That's fine. It's good when people like that are denied power. But my essay was about *if your goal is to "win,"* you should instead seek to "win over." So responding, "My goal isn't to do either," isn't an objection so much as an acknowledgement the essay's argument is unrelated to your concerns.
Then your goal should be winning over the crowd. And the characteristics of people who emphasize "winning" as "destroying" are likely to turn off at least as many people as their public destruction of the other side turns on. So even in public debates, you should display the traits of winning over.
If that's the case, then you probably won't "win" an argument with them, either.
Some thoughts on the important distinction in political argument between "winning" and "winning over." www.reimaginingliber...
Political persuasion is more effective when it aims not at defeating opponents, but bringing people to our side.
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McDonald's in India is way better than McDonald's in the US. The US needs to start serving the butter chicken sandwich.
Mahatma Gandhi, as a 24 year old, starting his guide to London with the same plea as anyone today starting a new email newsletter.
Too much political discussion and debate is entirely about "winning" as defeating and destroying. This elevates those who relish defeating and destroying—and who tend not to be admirable people. A shift to "winning over" would make our political exchanges, and our own characters, more humane. 3/3
The difference between "winning" and "winning over" is that "winning" emphasizes defeating interlocutors by "destroying" them and their arguments. "Winning over" persuades people to want to take your side, because the arguments are good, yes, but also because they find them—and you—admirable. 2/3
A friend I met this week in New Delhi, a scholar of the ideas of Gandhi, pointed out a distinction that struck me as profound and clarifying: If want to to effect positive change in the world by shifting people's views, our goal when presenting our ideas shouldn't be to "win" but to "win over." 1/3