Is my grandmother's horrible debating style a result of cognitive decline due to aging ?

A

Akura

New member
My grandmother, in her early 70's, can really anger a person during a discussion. All she does is basically repeat the same thing over and over without even touching on your rebuttal. For example we were discussing socialism in Eastern Europe. She was talking about how it wasn't true that life was bad under socialism and etc. Then I asked her, well why did you vote for Vaclav Havel ( the anti-communist candidate). She told me that she liked him and that he was a good politician. Talk about contradicting yourself ! If you joined Vaclav Havel's ODS party and said you think life was better under socialism, you'd get KICKED OUT of the party. There are more issues on which my grandmother has contradictory views. Whenever you try to show her how she contradicts herself she just gets all grumpy and doesn't say anything, or she says that she doesn't have time to argue. Seriously, I've seen children that act more maturely during discussions. I find it hard to have any respect for her. I admire people with intellectual finesse and my grandmother is like the polar opposite. She just doesn't show a coherent path of logic in an argument, I don't get the way she thinks. One day she says communism was great and the next day she says the opposite. I don't understand how someone can change their political ideology so quickly within a discussion. Why when you repeat her contradicting sentences back-to-back, she still doesn't understand that she contradicts herself ? How should I explain it to her so that she understands? Like every family member in the 20-40 age range finds her annoying. I'm not sure if this is so much due to her age or her personality. I've met some older people that have great debating skills so I'm not sure old age is the only reason... She can never support her views with any logic or coherent thought. Every time she tries to debate a social/political issue, she just ends up looking like a fool in front of the whole family.
 
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