It isn’t that abstractions don’t matter or aren’t real – they are. It’s rather that abstraction does not offer, in real time, as the argument develops, any feedback loop. So as the conversation proceeds the two thinkers become more and more abstract.

So their disagreement grows as they talk, because the layers of abstraction are multiplying as they talk about abstractions using abstract words.

Don’t argue about abstractions. Translate the talk, if you can, into concrete actions. Often, the initial clash melts away as the texture of the talk shifts toward concrete nouns and transitive verbs.