Good Arguments: History, RISA Framework, and Listening Techniques

The author, a two-time world debate champion and former coach of the Australian National and Harvard debate teams, wrote "Good Arguments" to address a crisis in public conversation. This crisis is visible in divisive public disagreements and hidden in the reluctance of many to participate, fearing pointlessness or pain. Good arguments are essential for democracies, allowing people with differing views to find common ground and work towards better solutions.

The Decline of Good Arguments

The current state of divisive arguments stems from the atrophy of skills in disagreeing well. Argument is no longer seen as a skill to be honed but rather an instinctual or defensive reaction. This leads to poor arguments, which in turn erodes confidence in the value of disagreement, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of declining conversational quality.

Historical Roots of Debate

The tradition of good argument is deeply rooted in history:

• Ancient Greece: The ability to persuade and engage in discussion was a requirement of citizenship, central to self-governance.
• 17th-18th Century London: Tea houses, pubs, and coffee houses served as informal forums where citizens debated current affairs, mirroring parliamentary discussions.
• United States Founding: Many founding fathers established debate clubs in colleges, viewing debate as crucial for the new nation's spirit.

This tradition, though less visible today, has historically featured prominently in public life. A notable example is the series of debates between civil rights leaders James Farmer and Malcolm X. Despite shared objectives, they openly and candidly voiced their disagreements, knowing they would be met with respect and that the conversation would lead to insights neither could achieve alone.

Lessons from the Farmer-Malcolm X Debates

Three key lessons emerge from these debates:

1. Importance of Training: Both Farmer and Malcolm X honed their skills through rigorous debate training. Farmer was coached by Melvin Tolson (memorialized in "The Great Debaters"), and Malcolm X developed his voice in a prison debate program. For public debates to enrich understanding, training in these skills, especially for young people, is crucial.
2. Importance of Format: These debates often allowed extended time for speakers to present arguments without interruption, with the understanding that each person would have their turn. This format encouraged listening and thoughtful responses, unlike the rapid-fire interruptions common today.
3. Importance of Relationship: Beyond public encounters, Farmer and Malcolm X built a personal relationship, visiting each other's homes and families. This deeper connection allowed for greater candor and honesty in their debates, knowing there was a foundation of respect to fall back on.

The Author's Personal Journey with Debate

The author's journey into debate began after moving from South Korea to Australia in third grade without speaking English. Struggling with the nuances of real-life conversation, especially in disagreements, they initially became agreeable and reserved. Debate offered a "salvation" with its clear rule: "when one person speaks, no one else does."

Being an outsider taught the author the importance of listening, reading a room, and understanding the context before speaking. This marginal perspective, often shared by successful debaters, highlights that effective debate involves intense listening—not just to the opponent, but also from the audience's perspective to anticipate their needs. What started as a disadvantage became a strength, reinforcing the idea that to be heard, one must first listen.

Cultivating a Rich Information Diet

The quality of debates depends on the information, knowledge, and skills debaters bring. A concerning trend is the lack of varied and rich information diets.

• Media as Equipment, Not Substitution: Cable news debates should not replace personal engagement. Political leaders and media personalities should not be avatars to whom we outsource our thinking and conversations. Instead, media should be a source of information and knowledge to equip us for our own discussions.
• Diversity of Sources: Relying on diverse information sources is crucial. Partisan media often feeds the desire for validation, reflecting existing beliefs. Just as debate encourages seeking out productive differences, a rich information diet exposes us to varied perspectives, challenging our own thinking.

The author's love for debate and different perspectives is tied to a life of constant relocation (South Korea, Australia, US, China). Each move required translation, adaptation, and extensive information gathering—through news and conversations—to understand new surroundings. This experience taught the author to resist easy answers and piece together a mosaic of different perspectives.

The Active Art of Listening in Debate

Listening in debate is an active process, not passive reception. Debaters, with paper and pen ready, perform three key actions:

1. Accurate Transcription: They meticulously record what the other person says, often revealing discrepancies between perception and reality.
2. Argument Reconstruction: They distill the opponent's argument to its core, aiming to represent it in a way the opponent would recognize as faithful.
3. Argument Strengthening: They consider how the opponent's argument could be made even stronger, anticipating potential improvements.

This process of listening, reconstructing, and strengthening aims to engage with the opponent's case more fully.

Two lessons from debaters' listening apply to everyday life:

1. Understand the Opposition as They Understand Themselves: It's counterproductive to twist an opponent's meaning, take it at its worst, or capture only a fraction. For a genuine disagreement, the opponent must feel heard and understood. Otherwise, it's a quarrel, not a debate.
2. Respond to the Strongest Version: Engaging with the strongest possible version of an opponent's argument, even building it up, elevates the conversation. This challenges both sides to think more deeply and leads to better outcomes.

