ABSTRACT
Children are often told at home and school to stop arguing. This is wise advice, badly worded. But because they have not been taught the difference between arguing and quarrelling, how to argue well, and what kinds of argument there are, they easily slip unnoticing into the quarrel. Self-aggrandisement is a powerful and dazzling distraction from the pursuit of truth, and when controversy in reasoning becomes quarrelling. The failure to teach argument leads to the proliferation of quarrelling, where the goal of personal supremacy, not of improving beliefs, is what drives the effort. The advice 'Stop arguing' becomes 'Try arguing instead'. But education in argument is necessary for the advice to make sense. NC is a distinct disappointment on argument. So far has NC failed to consider the field that it actually uses 'argumentative' where 'argumentational' is meant.
