- Our public conversationsare in a state of crisis-they're stuck.It's people fullyconvinced of their views,shouting at each other from a distance.One of the reasons why wefind it so difficult is,I believe, because theskills of good argumenthave been atrophying for some time.We no longer view argumentas something to be worked at,rather we see it assomething we jump into outof instinct or defensiveness.The bad arguments that resultdecrease our confidence in whatdisagreements can do for us-so the quality of theconversation further degrades.I think we need to restoreconfidence and faithin what disagreements can be,and to highlight itspotential as a source for goodas well as a source for ill.My name is Bo Seo, I'm atwo-time world debate champion,a former coach of the Australianand Harvard debate teams,and I am the author of "Good Arguments."For me, my love of debateis inextricably tiedto a life that I've led ofalways moving countries.I had to move fromSouth Korea to Australiaas an eight-year-oldwithout really speaking English.And I quickly found the hardest part ofcrossing language lines, ofcultural lines was disagreementswhere people tend to be more disruptiveto interrupt, to speed up and slow down.In response to all that, Iresolved to be very agreeablein the way in which I presented at school,and to keep my thoughts to myself.The thing that changed thatwas I joined the debateteam off the strengthof one promise,which was that in debate,when one person speaks, no one else does.And to someone who had been interruptedand spun out of conversation,that sounded to me likea kind of salvation.If intelligence is the abilityto respond to any argument,wisdom lies in knowing whicharguments to respond to,and which parts of anargument to respond to.Arguments are easy tostart and hard to endbecause there are anynumber of differencesbetween two people.And unless you are careful to say,"We're having thisdisagreement at this momentand not all the otherdisagreements we could be having,"all of the differences between two peoplecan start flooding in,and the argument becomes this unruly masswhere any of the potentialsources of conflictcan come to the fore,and you're not makingprogress on any given one.One of the frameworks that I developedin order to pick my fights more wiselyis called the 'RISA Framework.'Before launching into adisagreement or challenging a claim,ask four things:First, whether thedisagreement is in fact realas opposed to a misunderstanding.Second, is to ask whetherit's important enoughto you to justify the disagreement.The third is to ask whetherthe topic of disagreementis specific enough in orderfor you to make some progress.And the fourth is to askwhether you and the other personengaged in the disagreementare aligned in your objectivesfor wanting to partakein that conversation.By checking off on these four lists,you can't guarantee that aconversation is going to go well,but you may be able to give itthe best possible chance of doing so.One of the limitationsof the RISA Frameworkthat I worry about is thatit is increasingly difficultto find the right kind of alignmentin people's interestsfor wanting to engagein a disagreement.So, if you have two sides thatsimply want to hurtone another's feelings,that's some kind of alignment,but not the right kindthat leads to productive conversations.So, one place where youmight be able to applythe RISA Frameworkis getting together with extended familyfor Thanksgiving or Christmasand knowing thatsome of the personal orpolitical disagreementsare gonna bubble up to the surface.The RISA Framework providestwo sources of help in that situation:The first isthat every disagreement should start witha little bit of agreement,and that is often namingexactly what it isthat you disagree aboutso that it doesn't bubble up intoall the different areas inwhich you don't see eye-to-eye.First step is to name thedisagreement in front of you.The second thing is to check,well, why do you want toengage in this disagreement,and can we come to an agreement aboutwhat it is that we're hopingto get out of this conversation?So, forcing the slightlyquarrelsome family memberwho just wants to be acontrarian or to cause troubleto say, "Are you really in this,hoping to persuade me to change my mind?"That bit of negotiationof why it is that we'rein the conversationin the first instancecan often allow ourconversations to go betterthan if we just jumpinto the disagreementswithout much forethought.It allows us to almost make acontract with the other side:"This is what we're disagreeing about,and these are the reasonswhy we're engaging in that dispute."And one of the things that you can do withsomeone who tries to break those rules,to expand the debate intosomething it wasn't about,to change the topic tointroduce new reasonsfor wanting to engage in the dispute,is just to remind ourselvesof the agreement that we madeand to bring the conversationback to those parameters.Just as any number of thedifferences between two peoplecan give rise to a disagreement,any number of things thatpeople say within an argument,can be contested.'The success cases-these are the ones inwhich the revolution works.Closing, I'll take youif you have something.'And a part of the wisdomone has to develop,as a debater, is to knowwhich arguments to challenge,and which to let go.'- 'A Marxist Revolution atthis point doesn't change that.- 'And will lead to a hugeperiod of economic instability,particularly with their livelihood.'- 'Apparently, their role,if we're to buy the premiseof their case at all.'- There are two questionsthat we often askto make that decision:The first is,is this disagreement between the two sidesnecessary to resolvein order to make progress in the argument?And if it's not,is us challenging itgoing to help us make progresson the overall dispute?No matter how offensive orwrong-seeming it may be,by asking whether it'sfirst necessary to challengeor even if it's not whether challenging,it would help us makeprogress on the argument,you can be a little bit more judiciousin how you disagree andprevent our argumentsfrom becoming this unrulyall-encompassing dispute.One of the great lessons of debate isin order to be heard,you have to first listen.We're used to thinking aboutlistening as an essentially passive act-we sit back in our chairs,and take it all in.Debaters know thatit's a much more active process than that.There are two lessonsthat we can take awayfrom how debaters listen,and to try and apply it in our own lives:The first is, it is in your best interestto understand the opposition's argumentas they would understand it.It's not in your best interestto twist their meaningor to take it at its worstor to capture only a fraction of itbecause they won't feel as thoughthey had been listened toand heard and ultimately responded to.The second thing is, it'salso in your best interestto respond to the strongestversion of the other sideand sometimes to buildup the other side's caseso that it's even betterthan where they have it now.You know after you finish speaking,the opposition might have a 'light bulb'and come up with a better case,or someone on their side might say,"You've responded to theweak version of this argumentbut here's something better."So, the further you can take itand the stronger theversion of the other sideyou can respond to,the more you challenge theother side to go even further,and the better the conversation becomes.So much of debate is anexercise in certainty.It's about spending-sometimes weeks-researching your side of the case,coming up with the bestpossible arguments that you canto sell the truth of yourside to the listener.But in the last moments beforea debater goes on stage,they know to take outa new sheet of paper,and to put themselves intheir opponent's shoesand write the four bestarguments for the opposing side.They know also to lookover their case again,this time through the eyes of someonewho fervently disagrees with themto identify all of the flawsand the criticisms that couldbe leveled against them.Debate is also known to imagine a worldin which they lost the debate,and to come up with thereasons why they did.Those exercises, which accordthe 'side-switch exercises,'puts a pause on that feeling of certainty.It makes us feel, for a moment,the subject of reasonablenessof other people's beliefs.It gives us that momentwhere we get back on our toesand think maybe we missed something.It makes us imagine aworld in which we're wrong.And all of that creates wiggle roomthrough which something like humilityor empathy might arise.The sides which exercises,and the kind of empathythat debate brings into the conversation,is not only applicable inpersonal disagreements,but in my view, moreurgently needed than everin our political disputesand ideological commitments.Each of us are bigger thanour political affiliations,than our religious commitments,than our ideological beliefs.It's in that settingthat exercises like side-switchbecome most effective.It expands the scope of whatwe are able to talk about.It enlarges and improvesand strengthens our abilityto talk about contentiousand difficult issuesin humane, compassionate,and productive ways.- Get smarter, fasterwith videos from theworld's biggest thinkers.To learn even morefrom the world's biggest thinkers,get Big Think+ for your business.
