When teaching argument, I spend a great deal of time helping students understand the pervasively martial metaphors which undergird almost all of our notions of argument in Western cultures. We stake out and defend a position, marshall and deploy our evidence, rebuke counterattacks, seek to plug the holes in our armor, seek to exploit the weaknesses in our opponents' positions, and on and on. Argument, in short, is seen as a battle which we seek to win. It is important, in many contexts, to be able to play the game according to these rules.
Some occasions demand it.
There are times when an aggressive, martial approach to argument is the absolutely wrong way to go. Perhaps we would need to be more specific in this vein, since dancing in a mosh pit is not the same as ballroom dancing. The end product is not the destruction of an opponent, but the creation of a thing of beauty AND functionality. Carl Roger's reinterpretation of argument tended toward a base metaphor of psychotherapy for the participants. Catherine Lamb is reconstrucing argument toward mediation and negotiation.