Remember the metaphorical talking stick; practice active listening – This one is so obvious that it is easily forgotten. Debate situations can be similar to many of our personal interactions where as our opponent is talking, we aren’t really listening to what they have to say, but are instead thinking about what we want to convey to them at the next opportunity. This mode of responding, if it can even be called that, is perhaps more heavily ingrained in a debate context because of the presentation format and the imperative that one has to make their own points during the limited time that they have to speak. Absent of this space to offer a considered argument in response to what your opponent has just said, which can induce a sense of pressure to ad lib on one’s feet, and it becomes understandable how one might recoil into defensiveness, or the safer position of reaffirming key points already made that give their position legitimacy.
But what does this accomplish in facilitating an understanding of the alternate position? Not much. When people are just talking past each other, the groundwork cannot be laid for consensus building or finding a potential resolution to the issue at hand. While a debate isn’t necessarily aiming for that outcome, I believe that the participant who can skilfully address their opponent’s main arguments while also emphasising the strength of their own position will enjoy greater persuasive power in the eyes of an audience. Demonstrating a willingness to empathise with an opponent’s position, when authentically embodied, is a potent quality that will distinguish you from them, especially if they are unable or unwilling to reciprocate for fear of coming off as weak to the audience. What they perceive to be their strength by refusing to give this ground will be interpreted as insecurity and pettiness, which can’t help but work in your favour. Be cautious though in using this as a manipulative tactic to turn a debate in your favour as the previous rule about performative insincerity having a scent will be just as applicable to you in the circumstances.
Use both anecdotal and empirical evidence to win others over to your side; appeals to emotion are the strategy of the desperate who will inevitably taste defeat – Whatever is your perspective on an issue that has been informed by your lived experience, that is by itself, not compelling enough evidence to validate your perspective as being generalisable across a broader representative sample. While it may be suggestive of a larger truth, we must reconcile this possibility with the epistemic humility which will bring us to the realisation that there are things beyond what we can see, or have allowed ourselves to see in the world. What I mean when I say ‘allowed ourselves to see’, are the biases, selective sampling of events and blind spots that have us perceive the world in a way that is consistent with our pre-judged beliefs about it. Out of this pre-judging comes a narrative story or ideological framework about how the world works which we can easily become overly invested in and emotive about when other people call its validity or accuracy into question. You see this emotionality spill out in debate settings quite often, to the detriment of those who don’t have the evidentiary support to back up their claims.
As human beings we react viscerally both to and with emotion (which animates our fight or flight response), so when confronted with a person arguing vehemently with anger or some other strong feeling, our inclination will be to verbally bite back just as hard, or to demonstrate a greater level of situational awareness in a debate context by adjusting our mode of communication to turn down the temperature of the interaction. Knowing the latter course to be the preferred option of most people who will choose to be agreeable when faced with opposition, our opponents will often use blusterous displays of emotion as a shield to protect themselves, or more accurately their tenuous position, from dissection and greater scrutiny. Yet, bringing to light the contamination of their own perspective is what we must do. Regardless of how a person feels about a topic or their subjective experience of it, they can’t be so hubristic as to deny the objective nature of what it is they are making claims about. Scientists know this. While they may have an idea of how an aspect of the world works based on their observations of particular phenomena, they don’t mistake their hypothesis for a truth claim, and using that as a starting point for inquiry, their next step will be to prove or disprove their hypothesis empirically in a laboratory experiment or other form of social study. Were they to go around dogmatically shouting at others the purported but as yet backed up truths they have found, they would be openly scorned as a pseudoscientific charlatan.
Like the Yin and Yang gives a visual representation of what appear to be opposing but are actually complementary forces at work, so must we come to appreciate the place that both anecdotal and empirical evidence have in leading us to the truth. Just as the capital ‘T’ Truth of reality is better grounded than any small ‘t’ truth claims that we subjectively hold, so must we be better grounded than in our emotions, and not fall hostage to the pull that they have towards self-serving narratives of righteousness (reflected in our position) and malevolence or ignorance (reflected in our opponent’s perspective). Ego fuelled indignation is a hell of a drug, and if we are not careful to temper its influence over our rational faculties, then we shouldn’t be surprised if people look at us as if we are crazy when we give it a voice.
Dr. L. Christian Duperouzel 