A World Champion Debater’s Guide to Disagreeing Better • A world champion debater shares tips on how to disagree better. • Bose, a world champion debater, had a childhood spent avoiding disagreements. • Adjusting to real-life conversations and disagreements can be difficult when crossing language lines.
Speaker 2
On today’s episode, a world champion debater teaches us how to disagree better. I’m Maya Shunker, and this is a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become in the face of a big change. One reason I was drawn to Bose’s story is that he actually spent much of his childhood, trying to avoid disagreements, which is not what I would have expected to hear from a world champion Debater.
Speaker 1
So I moved from South Korea to Australia when I was eight without speaking English, and I quickly learned that the hardest part of crossing language lines was adjusting to real-life Conversation, and that the hardest conversations to adjust to were disagreements.The Importance of Communication in Disagreements • Disagreeing can be a form of communication in relationships. • Defaulting to disagreement may not be the best approach in sensitive situations. • Admitting to fears and insecurities can be more productive than picking a fight. • Confusing disagreement with lack of care can be detrimental in relationships. • Expressing care and valuing different points of view can help navigate disagreements effectively. • Distinguishing between the importance of the topic and the importance of the people can lead to better understanding.
Speaker 1
I like that. I like that. You know, I think disagreeing is one language of communication. It’s one way of talking about the things that matter in our relationships. And it’s the one that we sometimes reach for when the emotions are running. And in that scenario where you pick a fight because the other person’s opinion matters to us or we’re feeling insecure about where our relationship is at, the better thing there probably Is to admit to those fears, for example. Just say to them, you know, just hear me out here, rather than defaulting to disagreement as the way in which we try and have that conversation. So, yeah, I think that’s a really interesting point and something that I see all the time. And it’s one reason why disagreements with those whom were closest to tend to go the worst.
Speaker 2
Because the receiver confuses the two as well. Exactly. It’s like, why aren’t you willing to have this disagreement with me? Do you not care about me? Yeah, absolutely. And so, like you said, I think it could be very helpful in those moments to tell the person, look, I really care about you.
Speaker 4
I really care about your point of view.
Speaker 2
The reason I’m not engaging with this particular disagreement is because I don’t think it’s important enough. But that does not mean that I don’t think you’re important enough.
Speaker 4
I really do.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think that’s really helpful to name the difference between importance of the topic versus importance of the people. I don’t think I thought about it so clearly, but I think it’s helpful.Navigating Disputes in Relationships with Communication and Self-Reflection • Agree on how to resolve disputes ahead of time to make it easier to refer back to it. • Recognize that conversations are artificial and can be built together. • Be aware of whether you are talking about the same thing or if the disagreement has shifted to another topic.
Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s a great question and a hard question. I think the first thing is you want to come to this kind of agreement ahead of time. So when things are kind of good, especially when you’re in a relationship, having a conversation about how you want to resolve disputes. And once you have some agreement, it can often be easier to refer back to it. Say, hey, we’ve deviated from the thing that we promised each other. I think that can be useful. And I think the second thing is I wonder whether our aversion to awkwardness must be really great, because we would rather put up with kind of a painful exchange sometimes than to recognize That a conversation is artificial in the best way. It’s something we are building together and saying, hey, are we building this the right way? And so I think it can be subtle. It can be, are we talking about the same thing right now? Let’s check. Is this really a disagreement about the dishes or is we now talking about something else? You’re not given a topic in your day-to-day disagreements. In your day-to-day disagreements, it’s a dispute in search of a topic often.Tips for Becoming a Better Listener • Asking questions and drawing out the argument from the other side is a way to become a better listener. • Listening is a collaborative process of bringing the other person’s ideas into full view. • Collaboratively building up the argument helps better understand where the other side is coming from.
Speaker 2
Are there any tips you have for ways we can become better listeners? And I think we’re just told listen better and it might not be prescriptive enough. I might not know how to actually implement that recommendation.