The RISA Framework for Productive Disagreements

Arguments are easy to start because differences are natural, but hard to end when all potential conflicts flood in. To be more judicious in choosing disagreements, the author developed the RISA framework:

Before engaging in a disagreement, ask:

1. Real: Is the disagreement genuinely real, or is it an imagined slight or misunderstanding?
2. Important: Is it important enough to justify the disagreement?
3. Specific: Is the topic specific enough to allow for progress?
4. Aligned: Are you and the other person aligned in your objectives for the conversation?

While RISA doesn't guarantee success, it maximizes the chances of a productive conversation. A limitation is the increasing difficulty of finding alignment in objectives, especially when parties aim to hurt each other rather than engage constructively.

Applying RISA to family gatherings (e.g., holidays):

• Name the Disagreement: Clearly define the specific point of contention to prevent it from escalating into a broader, unruly conflict.
• Align Objectives: Negotiate why each person wants to engage. Are they seeking persuasion, understanding, or merely contrarianism? This alignment can improve the conversation.

Wisdom lies in knowing which arguments to respond to and which parts. Debaters ask:

• Is a point necessary to challenge to resolve the overall dispute?
• Will challenging it help make progress on the overall dispute?

This selective approach prevents arguments from becoming unruly, all-encompassing disputes. The RISA framework helps establish a "contract" for the disagreement. If someone tries to deviate, remind them of the agreed-upon parameters.

The "Side Switch" Exercise and Empathy

Debate often involves certainty, researching one's side thoroughly. However, before a debate, skilled debaters perform "side switch" exercises:

• They write down the four best arguments for the opposing side.
• They review their own case through the eyes of a fervent opponent, identifying flaws and criticisms.
• They imagine losing and determine why.

These exercises pause certainty, allowing a moment of doubt and the possibility of having missed something. This isn't humility or empathy itself, but it creates "wiggle room" for these qualities to emerge. Empathy, often seen as elusive, can be cultivated through actions like putting oneself in an opponent's shoes or critically examining one's own position. This "wiggle room for doubt" is crucial in a world where conversations often feel stuck, with people entrenched in their views.

The side switch exercise and the empathy it fosters are vital not only in personal disagreements but also in political disputes. To practice this, we must remember that individuals are more than their affiliations. Viewing ourselves and others in our "fullness," beyond categories and group memberships, allows for exploring new ideas and understanding nuances, making exercises like side switch most effective.

Why Arguments Break Down: Undebatable Topics and the Role of Rhetoric

The Undebatable Line

The author argues for one bright line: we should not debate the equal moral standing of persons. The premise of debate is that every voice is worth hearing equally. Debating the inferiority of any group undermines this fundamental principle.

Recent attempts to shut down debates or deplatform speakers, while sometimes a response to a lack of constructive disagreement, also reflect a lack of confidence in disagreement's potential for anything other than pain. Debate skills, including the RISA framework and side switching, expand the scope of what can be discussed by strengthening our ability to engage with contentious issues humanely and productively. This is crucial when pressures exist to shut down debate, allowing for more inclusive conversations.

The Power of Rhetoric

There's a widespread distrust of rhetoric, often dismissed as "mere rhetoric" or manipulation. This suspicion dates back to Socrates' accusation against Gorgias, viewing rhetoric as divorced from truth and preying on emotions.

However, the author takes an opposing view: rhetoric is necessary precisely because of human frailties like laziness and apathy. It provides the "activation energy" needed to change minds and act on those changes. While it involves emotions and passion, a conversation without these human elements is diminished and lacks the richness of real human interaction.

Just as powerful skills like nuclear physics or martial arts require tools to manage their potential for good or evil, so does rhetoric. Understanding both the constructive and destructive faces of rhetoric provides immunity against demagoguery and its abuses.

Three Principles for Effective Rhetoric

Debate offers three principles for using rhetoric effectively:

1. Proportionality: The claims, words, and gestures used should be in sync with the argument's content, avoiding exaggeration or understatement.
2. Personality: Bring oneself into the argument by explaining one's own journey to a particular position. People are good at judging others, and sharing one's process can help the audience connect and undergo their own change.
3. Panache: Crafting language, using voice and gesture effectively, and creating "applause lines" signals to the listener that their attention is valued and that effort has been made to present a convincing argument.

Schopenhauer's "Eristic Dialectic" and the Rules of Debate

Arthur Schopenhauer, a philosopher known for his pessimistic view of humanity and confrontational style, wrote "Eristic Dialectic," a parody offering 38 tactics for winning arguments "at all costs" (e.g., interrupting, name-calling, changing the subject). The question is whether he believed this was all humanity was capable of, or if it was a satirical call to aspire to better.

