Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: I experience disagreement as a kind of closeness, and that
Speaker 2: means sometimes being in touch with yourself, being in touch
Speaker 2: with others, with the world around you, at such proximity
Speaker 2: that it could hurt. And it's in that that I
Speaker 2: think you allow yourself to live more fully, that you
Speaker 2: allow relationships to develop more richly. And it's that vision
Speaker 2: of life that I'm attracted to.
Speaker 1: Boso is a two time World Debate champion and the
Speaker 1: author of the book Good Arguments, How Debate teaches us
Speaker 1: to listen and be heard in everyday life. Many of
Speaker 1: us try to avoid conflict, but bo makes a strong
Speaker 1: case for how disagreements can actually enrich our lives. The key,
Speaker 1: he says, is to learn how to disagree, and Bo
Speaker 1: says it actually starts with learning how to listen.
Speaker 2: Listening is not just a virtuous thing to do. It
Speaker 2: has a competitive purpose, which is you're never going to
Speaker 2: change someone's mind unless they feel like your arguments connected
Speaker 2: with their concerns. So listening is the collaborative process of
Speaker 2: bringing the other person's ideas into full view, so you
Speaker 2: know what they are, you know what you're working with.
Speaker 1: On today's episode, a World champion debator teaches us how
Speaker 1: to disagree better. I'm maya Shunker and this is a
Speaker 1: slight change of plans. I show about who we are
Speaker 1: and who we become in the face of a big change.
Speaker 1: One reason I was drawn to both story is that
Speaker 1: he actually spent much of his childhood trying to avoid disagreements,
Speaker 1: which is not what I would have expected to hear
Speaker 1: from a world champion debater.
Speaker 2: So I moved from South Korea to Australia when I
Speaker 2: was eight without speaking English, and I quickly learned that
Speaker 2: the hardest part of crossing language lines was adjusting to
Speaker 2: real life conversation, and that the hardest conversations to adjust
Speaker 2: to were disagreements. That was when the rhythms of ordinary
Speaker 2: speech broke down, when passions ran, People's facial expressions stopped
Speaker 2: matching what was coming out of their mouths, and everyone interrupted.
Speaker 2: And so there was that difficulty. But there was also
Speaker 2: the sense that I had, as a newcomer to a place,
Speaker 2: that my belonging there was conditional. It was conditional on
Speaker 2: not raising my voice too loud or rocking the boat,
Speaker 2: and I felt that in disagreement, in revealing myself to
Speaker 2: the other I could unsettle any belonging I'd been able
Speaker 2: to achieve up to that point. And the combination of
Speaker 2: those two things made me resolved to be very agreeable.
Speaker 2: And that's to nod, to smile, and to get along.
Speaker 1: And how did it feel for you, as a young
Speaker 1: child to have to be so agreeable all the time,
Speaker 1: to agree with everyone all the time?
Speaker 2: You know, when you don't give voice to a thought
Speaker 2: that you have, it sometimes dies, which is a terrifying
Speaker 2: thing that when you have a reaction and you question
Speaker 2: it enough or you tuck it away enough that part
Speaker 2: of your personality becomes harder to access, really a kind
Speaker 2: of self denial, a self betrayal. The thing that made
Speaker 2: that okay was that it felt like progress, and it
Speaker 2: was progressed towards assimilation, and it was progressed towards fitting in,
Speaker 2: gaining friends, accumulating sleepovers yea, and people to do snack
Speaker 2: swaps with during lunchtime. And I might have even felt that.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a huge sacrifice for the family to
Speaker 2: move countries, and some of it on account of my education.
Speaker 2: I wonder whether when my parents, perfectly innocent asked things
Speaker 2: like how are things at school, are you making friends?
Speaker 2: That made it feel like an achievement. And so even
Speaker 2: as I was getting further away from myself and losing
Speaker 2: parts of myself, it felt like I was gaining something else,
Speaker 2: and perhaps at that moment that that something else was
Speaker 2: more important than speaking up for myself. And the thing
Speaker 2: that broke me out of that was a promise that
Speaker 2: my fifth grade teacher made me, which was that in debate,
Speaker 2: when one person speaks, no one else does. And that
Speaker 2: promise of time of attention it made me feel as
Speaker 2: though I might be heard, not just in agreement or assent,
Speaker 2: but in disagreement to So that's how I got started.
