Hello Darkness! The Official Blog of Helen Keller

Fanaholics,

Have you ever been in an argument? Be it wife with husband, employee to employer, any customer with the shitheads at Applebee's or in a brutal alleyway fistfight with a hobo over who gets to shit in the KFC pop-cup toilet? Chances are you have, unless you're a complete pussy who believes in "non-confrontation".

Arguments can be varied and so too can the styles which some people use to ultimately wrest supremacy into their greedy little hands. Some people use powerful logic to build a stepwise case, other people use touching rhetoric to sway people to their cause, some use a cigarette lighter and aerosol bug-spray to flame you out while you sleep. Those last folks are known as "arsonists" and should be reported to your local authorities.

Some people, however, resort to "Argument by Abandonment". It's recognized as a last ditch effort to save face in an argument that's gone about as well as a date with a liquored-up Kobe Bryant in a Colorado hotel room. Logical arguments have failed, rhetorical musings have fallen flat and ego is firmly staked to the outcome of the argument for one of the arguers. Arguees. Argumentarians. Fighters.

This is where you'll see the utterly detestable phenomenon of argument by abandonment. Favoured by whiny bitches the world over, it works something like this:

1. As stated above, all rational arguments for their cause have failed. For our example, we'll use the case of an employer trying to get their employee to pick up their socks at work. Picture the employer as someone roguishly heroic with an awesome vehicle, like Han Solo or Jesus Christ. Picture the employee as a mealy mouthed congential retard with poop-retention issues like Justin Timberlake.

2. The employer comes to the table with a list of grievences for which the employee is responsible.

3. The employee is devastated emotionally. This emotional devastation shifts their focus in the argument from dealing with the issues to simply making shit stick to the employee. Or it makes them write scripts for Desparate Housewives. That show could suck both testicles out a whale cock.

4. In their desire to simply bring the employer low, the employee brings into the argument any item, no matter how irrational, grossly misrepresented or outright fabricated. In this case, the employee first states they couldn't get their work done because the employer didn't give them the necessary data. The employer then shows emails wherein the data was sent to the employee. HERE'S THE ARGUMENT BY ABANDONMENT. Rather than address this new outcome, the employee simply switches gears and accuses the employer of taking a honking shit on their keyboard which they then had to spend the day picking chewed peanuts out from between the keys. They go on how their lives are ruined because of this. The employer points out that there are security cameras at their desk and a review of the tape would show this to be true or not. The employee THEN accuses the employer of painting swastikas on their assigned parking spot.

5. This continues for as long as possible.

This style of arguing needs to be stamped out. Ultimately, it never leads to anything constructive and all it does is empower the person using it to be as huge a dick as possible. And what if some shit does stick using this method? Then the user has some traction to attempt to level the playing field against the other person rather than the argument at hand. That is, if person A has a thousand faults as pointed out by Person B, but Person A can demonstrate but a single instance of error by Person B, Person B's criticisms are rendered moot and can be discarded. Somehow, Person A clings to this mantra of avoiding criticism with a bullshit "I'm a little bit at fault, you're a little bit at fault, let's call the whole picnic off."

It's grossly irresponsible, frustrating and can be dealt with solely by sticking to the old issue and not allowing it to be abandoned. Usually, the other person is emotionally agitated, so staying calm will piss them off more than discovering you got accidently charged for a Pontiac Wave while buying groceries.

If you see these people in action, catch them in a net. Spray paint them bright pink such that others of us may know them too. We're all in this together folks. Also, who shit on my keyboard??