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making and taking conflict personally - when the issue being argued is in fact not personal but around perspective and ideology - is the biggest obstacle i have found to useful conflict. people generally seem so attached to their ideas that arguing against those ideas is far too often taken as a personal attack on their identity. yes, i guess i am pointing to the fact that most people maintain dogmatic attachments to their ideas, making them largely incapable of distinguishing between critique of those ideas and a personal attack on them.

then again, some people just have condescending, purely dogmatic attitudes about their ideas, and make useful discussion virtually impossible.