Speaker 1: Bring me back to that first moment where you found
Speaker 1: yourself articulating opinions and arguing for a point. I mean,
Speaker 1: what did that feel like for you, Because that's another
Speaker 1: form of progress, that's another kind of achievement, and it
Speaker 1: was one that you had buried for so long. But
Speaker 1: I wonder if you can set the scene for me
Speaker 1: when you realized how empowering it was to hear your
Speaker 1: voice heard.
Speaker 2: So the first debate was on the topic that we
Speaker 2: should ban all zoos, and I was the first affirmative speaker.
Speaker 1: And so by affirmative, you mean you have to agree
Speaker 1: with banning all the zoos.
Speaker 2: That's right. Okay, that's right. So you're proposing that we
Speaker 2: do this, and so there's a period of preparation. You
Speaker 2: get about a week, so you're sitting with this topic
Speaker 2: and you have time to look up stories of leopards
Speaker 2: and captivity and developing strong feelings about that, and you
Speaker 2: write out your speech. And all of that was pretty
Speaker 2: familiar because you do essay writing and you do schoolwork,
Speaker 2: and I had almost put off the knowledge that I'm
Speaker 2: going to have to own this in a different way.
Speaker 2: But that day comes and it's the school hall. It's
Speaker 2: old fashioned, almost a kind of a large shed type
Speaker 2: corrugated iron roof. There's rainfalling overhead. It's a kind of
Speaker 2: a dramatic setting in my mind still, and I remember
Speaker 2: going up on stage and looking at this audience of
Speaker 2: about fifty kids seated in these snaking rows on the floor,
Speaker 2: and I remember starting to speak and noticing all of
Speaker 2: these small changes in the audience. So you saw a
Speaker 2: WinCE of recognition in the corner of someone's eye, or
Speaker 2: you saw one person unfold their arms, or another person
Speaker 2: turned to the person next to them and say, are
Speaker 2: you hearing this? And that moment carried the realization. It
Speaker 2: made me think that I could change something about the
Speaker 2: world through the power of speech and language. And it was,
Speaker 2: in some ways the opposite of the achievement I had
Speaker 2: been working towards on the other end, which is how
Speaker 2: do I change myself around the expectation of others? How
Speaker 2: do I change myself to fit in these surfaces that
Speaker 2: felt so fixed in place, And it felt like asking
Speaker 2: the world to see me in my entirety as someone
Speaker 2: with opinions, someone capable of asking, presuming to ask that
Speaker 2: people change their mind for me, and to have some
Speaker 2: reaction to that. Yeah, that was an amazing thing.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so interesting to hear about your childhood
Speaker 1: experience because in many ways I've actually had the opposite
Speaker 1: evolution as you. So as a kid, I relished a
Speaker 1: good debate. I mean, I argued so much that my
Speaker 1: parents would tell me, Maya, you should try and become
Speaker 1: a lawyer and you grow up, because at least then
Speaker 1: you'll make a living off of this incredibly annoying feature
Speaker 1: of your personality. So I'm the youngest of four kids,
Speaker 1: maybe arguing was my way of being heard in this large,
Speaker 1: boisterous family. But interestingly, Bo, what's happened is, over time,
Speaker 1: I feel like I've lost a lot of my will
Speaker 1: to argue, Like I find myself giving up more easily,
Speaker 1: conceding easily because it just feels exhausting. I guess like
Speaker 1: it often at times just feels like maybe it's not
Speaker 1: worth it. And so in this moment, I would love
Speaker 1: for you to convince me, Bo, why is arguing important
Speaker 1: and what are the costs of not arguing? Because I
Speaker 1: need you to light that fire that I had under
Speaker 1: me and childhood, reignite the flames so that I can,
Speaker 1: you know, still bring that same kind of passion to
Speaker 1: day to day discourse.
Speaker 2: You know, I feel that so acutely. I think there
Speaker 2: are so many reasons and different kinds of pressures to
Speaker 2: give up on disagreement. There are personal pressures if you're
Speaker 2: a shy person like I am. There are periods of
Speaker 2: life where you want to be with like minded people
Speaker 2: because you want to make progress and you want to
Speaker 2: work on something together rather than just talk and disagree.
Speaker 2: And then there's of course the political context, where nowadays
Speaker 2: it's very hard to imagine disagreement as anything other than
Speaker 2: a source of pain and division and maybe even an
Speaker 2: existential threat to the fabric that holds our society together.
