> The entire framing is wrong, even if it's both understandable and a very widely held viewpoint.
Setting aside a few levels of irony in arguing with arguers on arguing, I think there are multiple framings for arguments. Things go off the rails all the time when neither party is aligned on what kind of argument the current one is.
Programmers and engineers tend to carry around this worldview that every conversation is about correct information or future decision-making, but everyone is operating on different planes. God help you if you go into an argument with the spouse implicitly about acknowledging how your actions made them feel armed with facts and logic about how this is irrelevant because the problem is solved or there is no new action to take.
Fair point, but I see that as kind of a simplification? It's a perspective, rather than a refutation, but I see any argument about how you made someone feel as either a mistake or an argument about something else.
No perfectly logical actor would ever argue with how someone is feeling. It's impossible for a second party to know or rationalize, and the person with the direct evidence is giving you their best representation of the feelings. To argue that someone doesn't feel what they say they feel is tantamount to ignoring direct evidence which negates any practical value of the argument. It's this not worth having.
On the other hand, if what you are actually trying to argue is whether they are being truthful, or reasonable about their feelings, those are arguments that do have a practical result of deciding something or understanding something better. The more you dig in to why people are feeling the way they are feeling, the more you can reckon with what that means for whatever the disagreement is. Of course, it cuts both ways; if someone telling you that they feel a certain way makes you feel a certain way, it's only reasonable to interrogate why you are feeling that way about it. But then, that gets further toward the most salient part: most of the time when it comes to feelings, an argument is the wrong tool for resolving disagreement. In my experience, open ended discussion that focuses on each individuals' feelings without consideration for correctness is more productive than any sort of confrontational method like an argument.