Is it a from of sadism and/or narcissism to take satisfaction from defeating others in argument?

[NameName]

I've noticed it occur a lot on FDR, as well as with myself.

 

With myself, I usually only enjoy defeating others in argument when the other person is really arrogant and thinks they're smarter than me and talks down to me. At the end of our argument, I feel happy knowing he feels stupid and that I won.

 

Is this a form of dominance?

 

Or a form of mental self defense?

 

Or simply sadism?

 

Or possibly narcissism?

 

Thanks for your thoughts, also are your experiences like mine? Do you take satisfaction in defeating others in argument?

[Psychophant]

If it is not a usual occurence then you can exclude sadism from the list. Sounds like your ego was bruised and you took revenge. Otherwise, if it is not a must for you to win an argument and you don't feel pain and humiliation by loosing it, it doesn't sound like NPS or NPD to me.

[Thomas-Jefferson]

Yep I get satisfaction from beating those people.

 

But if I'm having a normal conversation with someone about politics etc and someone says something wrong then I just explain it to them, no satisfaction from that.

It might be a tribal thing, like showing off to the women of the tribe 'I'm stronger than this guy' would give you much higher odds of getting women and thus have access to the baby making machine.

[PGP]

I used to have this urge and I probably still do to an extent with some people. Now, I try to approach a debate on a particular issue on the basis of finding some objective truth rather than arguing a particular view infinitum. Now, I'd rather be proven wrong based on superior logic and evidence than to "win" an argument based on debating skills such as happens alot in the media or politics. I suppose I have come to recognise that in the great scheme of things I know very little but that sticking to logic and evidence gives me the best chance of finding truth and sometimes others will have superior thinking in this regard. That's why I like FDR, in the approach to finding consistency and objective standards and truth. My own self-criticism is that arguing to win without the above was and still is to a lesser extent a form of trying to dominate another and indeed this fed into my own narcissism. Having superior intelligence than others very often allows domination of them in debates without adhering to logic or evidence. There are some people I know who will outright try to humiliate someone with a different viewpoint through any means possible but this is extreme dysfunction and I do not think I ever acted in this way. For my own part, using this different approach is one of the most valuable skills and changes I have made in my life.