Speaker 2: And the best argument I can give you for why
Speaker 2: we should give good disagreement a chance is that it's
Speaker 2: the key to a bigger life, one in which we
Speaker 2: don't hold at bay the opinions, the impulses we have
Speaker 2: that are inconvenient, where we don't hold other people at
Speaker 2: enough of a distance that they can't hurt us. I
Speaker 2: experience disagreement as a kind of closeness, and that means
Speaker 2: sometimes being in touch with yourself, being in touch with others,
Speaker 2: with the world around you, at such proximity that it
Speaker 2: could hurt. And it's in that that I think you
Speaker 2: allow yourself to live more fully, that you allow relationships
Speaker 2: to develop more richly. And it's that vision of life
Speaker 2: that I'm attracted to.
Speaker 1: You also give us a handy framework in your book
Speaker 1: for deciding what's even worth arguing over, and I really
Speaker 1: appreciate this because you're saving us a lot of unnecessary
Speaker 1: grief and frustration by at least living the spaces in
Speaker 1: which we disagree. And so do you mind just walking
Speaker 1: us through this checklist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And you can believe everything I've said
Speaker 2: up to now a bit too much. And I think
Speaker 2: that's what happened to me, right, So you learn to
Speaker 2: overcome your silence, and you know, people kind of point
Speaker 2: you out as the debater who doesn't know how to stop.
Speaker 2: And so it was born out of necessity for me,
Speaker 2: this realization that it takes cleverness to know how to
Speaker 2: argue any proposition, but it takes wisdom to know which
Speaker 2: ones to argue and which to let go.
Speaker 1: I love that complexity. I mean, these are the moments
Speaker 1: that I relish on a slight change of plans where
Speaker 1: the world champion debator comes on and shares that they
Speaker 1: too have to be cautious because they're actually in one extreme.
Speaker 1: And so there's this dance that we each play in
Speaker 1: our own lives when it comes to disagreement and we
Speaker 1: have to figure out where that happy equilibrium exists.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just love when again, that kind of complexity is captured.
Speaker 2: Complexity is a nice word for it. It's just you know,
Speaker 2: you have to recover totally from these things sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One framework that I came up with is called the
Speaker 2: Rissa framework, and it's a checklist to consult before going
Speaker 2: into an argument, and so the components of risks are
Speaker 2: are real, important, specific, and aligned. So the first question
Speaker 2: you ask is is the disagreement between you and the
Speaker 2: other side real or is it a misunderstanding or an
Speaker 2: imagined slide So you thought they said something when in
Speaker 2: fact they actually said something else, And launching into a
Speaker 2: critique can actually generate its own argument, right when they
Speaker 2: say you're being unreasonable or you're assuming bad intentions. So
Speaker 2: you have to check whether it's a real disagreement, and
Speaker 2: then you ask is it important enough to you to
Speaker 2: have the disagreement? And the way in which this one
Speaker 2: goes wrong, I think is at the end of a
Speaker 2: long day, we're feeling a little cranky, and so we
Speaker 2: latch onto something, and the something becomes like a little
Speaker 2: proxy battle for this emotional welfare that you want to
Speaker 2: engage in at that time, And so there's a question
Speaker 2: about whether the thing you're disagreeing about is really important
Speaker 2: enough to justify that disagreement.
Speaker 1: I feel like the colloquial version of that is looking
Speaker 1: to pick a fight. I want to also say one thing,
Speaker 1: which is I think in deciding whether the topic is important.
Speaker 1: It's important that we don't confuse the importance of the
Speaker 1: topic with the importance of the person to us. So
Speaker 1: you might be talking to a loved one whose opinion
Speaker 1: you really value, that really matters to you, or a
Speaker 1: trusted colleague, but you still might deem the topic unimportant
Speaker 1: enough that it's not worthy of debate.
Speaker 2: I like that. I like that, you know. I think
Speaker 2: disagreeing is one language of communication. It's one way of
Speaker 2: talking about the things that matter in our relationships, and
Speaker 2: it's the one that we sometimes reach for when the
Speaker 2: emotions are running. And in that scenario where you pick
Speaker 2: a fight because the other person's opinion matters to us
Speaker 2: or we're feeling insecure about where our relationship is at,
Speaker 2: the better thing there probably is to admit to those fears,
Speaker 2: for example, just say to them, you know, just hear
Speaker 2: me out here, rather than defaulting to disagreement as the
Speaker 2: way in which we try and have that conversation. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that's a really interesting point and something that
Speaker 2: I see all the time. And it's one reason why
Speaker 2: disagreements with those whom we're closest to tend to go
Speaker 2: the worst.
Speaker 1: Because the receiver confuses the two as well. Exactly, It's like,
Speaker 1: why aren't you willing to have this disagreement with me?
