in other words, arguments measure how much stake one has in the relationship via a process of accusation and blood-letting. with a smaller stake, one can respond more acrimoniously, more savagely, with the perverse assurance that the other party will hurt more than one will.
how much one’s point is worth defending, therefore, doesn’t depend upon the objective value or merit of the point of view since one always values one’s own point maximally and the other’s, inconsequentially. one defends one’s continual right to a dominant position.
when we observe that some arguments have no winners, we describe a situation where, because both parties have stake, any argument undermines one party’s standing with the other, with no consequent gain in position, but resultantly hampered in the ability to impose one’s self-perogative. only loss and losers left.
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And it gets more bizarre when one or more parties have no vested interest in the outcome of the argument. Take two lawyers on a fixed retainer negotiating a nice-to-have but inconsequential clause in a contract. One counsel has no need of it to protect his client’s position, the other could have been nice enough to give it so that they could all go home to play with their kids. But they keep at it, spending time on the clock which is irrecoverable as fees, usually just to regain or maintain pride from the negotiations in the last deal.
Hence, even where one or both parties have nothing to lose, they still both need to win. Once an argument is started, losses are incurred in perpetuity. So, definitely not worth starting at all, particularly when it does not form part of the job scope.
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