Speaker 1
I think one way is by asking questions and drawing out the argument from the other side. So listening, I don’t think, is just the act of hearing. It is the collaborative process of bringing the other person’s ideas into full view. So you know what they are, you know what you’re working with. So in the examples that we’ve been talking about asking, so why do you believe that’s true? So is there some evidence? Did you read something that made you think this way? And then once you get a sense of why they believe the argument is true, saying, so why does this matter to you? Right, does it matter to you more than these other values that you might be thinking about? And soon, whether it be with a kid who’s not used to articulating themselves a certain way or a staff member who’s shy or a friend who’s especially conflict diverse, you can collaboratively Build up the argument. So I don’t think listening is silent. It is a collaborative, conversational process that helps you better understand where the other side is coming from. Yeah.The Importance of Side Switch Exercises in Debates • The best debate involves exercises that challenge one’s certainty and encourage considering the opposing side’s arguments. • Side switch exercises can include coming up with arguments for the other side, critically examining one’s own case from the perspective of a vehement dissenter, or analyzing reasons for losing a debate. • These exercises help unsettle one’s certainty and distinguish ideas from self identity, reducing the intensity of disagreements.
Speaker 1
So much of debate is obviously an exercise in certainty. It’s in preparing your arguments, fully believing in their truth and importance of using all the persuasive tools at your disposal to project as someone who’s credible and persuasive On a topic. But one thing I learned is that the best debate is before they go on stage in the last few minutes, they go through these exercises called side switch exercises, which take a few different Forms. So one is to turn to a fresh sheet of paper and to come up with the four best arguments for the other side. Another is to go through the case that you’ve prepared as if through the eyes of someone who vehemently disagrees and try to poke as many holes as you possibly can. Or a third is you imagine that you’ve just lost the debate and you write down the reason why you lost. And all of those unsettle things a little bit and they unsettle your certainty in particular. Yes.
Speaker 2
And you help decouple ideas from self identity, which is often what makes passions run so high in day-to-day disagreements, right? I sometimes will know, I’m trying to think it’s that in the middle of a disagreement, if you think that seeding on a point is a threat to self identity in some way, it’s challenging who You are to say, you know what, you’re right, I kind of agree with this.Environments built around strongly held convictions — religious communities especially — need mechanisms for synthesizing multiple viewpoints. When perspectives are impassioned, simple presentation of opposing views is insufficient. The challenge is finding methods that both combine information and make it persuasive, so that disagreement becomes productive rather than threatening.The Strength of Convictions and the Gray Space of Life • A lot of convictions can become stronger when considering the other side. • Living in the gray space of life allows for openness to different perspectives. • Understanding nuance and complexity affects the way one interacts with the world. • Grayness is the natural state.
Speaker 1
And I used to think that that meant you don’t have any convictions anymore or you’re unsure. But in fact, I found that a lot of my convictions are stronger for having considered the other side, for having those echoes. It doesn’t have the bristleness of something so fixed. It’s more flexible, it’s more porous, you’re more okay with its incompleteness.
Speaker 2
I mean, what I’m reflecting on as I hear this conversation unfold is that when you’re in the world of debate, you basically have to agree to live in the gray space in life generally, where You feel at a minimum open to the other side of the debate. I mean, you have to be as part of your career, you have to be opening the other side because you might be asked to fight for it tomorrow, right? And I just wondered, like when you’ve trained your brain to live in the gray space of life, where we understand that there is nuance and complexity and at least two sides to every argument, I wonder how that affects the way that you interact with the world.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, it’s such a beautiful question and I think that grayness is the natural state, right?A generation with high information access is more comfortable living in intellectual gray space. Institutions that broadcast a single perspective struggle to hold this audience. Models that adapt to the information age — signaling comfort with ambiguity and promoting inquiry rather than assertion — are better suited. The scalability challenge is automating the synthesis of multiple viewpoints so that institutions can serve a population that expects nuance.The Natural State of Grayness and Being in Conversation with the World • Grayness is the natural state of human beings. • We all feel a sense of otherness. • Asking for more from the world is possible. • Being in conversation with the world is desirable. • Acquiring skills is important for engaging in meaningful conversations.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, it’s such a beautiful question and I think that grayness is the natural state, right? That it takes a certain kind of willing blindness to aspects of ourselves to say, we are just like every other member of this political party or this cultural group or this linguistic Group or this country. There are ways in which we feel other, all of us. And so I take that kind of grayness feeling slightly at odds with things as the natural state. And I think it’s changed my view of what I can ask for from the world, which is more than to be left alone, to be kept safe, to let me get through the day, but rather that I want to be in conversation With the world. And I think it’s given me that belief that it’s possible. It’s given me some of the skills, not all of the skills that you need in order to be in such a conversation.Holding disagreements productively requires a mindset shift away from getting through rituals and toward ongoing conversation. The form matters less than the capacity for sustained discussion in community — what comes from a single voice of authority is less important than the ongoing exchange among members.