Speaker 1: Do you not care about me?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And so like you said, I think it could be
Speaker 1: very helpful in those moments to tell the person, Look,
Speaker 1: I really care about you. I really care about your
Speaker 1: point of view. The reason I'm not engaging with this
Speaker 1: particular disagreement is because I don't think it's important enough.
Speaker 1: But that does not mean that I don't think you're
Speaker 1: important enough. I really do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's really helpful to name the difference
Speaker 2: between importance of the topic versus importance of the people.
Speaker 2: I don't think I had thought about it so clearly,
Speaker 2: but I think it's helpful.
Speaker 1: Okay, so far we've gone through R and I. So
Speaker 1: is the disagreement real? And is the topic important enough?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And then the third question is is the topic
Speaker 2: is the subject of the disagreement specific enough? And here
Speaker 2: you want to think about how much time you have
Speaker 2: to have the dispute, how much bandwidth you have. So
Speaker 2: if you're dropping off the kids for soccer practice and
Speaker 2: you have five minutes before they have to leave, that's
Speaker 2: not the time to talk about really fundamental disagreements you
Speaker 2: might have about their education, right, and so are you
Speaker 2: going to be able to resolve or to make progress
Speaker 2: within the time and the constraints that you have, And
Speaker 2: a lot of that I think comes to the specificity
Speaker 2: of the question. And then the fourth on the list
Speaker 2: is about the reasons why the parties are engaging in
Speaker 2: the disagreement. And here you want to check that not
Speaker 2: necessarily you and the other person have the same reasons
Speaker 2: for wanting to engage in the disagreement, but that your
Speaker 2: reasons for wanting to engage are okay by one another. Right,
Speaker 2: So imagine another person is just coming in to hurt
Speaker 2: your feelings or to vent or to pick a fight,
Speaker 2: as we've been saying, that's a moment to say, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm not engaging in this disagreement with you. If that's
Speaker 2: the reason why you're coming into it. There may be
Speaker 2: other ways to talk about the issue. It may be
Speaker 2: that I just hear you out if what you have
Speaker 2: to do is vent, but we're not going to have
Speaker 2: a disagreement about this.
Speaker 1: All that said, sometimes there are good reasons to put
Speaker 1: on our debating cats. After the break, Bo offers advice
Speaker 1: for how we can disagree better. We'll be right back
Speaker 1: with a slight change of plans. But one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I loved reading your book and I loved digging
Speaker 1: into your work is that you know, we disagree all
Speaker 1: the time, but we also talk past each other all
Speaker 1: the time. And I feel like what your work argues
Speaker 1: is that we don't have to be satisfied with the
Speaker 1: quality of disagreements that we often have. We can in
Speaker 1: fact do better. There is actually a method to disagree well,
Speaker 1: a method to the madness, if you will. Let's get
Speaker 1: into some of the tactics for how it is that
Speaker 1: we can disagree better. What does a good argument have
Speaker 1: to do in order for it to be effective.
Speaker 2: It's two things. It's to show that the claim that
Speaker 2: it's making is true and that it's important. So let's
Speaker 2: imagine you're arguing that we as human beings should be
Speaker 2: vegetarian because it's good for the environment. You have to
Speaker 2: show first of all, that being vegetarian is in fact
Speaker 2: good for the environment, because otherwise the argument is untrue.
Speaker 2: You have no legs to stand on, and that the
Speaker 2: fact that it's good for the environment means you should
Speaker 2: be vegetarian. That's the importance part that's saying the fact
Speaker 2: that this is true gives us enough of a reason
Speaker 2: to change our mind or our behavior. And it's usually
Speaker 2: in that second prong, the importance prong, that people tend
Speaker 2: to fall behind, because after we've demonstrated the truth of something,
Speaker 2: it can seem kind of self evident because it is
Speaker 2: for us that justifies the conclusion, but for other people
Speaker 2: you might have to give additional reasons for that argument
Speaker 2: having the kind of effect that you want it to.
Speaker 1: So I'm vegetarian, so clearly I win. So when it
Speaker 1: comes to importance, I think what I hear is that
Speaker 1: it needs to have relative importance, because I can think
Speaker 1: that it's important to care about the environment, but I
Speaker 1: might think that other things are more important than that
Speaker 1: our protein intake, whatever it is. And so would you
Speaker 1: call it? The reason I hesitant to just use the
Speaker 1: word important is I feel like a lot of people
Speaker 1: can agree a lot of things are important, but actually
Speaker 1: it's about how we rank them in a hierarchy of
Speaker 1: relative importance that determines what the ultimate recommendation.
