracies will demonstrate to all mankind that they, both in wartime and in peacetime, will remain true to the high principles of freedom, dignity, and happiness of the people. That is why I attach such paramount importance to good neighbourly relations between a restored Poland and the Soviet Union. It was for the freedom and independence of Poland that Britain went into this war. The British feel a sense of moral responsibility to the Polish people, to their spiritual values. It is also important that Poland is a Catholic country. We cannot allow internal developments there to complicate our relations with the Vatican…” 

 

“How many divisions does the Pope of Rome have?” Stalin asked, suddenly interrupting Churchill’s line of reasoning. 

Churchill stopped short. He had not expected such a question.

 http://02varvara.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/how-many-divisions-does-the-pope-of-rome-have/

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Of the three wise men above who silenced arguments (Tolman, Jeeves and Stalin), I like Jeeves best. He states his case firmly and quietly and when met with stubbornness, shuts up politely; knowing that in the end he will always win over his boss, Bertie.

I almost never indulged in long and tedious arguments. I found early on that I can't convince folks with my arguments. Likewise, I was never bowled over by other people's arguments. Like Jeeves, I used to state my opinion and shut up. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.

Of course I met people who never give up. Once Dr HLY entered our office at IIT KGP and started talking QED with DB. I was reading quietly and preparing for my next day's lecture. Within minutes I found that both of them were raising their voices and I got interested. And tried to follow their quarrel. HYL suddenly got up and picked up a piece of chalk and started attacking the blackboard. DB too joined him with his piece of chalk. It went on and on for half an hour at the end of which I could see that their disagreement boiled down to semantics. 

And I had to shout both of them down and drag them to the canteen where they continued their warfare. I left them there and went home. The next day I asked DB who won the argument. He was sheepish and felt silly about the whole affair. 

Maybe we are built differently than all those Tolmans, Comptons and Oppenheimers, but I have yet to see an argument ending in silence. Argumentative Indians.

There was a film in the 1960s titled Kanoon. It was a rare songless Hindi film. I didn't watch the movie but was told by my friends that it was full of unending courtroom arguments with hysterics superadded. Lung power, fitful rhetoric, and histrionics.

But my lawyer friends told me that nothing as dramatic as that ever happens in a courtroom. The best of lawyers hardly make speeches...they just bring to the notice of the judge the relevant point of law and precedents. The best of criminal lawyers apparently don't want to listen to the confessions of their clients and get biased. They would only say:

"Let the prosecution prove their case"

Erle Stanley Gardner was a leading criminal lawyer and his Perry Mason courtroom scenes make fantastic reading...they were nothing like Kanoon though. Just quiet cross examinations.

In physics one demo is better than a hundred arguments. Feynman proved it with his O-ring demo:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qAi_9quzUY



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