Of brains and hearts

Discussions can be helpful if we don't get lost in heated-up conversations and don't forget about what we want from it at the end. Our goals of a discussion can be different from each other and they don't necessarily  match the goal of discussion. The stupidest conversation is this presidential debates. It's an excellent example of a mismatch between the goal of a discussion and goals of the people in the discussion. The debate is, or should be, about finding out who is the best to become president but how is that possible to evaluate people's abilities as a president if they are just talking. In reality what is being evaluated is their art of debate which has very little to do with being a capable leader. The goal is to bring some facts about nominees but claims are exaggerated and defenses are baseless and at that moment truth does not matter. The only thing that matters is to WIN the debate.
It's not the case only for presidential debates. It can happen anywhere and anytime. Whenever we are arguing about something and we answer each other's reasoning without even thinking about them, that's when our goal is just to WIN the discussion. Most of the time we don't even listen to what others are saying. We hear them but we don't listen: we are looking for flaws in others sayings to use it as another attack to prove they are wrong. We usually miss the point and stick to unimportant details.
Problems can arise when we believe we KNOW the truth and we get into discussion to convince others to believe that. We don't need to learn anything we need to teach others. I don't blame this urge of teaching but I assume a few people are so enlightened that cannot keep their knowledge to themselves. I don't see it possible to meet them everyday. They are noble and rare.
I assume the goal of a discussion is to learn about other's perspective on some issues and problems and then share our views so at the end we become closer to answer while we keep in mind that answers are not unique. It should be a thinking process but with more than one brain. We talk as we think and should be able to do this without the fear of being insulted because of expressing a foolish idea. We should not forget about the goal and get involved in the process of proving ourselves right. It is not easy and depending on the environment we can easily be the insulted victim of a discussion or the arrogant who insults others. Which one feels worse? Well it depends on how mature we are.
We need a trained brain and a sharp mind for discussions but above all we need a big heart.