Speaker 2: Is that's terrific. So it's certainly not absolute importance. And
Speaker 2: so here I think it often comes down to asking, right,
Speaker 2: what matters to you? What do you care about? Yeah,
Speaker 2: and trying to give reasons tailored to them to change
Speaker 2: their mind.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to introduce into this conversation a
Speaker 1: debate that my three older siblings and I lost over
Speaker 1: and over again with my parents in childhood. If you
Speaker 1: don't mind, okay, because I'm clearly over this bow. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not like I'm bringing it up, you know, thirty
Speaker 1: years later anything. Okay. So we always wanted a pet
Speaker 1: growing up, ideally a puppy. What do I need to
Speaker 1: do to convince parents that every set of parents should
Speaker 1: get a family pet because it is good for their
Speaker 1: child's development. Let's let's have you tell me how do
Speaker 1: I How do I achieve those two burdens? I have
Speaker 1: to show that the main claim is true, and I
Speaker 1: need to show it's important. What would I do in
Speaker 1: that case?
Speaker 2: The first thing you have to show is getting pets
Speaker 2: is in fact good for the kid's development. That's the
Speaker 2: truth claim. And then you have to say the fact
Speaker 2: that it's good for the kid's development gives us enough
Speaker 2: of a reason to get the pets. So that's exactly
Speaker 2: the kind of relative subjective importance, So it being good
Speaker 2: for the kid's development might not do any good if
Speaker 2: one of the parents is deathly allergic, for example, In
Speaker 2: that instance, that would just override this other interest that
Speaker 2: they have in their kid's well being. But in more
Speaker 2: moderate cases, where it's the competing demands are maybe it's
Speaker 2: expensive or it's costly on time, you might by explaining
Speaker 2: why it's the kid's development through the pets that we
Speaker 2: should privilege, you might be able to change their minds.
Speaker 1: So I can easily see people following the set of rules.
Speaker 1: When they know they're about to enter an argument, they
Speaker 1: have the ability to prepare for it. As a little kid,
Speaker 1: I'm creating my little puppy line of argumentation. But I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about daily life, in which often times normal conversations
Speaker 1: and of escalating into arguments almost without our own awareness.
Speaker 1: So they escalate so quickly, and it can feel very
Speaker 1: odd bo to interrupt and declare before we continue in
Speaker 1: this heated exchange, maybe please establish some ground rules, like yes,
Speaker 1: I can just imagine my friends and being like, get
Speaker 1: the hell out of here, maya, what are you doing
Speaker 1: with this formal nonsense? And so, when emotions are running high,
Speaker 1: how do we take the temperature down and like take
Speaker 1: that moment to breathe and try to integrate these kinds
Speaker 1: of frameworks and discipline is what I'm hearing, this disagreement
Speaker 1: discipline into our lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great question and a hard question. I
Speaker 2: think the first thing is you want to come to
Speaker 2: this kind of agreement ahead of time, So when things
Speaker 2: are kind of good, especially when you're in a relationship,
Speaker 2: having a conversation about how you want to resolve disputes,
Speaker 2: and once you have some agreement, it can often be
Speaker 2: easier to refer back to it say hey, we've deviated
Speaker 2: from the thing that we promised each other. I think
Speaker 2: that can be useful. And I think the second thing
Speaker 2: is I wonder whether our aversion to awkwardness must be
Speaker 2: really great, you know, because we would rather put up
Speaker 2: with kind of a painful exchange sometimes. Then to recognize
Speaker 2: that a conversation is artificial in the best way. It's
Speaker 2: something we are building together and saying, hey, are we
Speaker 2: building this the right way? And so I think it
Speaker 2: can be subtle. It can be are we talking about
Speaker 2: the same thing right now? Let's check is this really
Speaker 2: a disagreement about the dishes? Or are we now talking
Speaker 2: about something else? You're even a topic in your day
Speaker 2: to day disagreements. In your day to day disagreements, it's
Speaker 2: a dispute in search of a topic often and one
Speaker 2: thing that you know, I had a big blowout with
Speaker 2: my father when we first moved to Australia about not
Speaker 2: calling our relatives enough. And even that took some work
Speaker 2: to get to because initially it was just ill feeling.
Speaker 2: You know, you get that sense when someone's upset at
Speaker 2: you and they're kind of commenting on you left your
Speaker 2: shoes over there, and what are we talking about at
Speaker 2: the moment? You know, then there's an official kind of
Speaker 2: maybe accusation is too strong a word, but there's a
Speaker 2: stronger claim about something that you've done wrong. And then
Speaker 2: you start to see the shoe thing was just leading
Speaker 2: up to this moment, so then you recognize the claim.
