I have one difficulty here - the idea of argument as strictly negative, as it somehow appears to be in what you write here. I don't want to stop putting forth good arguments to see if they hold or not! I love to work on ideas in full awareness of our thoughtmodels being utterly unreal in themselves, but having the potential to hint at/refer to the meaninful and useful essence of something (a something with a much higher degree of "real"), in a better or less fruitful way. As I understand the achademic world, it is built on the art of putting forth a good argument, hypothesis or theory to see if it will hold for scrutiny and be useful in dealing with things.... I believe that maybe the difficulty is my being from Sweden, not quite attuned to the english language, maybe. But for the sake of argument (!) I wish to ask if you mean that argumenting per se should be seen as a bad strategy for a person who wishes good relating, or if it is more the type of arguing that becomes fruitless in that it turns into a struggle about "who is right and who is wrong" instead of an exploration of views and the value/usefulness of arguments? My trick question in some situations is "I can hear you don't approve of my view, but it would be very nice if you told me what view that you prefer for your own part." I suppose that what I confront when I find myself having good reasons to ask that question is when I'm actually confronted with some type of "lizard talk" in disguise? So maybe I should actually ask instead for what I can do to make them feel calm and at ease? Hmmm.... I really do find your site so valuable! So full of the most nourishing, exquisit treats! I will live with your site as a daily companion for quite a while I feel.