It's an amazingly popular delusion that you do your opponents some sort of "favor" by listening and trying to understand their point of view. With that attitude, if your opponents are as wrong as you think they are, you deny yourself information which which to oppose or debate them more effectively. If they turn out to have a point, which is at least partly valid, by not listening you make a sad fool out of yourself, and you give up the chance to learn, and to put a stop to a frustrating argument. Standing firm no matter what can make you feel like the most "right" person on Earth, in the little world of one's head, but in the larger world, you might be just another pompous self-righteous ass, bragging about his supposedly open mind. Or maybe not a full-blown pompous ass, but just a bit of one, who misses the point frequently, and doesn't know it.
The possibility of appearing like that to people would be such an embarrassment, that it serves as a very good incentive for me to keep listening, or trying to. Lots of people settle for being the always-right king of one's own head, though.... they close the shutters, and never look out the window. Mixed metaphor, sorry.
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