Speaker 2: And for us, it was not calling the relatives enough.
Speaker 2: And we would have this discussion and I would say,
Speaker 2: you know, I call them this many times in a week.
Speaker 2: That doesn't seem crazy, and I know what's going on
Speaker 2: in their lives, and he would have some responses to that,
Speaker 2: but it didn't feel like we were assuaging anybody's concerns.
Speaker 2: The ill feeling was still there, And it was only
Speaker 2: when I stopped arguing and said, why does this matter
Speaker 2: to you so much? What are we really disagreeing about,
Speaker 2: that we realized that the calls were a kind of
Speaker 2: stand in for broader concerns about losing connection to home,
Speaker 2: right of seeing your kid lose his grasp on his
Speaker 2: native language in the process of acquiring a new one.
Speaker 2: That that was really what we needed to talk about.
Speaker 2: And so the clarity in debate of starting always with
Speaker 2: the topic and almost having this north star towards which
Speaker 2: you aim all of your efforts, just understanding the importance
Speaker 2: of that, the importance of naming the dispute. I think
Speaker 2: that's come and use countless times. I think the more
Speaker 2: fluency people have with those concepts and those skills, I'm hoping,
Speaker 2: the more natural it can seem. But it may be
Speaker 2: worth questioning whether this mode that we have of thinking
Speaker 2: about conversation as free flowing and driven by just natural impulses.
Speaker 2: It may be worth questioning whether that's the most productive
Speaker 2: way of thinking about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we have all kinds of social norms that
Speaker 1: govern our behavior and steer us away from what feels
Speaker 1: instinctive and natural. Those are working very nicely.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 1: For sure, No, I won't cut ahead of you in line,
Speaker 1: even though I want to, for example. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's totally fair. So Bo, you are a two
Speaker 1: time world champion debater, and I think intuitively, when I
Speaker 1: think about the skills that a debater has, I sometimes
Speaker 1: forget that listening is right at the top, right. I
Speaker 1: think of charm, and I already have thought and great
Speaker 1: oratory skills. But you talk in the book about just
Speaker 1: how important it is to be a really thoughtful listener,
Speaker 1: to really respond to what it is the person saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And this too is a lesson that I
Speaker 2: had to learn on the fly. So the time that
Speaker 2: you're given to speak when you're in middle school is
Speaker 2: about five minutes, and when you're just starting out, the
Speaker 2: challenge is filling up the time, so you usually end
Speaker 2: up at like three minutes or four minutes, and then
Speaker 2: you sit down and there's some time remaining. And so
Speaker 2: the work initially in debating is can you get to
Speaker 2: the five minutes? Can you come up with enough stuff
Speaker 2: to say? And eventually, through research writing out your arguments.
Speaker 2: Watching old debates, you can you can get there and
Speaker 2: you have enough argument, and soon it becomes can you
Speaker 2: talk a little faster so you can get more stuff in?
Speaker 2: And this was where I was at when I came
Speaker 2: across an adversary, Deborah, who would kick my behind weekly.
Speaker 2: And it's a lesson I learned when I debated with her,
Speaker 2: which was I noticed she actually did not fill up
Speaker 2: her page with reams of argument. Instead, during the rounds,
Speaker 2: she took copious notes of what the other person was saying,
Speaker 2: So in that moment, she was almost a transcriber, faithfully
Speaker 2: noting down what they had said, sometimes giving it order
Speaker 2: where it was disorganized. So when you had been presented
Speaker 2: a word cloud, you give it a kind of structure
Speaker 2: that they were lacking. You maybe think about other points
Speaker 2: that they could have made that would have made the
Speaker 2: point even stronger. So there's this kind of amazing act
Speaker 2: of listening as a creative, constructive act. And I could
Speaker 2: also see her listening out from the perspective of the
Speaker 2: audience to think what are they getting, what are the
Speaker 2: questions that they might be having. So there's listening with
Speaker 2: one ear faithfully to what the other side is saying
Speaker 2: with the other ear, listening to how a third party
Speaker 2: is hearing this, whether they're responding, whether they're persuaded, what
Speaker 2: they're still not sure about. And it was only after
Speaker 2: she had done that, after she had figured out the
Speaker 2: lay of the land, that she started writing the final
Speaker 2: script of what she was going to say. And you
Speaker 2: know here again, listening is not just a virtuous thing
Speaker 2: to do. It has a competitive purpose, which is you're
Speaker 2: never going to change someone's mind unless they feel like
Speaker 2: your arguments connected with their concerns and connected with the
Speaker 2: points that they had made. So it was a way
Speaker 2: a new way of thinking about listening, all through the
Speaker 2: lens of still wanting to make the best possible argument
Speaker 2: that you can.