The rules of debate are crucial because they define what makes a conversation a debate, rather than mere conflict or an exchange of insults. Without rules, the rewarded behaviors become silencing opponents, dominant performances, or inciting audience jeers. Rules are necessary to reward reasoning, thinking, responding, and listening.

Schopenhauer's parody also offers a glimmer of hope: by understanding the tactics of bullies, we can counter them and deter their use, nudging conversations in a better direction.

Vulnerability to Bad Faith Actors

Debate is vulnerable to bad faith actors because it rewards both persuasiveness and the perception of persuasiveness. Adjudicators and audiences, often lacking deep knowledge of the subject or speakers, rely on body language and signals of dominance. Bullies exploit this by appearing unshakable, even when losing, focusing on spectacle over reason. This susceptibility stems from human imperfections: a desire to be flattered, to have beliefs validated, to be on the winning side, or to feel protected by strength. Bad faith arguers target these insecurities.

The 2016 Presidential Debates: A Case Study

The author and a debate partner were assigned to review the 2016 presidential debates but ultimately couldn't, concluding it wasn't a debate but a "brawl." This experience, contrasting with the author's triumph in the World University's Debate Championships, highlighted how the debate format could be exploited and degraded. The quick transformation of a structured stage with rules and moderators into a rule-less brawl, where dominance and embarrassment were currency, revealed that the darker impulses for bad disagreements reside within all of us. Both the capacity to disagree well and badly must be managed to guide arguments towards good outcomes.

Four Personas of Bad Arguers and How to Respond

To counter bad faith debaters, the author identifies four common personas:

1. The Dodger: Changes the topic by finding a pivot point.
   • Example: Responding to a climate change argument by questioning the speaker's car choice.
   • Response: Stay the course, bring the discussion back to the original point, and highlight the attempt to change the subject.
2. The Twister: Misrepresents the opponent's point (straw man).
   • Example: Responding to "opposed to increasing taxes" with "so you have no concern for social security?"
   • Response: Correct the record immediately. Having the vocabulary to identify a "straw man" helps diagnose the issue.
3. The Wrangler: Critiques everything but offers no alternatives.
   • Problem: Their critiques may be valid, but if their solution is better than the status quo, it's still preferable.
   • Response: Pin them to a position by asking, "What do you believe?" or "What's your alternative?"
4. The Liar: Tells many lies, overwhelming the opponent.
   • Problem: Responding to every lie is impractical and wastes time.
   • Response:
     1. Choose one or two representative lies that exemplify their approach.
     2. Plug and Replace: Imagine the lie is true and explain the problems that arise from that assumption.
     3. Replace the lie with the truth, demonstrating how the lie falls short and is symptomatic of a broader deceptive approach.
     4. Name the tactic: point out that they are trying to overwhelm with lies.

Responding to Dominant, Blustering Bullies

When facing a dominant, confident bully:

1. Stay the Course: Do not shrink or imitate their behavior. Maintain your own approach.
2. Pause and Reframe: Ask if the goal is a debate or something else. Bullies often change the nature of the conversation. Refuse to play their game (e.g., trash-talking).
3. Defer the Conversation: If progress is impossible, stop the conversation until conditions are more conducive to a productive discussion.

These strategies empower individuals to respond to bullies and reset the conversation.

The Brawler Persona

The fifth persona, the Brawler, aims to fundamentally change the conversation from a debate into a brawl where "anything goes."

• Response:
  • Remind them it's a debate, not a brawl. Most people can be brought back to a constructive mode.
  • If they are unamenable, shift your aim from persuasion to checking their lies or offering an alternative perspective.

Challenging bad faith actors early and often is crucial because their power and the spread of their lies increase without opposition. This toolkit allows us to challenge views that would otherwise go unchecked.

The Nixon-Khrushchev "Kitchen Debate"

During the Cold War, Richard Nixon (then US Vice President) debated Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow. Nixon, a trained debater, refused to be drawn into Khrushchev's blustering, interruptive style. He stayed the course, paused, called out interruptions, and when necessary, deferred the conversation. This demonstrated how debate skills could be effectively used even against a dominant, aggressive opponent, contrasting with Nixon's later perceived loss in the televised debates with JFK.

The Dangers of "Civil Silence"

Thomas Hobbes, living through periods of war, concluded that disagreements lead to petty disputes that can escalate into destructive conflicts. He advocated for "civil silence," tolerating differences without overt disagreement to avoid conflict.

While the author acknowledges the appeal of minimizing differences, especially when feeling vulnerable, he argues that focusing solely on commonalities leads to an "impoverished life." Differences are a source of challenge, a way to piece together truth from different perspectives, and a means to learn and grow.

Debate is one answer to the question of how to disagree better, but not the only one. We can also negotiate, collaborate, tolerate, or simply let some things pass. Similarly, disagreement is one approach to the broader project of living together, alongside coexistence and navigation.