Compulsive one-upmanship - A conversation...
There is nothing much one can do with people who are compulsively argumentative. These are those half baked intellectuals, who have dipped their finger superficially into different caskets of knowledge, with a few catch phrases culled from their readings; holding on to their train of thought and deliberation with a tenacity worthy of a Cicero (Except that in sounds awfully hollow); feigning wisdom on supposedly every conceivable topic that could come up for discussion; consider it beneath their dignity to acknowledge ignorance; unwilling to hold a reasonable dialogue on a topic but insist on throwing names and praises in favor of themselves - that it becomes so very difficult for others to stay beyond a few minutes in the same room with them. Either, one need to raise ourselves to that level of superficiality or utterly keep quiet and let the other spend their energy, and pray that a more reasonable balance be achieved quickly enough. We are four regular members at the local sauna;