Speaker 1: Are there any tips you have for ways we can
Speaker 1: become better listeners? And I think we're just told listen better,
Speaker 1: and it might not be prescriptive enough. I might not
Speaker 1: know how to actually implement that recommendation.
Speaker 2: I think one way is by asking questions and drawing
Speaker 2: out the argument from the other side. So listening, I
Speaker 2: don't think is just the act of hearing. It is
Speaker 2: the collaborative process of bringing the other person's ideas into
Speaker 2: full view. So you know what they are, You know
Speaker 2: what you're working with. So in the examples that we've
Speaker 2: been talking about, asking so why do you believe that's true?
Speaker 2: So is there some evidence? Did you read something that
Speaker 2: made you think this way? And then once you get
Speaker 2: a sense of why they believe the argument is true,
Speaker 2: saying so why does this matter to you? Right, it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter to you more than these other values that
Speaker 2: you might be thinking about. And soon, whether it be
Speaker 2: with a kid who's, you know, not used to articulating
Speaker 2: themselves a certain way, or a staff member who's shyer,
Speaker 2: or a friend who's a special conflict of verse, you
Speaker 2: can collaboratively build up the arguments. So I don't think
Speaker 2: listening is silent. It is a collaborative conversational process that
Speaker 2: helps you better understand where the other side is coming from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, now let's talk. But another concept I read
Speaker 1: about in your book is called side switching. So do
Speaker 1: you mind telling us what side switching is in the
Speaker 1: context of debate and why it's a valuable exercise.
Speaker 2: So much of debate is obviously an exercise in certainty.
Speaker 2: It's in preparing your arguments fully believing in their truth
Speaker 2: and importance of using all the persuasive tools at your
Speaker 2: disposal to project as someone who's credible and persuasive on
Speaker 2: a topic. But one thing I learned is that the
Speaker 2: best debate is before they go on stage. In the
Speaker 2: last few minutes, they go through these exercises called side
Speaker 2: switch exercises, which take a few different forms. So one
Speaker 2: is to turn to a fresh sheet of paper and
Speaker 2: to come up with the four best arguments for the
Speaker 2: other side. Another is to go through the case that
Speaker 2: you've prepared as if through the eyes of someone who
Speaker 2: vehemently disagrees, and try to poke as many holes as
Speaker 2: you possibly can. Or a third is you imagine that
Speaker 2: you've just lost the debate, and you write down the
Speaker 2: reason why you lost, and all of those unsettle things
Speaker 2: a little bit, and they unsettle your certainty in particular.
Speaker 1: Yes, and you help decouple ideas from self identity, which
Speaker 1: is often what makes passions run so high in day
Speaker 1: to day disagreements, right I sometimes well, no, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think it's that in the middle of a disagreement,
Speaker 1: if you think that eating on a point is a
Speaker 1: threat to self identity in some way, it's challenging who
Speaker 1: you are to say, you know what, you're right, I
Speaker 1: kind of agree with this. You're much less likely to
Speaker 1: ever accept that you might even wrong about something, So
Speaker 1: it feels like this is side switching, is a way
Speaker 1: to give yourself that space to see, Oh, you know,
Speaker 1: I could be a person who occupies both points of
Speaker 1: view and yeah, I'm curious to know whether that just
Speaker 1: affects the psychology with which you enter into a disagreement.
Speaker 2: I think enormously it humbles you. It forces you to
Speaker 2: think that maybe you're the person who needs to be
Speaker 2: accommodated because you're being unreasonable, and it brings down the
Speaker 2: temperature of the other side disagreeing, because that itself can
Speaker 2: be kind of upsetting, like you're my partner, how can
Speaker 2: you find this objectionable? Or you know, my best friend,
Speaker 2: you should of course agree with me, and knowing there
Speaker 2: are two sides, expecting there are going to be some
Speaker 2: objections here, it's a tool to me make your arguments
Speaker 2: better in advance, but also to anticipate that there will
Speaker 2: be pushback and that you're going to have to work
Speaker 2: through it. And I think that conditions you to a
Speaker 2: certain kind of exchange that I think can be more
Speaker 2: productive I'm just wondering.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've been in all these positions where you've
Speaker 1: argued for sides that you might not personally believe in
Speaker 1: or agree with, and I just wonder, have you ever
Speaker 1: fallen for your own message? If we hear ourselves saying things,
Speaker 1: over time, we might start to believe those things are true.
