What is argument?

I promise you that argument is a thing. Using the most pedestrian definition possible, I have them pretty frequently. Here is a quick rundown of the last few arguments I’ve experienced:

  • With my husband. Issue: yucky food in the sink.
  • With a stranger on Facebook. Issue: sexism, specifically against HRC, is a thing.
  • With a cousin on Facebook. Issue: racism, specifically the use of the confederate flag in a Trump advertisement.
  • With two of my close friends. Issue: why I argue on Facebook so much. Do I have unmet needs?

So what’s an argument? Each of these arguments involves conversations I have with other people about competing ideas on a given topic. The argument with my husband is a solid example: I am unhappy when there is yucky food in the sink because I like a clean sink and must touch yucky food in order to make cleanness happen. My husband, on the other hand, values the convenience of tossing food (pre-yuckiness) into the sink. So we could construe argument as the discourse emerging from our conflicting values on this topic.

But.

The argument happens because I want something (a clean sink) that I see my husband as precluding or impeding. But the real issue is perhaps my desire for a clean sink or perhaps my aversion to touching yucky food. Those are issues inside myself that I choose to externalize.

Let’s take a close look at one of my other recent arguments. A friend of mine posted an article about Hillary Rodham Clinton on Facebook. I read the article and the comments posted by friends of my friend (i.e. strangers). One of the commenters made some comments about HRC that contended that she is a lying liar and furthermore “shrill.” Also unqualified. I objected to the gendered nature of these comments and replied to his comments. My intention was to draw awareness to his (unconscious?) use of misogynist language in regard to HRC. This, as you might imagine, did not transpire in that manner. Although on the surface, this argument seems as though it is the discourse surrounding conflicting ideologies, once again the real issue is with me. I am the interpreter of those comments who is troubled by misogyny. My interpretation and my desire for someone else to be different than he is is at the root of the argument.

I don’t think I’m any closer to understanding what argument is. But I do have questions about whether it even has anything to do “competing ideologies” or “discourse.”

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Not my actual sink.
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Bad puppy

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I know, I know. You see this photo, and she’s so sweet! How could she be bad? Well, bad is highly subjective, of course, but she woke up the boy this morning by bursting his door open and body slamming him with all the power her thirty pound self could muster. In our house, waking people up unnecessarily is about as bad as bad gets.

(Don’t be angry about this post. I ❤ my puppy.)

(In a related note, is ❤ better than *heart*? Do they carry the same connotative value? And do either of them convey love?)

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Iron Man 3: Trying to Understand the Angst

1. I really loved Iron Man 3. I particularly liked the emphasis on Tony Stark’s “The Mechanic” persona. He makes things, and that’s a crucial element of his identity, whether or not he is inside the Iron Man suit.

(2. I also loved The Avengers and saw it three times in the movie theater. Two words: Bruce Banner.)

3. I am a geek in no uncertain terms. I play role-playing games, board games, and online games. I love science fiction and fantasy. Outside of Lord of the Rings and The Princess Bride, comic book movies are my favorites. Yet, for all of this rampant nerdery, I am not actually a comic book geek. I read a little X-Men and most of ElfQuest and The Maxx, but that’s about the extent of it.

4. This all leads up to my inquiry project for the day: why are Iron Man fans so teed off about the Mandarin in Iron Man 3? (You don’t think they are? Here is some primary research.)

So I thought the whole Mandarin thing was pretty cool. Note: here there be spoilers!

He didn’t seem that interesting at first, sort of a real life terrorist. (I watch Homeland when I’m looking for faux real life, thank you.) But the revelation that he was a made up character played by an actor, that was cool. It also tied in thematically with the movie at large. Tony Stark, once we (and he) delved deeper than the Iron Man persona, found that he was a guy who created things. The surface level of people and events rarely match a deeper “truth” or meaning. Now, I might critique the movie’s understanding of truth versus fiction, but I think that I won’t. The director and writers were consciously playing with those ideas, and their play is complex, not over-simplified. And the story avoids completely one of my pet peeves about movie mad scientists, whose adjacent themes always seem to revolve around some moralistic idea that science is evil and unnatural. Tony Stark’s own science and understanding are the heroes that counter the colonizing force of Extremis.

So, Iron Man fans, I still don’t get it. Help me understand the sense of loss and outrage you feel.

(Update: I just returned from a two-mile jog around the neighborhood and still don’t get the rage. And I thought about the Mandarin the whole time.)

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Gratitude

After I read the editorial by the girl who didn’t get accepted into her top choice schools, I was amazed by her sense of entitlement. One of my students showed an interview with this writer once her editorial went viral, and I was further amazed. She was unfazed by the criticism she has received. Not even that. She was giddy with the attention.

Gross.

Then I read this hilarious blog post about Generation X and how tired that generation is of the sense of entitlement of the younger folks. (God, are we that old?) It suddenly became a priority for me to create a sense of- what is the opposite of entitlement?- gratitude in my own child.

I myself having been practicing gratitude as a part of my yoga practice for a while. But it has definitely occurred to me that I need to make this practice more overt for my son. Today we discussed the many things for which we are grateful. Here’s my list:

My wonderful, loving husband
My kind, sensitive son
My two pups, the good one and the bad
My smart colleagues and the collegial department in which I work
Spring
Allergy pills
My son’s dentist and her email reminders
Game of Thrones (the show and the books)
My healthy body
My yoga teacher who helped me into Ultimate Balance

I will stop here for now.

Namaste.

Posted on by Lucy Arnold 0

The New Blog

I’ve actually just succeeded at a fairly significant goal (for me) this week. A month ago, I decided that I would begin training to run a 5K in September. I’ve kept at it faithfully all month, and on Wednesday I ran two straight miles, no stopping. Completing that mini-goals makes the bigger goals (running three miles, running a half-marathon, running a whole marathon-what?) seem doable.

So, obviously, here I am writing this first blog. It’s long been a goal of mine to return to blogging. I am interested in the public and private spaces for literacies, so this seems an obvious place to start.

 

I also considered calling this blog digressions, but then I didn’t.

 

Anyway, thanks for running along beside me or sharing my earbud or whatever face-to-face metaphor you like. See you on the flip side.

Posted on by Lucy Arnold 0