The argument culture urges us to approach the world-and the people in it-in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: Conflict and opposition are as necessary as cooperation and agreement, but the scale is off balance, with conflict and opposition over-weighted.

[T]he seeds of [the Argument Culture] can be found our classrooms, where a teacher will introduce an article or an idea . . . setting up debates where people learn not to listen to each other because they're so busy trying to win the debate.

Words can be like weapons of destruction: It takes so much effort, and the cooperation of so many people, to build something - and so little effort of so few to tear it down.

In an ongoing relationship, each current criticism packs the punches of all the others that have gone before.

Saying that men talk about baseball in order to avoid talking about their feelings is the same as saying that women talk about their feelings in order to avoid talking about baseball.

Cooperation isn't the absence of conflict but a means of managing conflict.

The argument culture urges us to approach the world - and the people in it - in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as 'both sides'; the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone; and the best way to show you're really thinking is to criticize.