Speaker 1: And so have you ever found that because you were
Speaker 1: asked to argue for a certain side of something, you
Speaker 1: actually found yourself agreeing with that side on the other end,
Speaker 1: and that was unexpected for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think in every debate you do undergo a
Speaker 2: change from having argued for a position, And the way
Speaker 2: in which I experienced it is very rarely that I
Speaker 2: just end up adopting the view that I have, but
Speaker 2: rather that it leaves a residue the next time you
Speaker 2: make an argument for the position you actually believe. The
Speaker 2: echoes of the opposing argument are always there. And I
Speaker 2: used to think that that meant you don't have any
Speaker 2: convictions anymore, or you're unsure, But in fact, I've found
Speaker 2: that a lot of my convictions are stronger for having
Speaker 2: considered the other side, for having those echoes. It doesn't
Speaker 2: have the brittleness of something so fixed, it's more flexible,
Speaker 2: it's more porous, you're more okay with its incompleteness.
Speaker 1: I mean, what I'm reflecting on as I hear this
Speaker 1: conversation unfold is that when you're in the world a debate,
Speaker 1: you basically have to agree to live in the gray
Speaker 1: space in life generally where you feel out of minimum
Speaker 1: open to the other side of the debate. I mean,
Speaker 1: you have to as part of your career. You have
Speaker 1: to be open to the other side because you might
Speaker 1: be asked to fight for it tomorrow. Right, And I
Speaker 1: just wonder, like, when you've trained your brain to live
Speaker 1: in the gray space of life, where we understand that
Speaker 1: there is nuance and complexity and at least two sides
Speaker 1: to every argument, I wonder how that affects the way
Speaker 1: that you interact with the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's such a beautiful question. And I
Speaker 2: think that grayness is the natural state, right, that it
Speaker 2: takes a certain kind of willing blindness to aspects of
Speaker 2: ourselves to say we are just like every other member
Speaker 2: of this political party or this cultural group, or this
Speaker 2: linguistic group or this country. There are ways in which
Speaker 2: we feel other, all of us, and so I take
Speaker 2: that kind of grayness, feeling slightly at odds with things
Speaker 2: as the natural state, and I think it's changed my
Speaker 2: view of what I can ask for from the world,
Speaker 2: which is more than to be left alone, to be
Speaker 2: kept safe, to let me get through the day, but
Speaker 2: rather that I want to be in conversation with the world.
Speaker 2: And I think it's given me that belief that it's possible.
Speaker 2: It's given me some of the skills, not all of
Speaker 2: the skills, that you need in order to be in
Speaker 2: such a conversation. And once that conversation is ongoing, I
Speaker 2: think so much as possible, you can learn about the world,
Speaker 2: You can form relationships, you can discover parts of yourself,
Speaker 2: try out new identities. Right, all of that relies on
Speaker 2: there being that ongoing conversation, and I just feel grateful
Speaker 2: to be a part of it.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for listening. Join me next week
Speaker 1: when we hear from doctor Lucy Kalanathi, who lost her
Speaker 1: husband to cancer eight years ago. She reflects on how
Speaker 1: her grief has changed over time. You may have read
Speaker 1: her husband, Paul's best selling memoir, When Breath Becomes Heir.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed my conversation with world, debate champion Boso,
Speaker 1: I recommend listening to our very first episode of A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plan, which happens to be my favorite
Speaker 1: episode of all time. It's called a Black Jazz Musician
Speaker 1: takes on the KKK and features Darryl Davis. Darryl is
Speaker 1: an expert on changing minds. Since the nineteen eighties, He's
Speaker 1: inspired hundreds of people to leave the Ku Klux Klan
Speaker 1: and other white supremacy groups. We'll link to the episode
Speaker 1: in show notes. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written,
Speaker 1: and executive produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change
Speaker 1: family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate
Speaker 1: Parkinson Morgan, our producer Trisha Bovida, and our sound engineer
Speaker 1: Andrew Vestola. Luis Scara wrote our delightful theme song and
Speaker 1: Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of
Speaker 1: Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks
Speaker 1: to everyone there, and of course a very special thanks
Speaker 1: to Jimmy Late. You can follow A Slight Change of
Speaker 1: Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. See you next week.