I'm Argumentative

One of the deep questions of philosophy -- perhaps the only question, really -- is this: Why do we do the things we do? I ask myself this often, especially when I find myself mired in something I really regret having started. There I am, sprawled on the couch with the jar of honey, two Bic pens with erasable ink, a bag of cedar shavings, half a bottle of tepid Poland Spring, and a #27 Torx screwdriver, and I wonder, what the heck was I thinking?

More frequently, though, I find myself in the middle of a fervent online conversation, desperately parsing yards and yards of electronic text, feverishly interleaving quoted parts of previous stages of the argument with carefully worded rebuttals, each delicately balanced on that sawhorse of clarity and contempt peculiar to online discourse. I spend hours and hours on these things, not every day but in fits, and when I think of the time I could've spent writing something more constructive -- like this, say -- I shudder and go pale. And the question I must ask myself is this: Why do I do these things I do? Or, more particularly: Why, when I see someone has written something incredibly stupid, do I feel I have to correct them?

Because that's what this comes down to. My need to correct things. Not that I'd claim I'm always absolutely right. I know I'm not. I'm wrong all the time. I'm wrong so often I don't know why I ever believe anything I say. But still I see something I think is stupid and I absolutely have to make it clear that I don't agree. Why can't I leave it alone? Why can't I just let it slide, let whatever it is sit there, harmlessly boneheaded, redounding to the discredit of the original author? Why do I need to get involved?

I've done a lot of soul searching on this over the years and I can tell you in no uncertain terms what it is not. I don't do it to look good. I don't do it to prove how smart I am, or to show off. I don't do it to show how wrong anyone else is or to make anyone else look dumb. I'm not trying to leave the world breathless with my awesomeness. Because if I were, I'd hope I'd have learned by now that it doesn't work. No one loves a pedant even when they're right, and I'm wrong way too often anyhow.

And yet I persist. An acquaintance writes a brief note about President Obama and the Freedom of Choice Act and I spend half a day debunking the story and then arguing with her about abortion, a subject I very pointedly have no opinion at all on. (She defriended me on Facebook by the time we were done.) Mark Cameron Boyd makes an offhand remark in reply to J.T. Kirkland's status line on Facebook and it metastasizes into a Proust-sized tome of aggrieved whinging on the subject of not a whole lot in particular. (Mark defriended me on Facebook by the time we were done.) Or Franklin -- himself no slouch in the Department of Pedantry -- corrects my use of "quadriplegic" and I correct his correction. (We're still friends. For now.)

In fact, have I told you how Franklin and I met? Someone, I forget who -- I think it was J.T. -- posted a quote from and a link to the Walter Darby Bannard Archive, an online compendium of all of Darby's articles and essays. I liked them, agreed with them, found them interesting, and started reading the whole shebang -- and noticed some errors here and there, mostly from the (largely automated) transcription from print to digital text. This bothered me, so I began sending corrections to the keeper of the archive, who happened to be Franklin. From there I visited his blog and made some comments and we swapped more friendly e-mail and then one day I realized we were friends. We've since gotten together in person a few times and hit it off just as well in real life as we did online.

Did I start copyediting Darby's writing because I like trying to tell a capital I from a lowercase L in a sans serif typeface? No I did not. Was I trying to impress Franklin, a guy I didn't even know? Not at all. Currying favor with Darby Bannard? Um, no. Would any normal person take on such a job, for free, just because they felt like it? I doubt it. So what was I doing?

I think I know what I was doing. I was doing for someone else that which I'd hope they'd do for me. I truly want to be corrected. If I make a spelling error, I would like it pointed out. If I use a word incorrectly, I want to know about it. If I have my facts wrong -- or totally don't know what I'm talking about -- I want someone to tell me.

Because simply knowing something is important to me. I don't understand why, exactly. But it is. My curiosity is infinite. It cannot be satisfied. I want to know everything there is know about everything. I want to speak all languages and read all the dead ones. I want to know how a bird flies, how to tell a turkey vulture from a hawk, and why the hedgehog can never be buggered at all. I read once about how there are some pigments used by Aborigines in Australia which are completely secret: No white person can know where they come from, how they're made, or even how they're used. Secrets! In this day and age! I was horrified.

To me, simply knowing is a virtue. I don't know why I feel that way but I do. I have an endless capacity for absorbing facts. The other day I went on a field trip with my son and his sixth grade Turkish class. Yes, he's taking Turkish in sixth grade. We all went to a nearby Turkish cultural center. There I fell into a conversation with one of the other parents and my son's teacher, who is herself Turkish. I was able to talk intelligently about Turkey and its inferiority complex because I've picked up a few things here and there about the place. And I learned something I didn't know: It would be illegal for my son's teacher to wear her Muslim headscarf to work in Turkey. They're so desperate not to be seen as a backward nation, so eager to appear secular, that they're curtailing religious expression.

I find stuff like that fascinating.

So at last this is me: I argue not to teach, but to learn. I want to be relieved of the burden of my ignorance.

I understand this is weird. It seems to me that most people would rather stay ignorant. And discussing things upsets some people so much they'd rather stop being my friend than continue. And if they don't want to be my friend any more -- even of the Facebook variety -- so be it. Not that I'm dumb enough to blame them entirely for being upset. I'm not going to stand here and tell you that anyone who defriends me over an argument does so because they're intellectually weak, although I'd like to think so. I know I can be abrasive, insulting, dismissive, frustrating and difficult, as well as a number of other even less-pleasant things. I don't mean to be, and I try not to be, but, well, it doesn't always work.

Still it seems to me that some people would rather remain ignorant, holding on to their wrong-headed beliefs, settling in as dwarfish, stunted creatures in their tiny cramped holes. Whatever makes them happy, I guess. I'd rather crawl outside and stretch and see some new stuff, even if the attempt to stand up straight and walk means tripping over my own feet and landing in the mud most of the time.

I read somewhere that mud is good for you.