In his chapter two of “Winning Arguments,” Fish argues that political arguments are a never ending circle of back and forth through the use of “talking points”, however there is a rare chance of conversion. More specifically, he uses modern day occurrences to demonstrate the regularity of political arguments, and the difficulty to reach a verdict. For example, he writes, “Being convinced of either of these views of the responsibilities and limits of government renders you incapable of hearing arguments from the other side as anything but the progeny of error.” In other words, once a person has formulated their opinion on a political issue through educating themselves on the topic, they view their opinion as the right opinion. In sum then, Fish suggests that the difference between fact and opinion becomes hazy during political arguments and causes the inability to be convinced.
While Curzan argues that we should be more open minded to decrease societies ignorance of languages, Thomas argues that we should celebrate our ignorance instead of trying to “explain everything about everything.”
