The Last Word
XoreIrritated.
And what a pleasant time of year to need to rant. Something about spending sufficient amounts of time with [some of] my siblings over the holidays tends to bring out the worst in us all. I’m not saying i’m not at least partially to blame, but in recent years, i’ve been making an effort to arrive on better terms with my siblings, and often it just gets shoved back in my face with a paper cut and a splash of vinegar. We’re grown-ups, right? I’d like to think so, anyways.
Sibling squabbles nearly always degenerate into irresolute arguments where one side is unwilling to give for reasons more of stubbornness than correctness, and someone inevitably says “You’re just trying to get the last word in”.
Rawr.
I admire this pseudo-argument in that it has a catch that, if responded to, plays directly into the hands of whoever says it. Disagree with it, and you’re in denial, or agree with it, and you’ve as good as admitted that your arguments hold no validity. Superficially and implicitly, anyway. When you think about it, however, neither of these conclusions can logically be derived from that argument, as it has nothing to do with the previous argument at hand.
Of course, I also utterly despise this pseudo-argument (and never use it: if i’m wrong, take a free whack-the-camel card) in that anyone who utters it is completely hypocritical. In delivering it, a person effectively succeeds in (or is making an attempt at) getting that last word in.
Really, it’s just an overly wordy way of saying “shut up” to a person, leaving it’s deliverer in an assumed state of argumentative victory. If you want me to shut up, tell me to shut up. Or tell me that you’re interested in continuing the argument at a more convenient time. Or tell me you aren’t interested in continuing the argument, so long as you cede that neither of us have won.
Better yet, if you can, prove me wrong. I’ll thank you for it.
December 25th, 2005 at 5:56 pm
From what I’ve seen, most arguments from any standpoint start as two apposing views inevitably turn into a fancy way of calling the other a dubass or some other profainity, and the one to say it in a blunt manner is then called the jerk by their peers and ostrisized from the group.
Arguments with siblings are generally worse though. I can almost never win arguments with one of mine due to the unholy amounts of bs he pulls in to the argument I can’t even remember what it was about by it’s end.