offmychest

Because it is all about tribalism. If you fight them in words or otherwise, you only alienate yourself as the others tribe. They are essentially testing if you are in their (mental picture) tribe. They have a diluted sense of confidence that is built up and convinced them that their tribe is meaningful and valuable. If you fight them, you do nothing to stop them. It only bolsters the walls that they feel secure within. You cannot assault those walls unless you are willing to kill the person. You must tear apart their walls brick by brick, but you cannot access the walls, only they can. To dismantle the wall, you can point out its flaws or you can convince them that those walls have no value. Walking away is the latter. Using questions to force their acknowledgement of their logic failures is forcing them to remove a brick from their own wall. The hard part is getting them to play Jenga and causing the whole thing to crumble.