"It seems that because many people are raised with the imperative to 'stand up for themselves,' it turns into a need to become argumentive when faced with an opposing viewpoint."
The "briars" that pg mentions happened to me when I reread this sentence. I was essentially assuming too many things about the general population, and also trying to contrast this assumption that people are raised to be argumentive with my own mindset where I try very hard not to argue about anything.
Every time I write something like this, I picture the first thing an HN commenter would say in response. "Well, what about X?" or "You assert X, but here's evidence that disproves this," or especially "What are the alternatives?" Reading lots of HN comments helps with this. The issue is trying not to seem overly assertive like pg suggests: putting in quantifiers like "maybe" or "perhaps" to give room for error instead of coming off universally saying "X is Y." When I imagine the fictional HN commenter's response, if the statement itself still seems fine, that response is usually the first thing I add to end of the comment prefixed by "On the other hand".
I feel like for me this is because I can't take criticism too well so I try to imagine all the reasonable criticisms people might come up with first and then criticize myself with them preemptively. Or, writing about personal experiences - facts, of which my personal telling is unique - instead of writing about how thing X or Y ought to be in the world. Especially with personal experiences I believe they can be useful without having to use them as evidence of a larger argument, which opens me up to the risk of being flat-out wrong.