5 Debate Tactics To Avoid With Friends

In this episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast, host Simon Goode discusses five online debate tactics that are ineffective when used with friends and family, and offers alternatives for better communication. He emphasises the importance of avoiding aggressive behaviors like interrupting, applying pressure, and using sarcasm, suggesting instead to listen respectfully, reduce pressure, and acknowledge differing viewpoints. The episode aims to help listeners improve their conflict resolution skills in personal relationships by reflecting on Simon's own past mistakes and learning from them.

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Online Debate Tactics That Don’t Work (With Friends & Family)

1. Interrupting and Controlling the Conversation
   • How it manifests in conversations (e.g., talking over, steering the conversation)
   • Results and outcomes of using this tactic
   • Personal anecdote about Simon’s usage of this tactic
2. Applying Pressure
   • Different ways pressure is applied (e.g., fixed choice questions, not letting thoughts form)
   • Outcomes and the other person’s typical reactions
   • Examples that illustrate pressure application
   • Simon’s discussion on workplace application vs. personal contexts
3. Humor and Ridicule
   • Use of sarcasm and humor in debates
   • Examples of sarcastic ridicule
   • Psychological impact on social survival and tribe dynamics
   • Risks associated with this tactic in emotionally charged conversations
4. Straw Manning
   • Definition and explanation of the straw man argument
   • Examples of straw manning
   • How it causes disengagement
   • Simon’s personal history with this tactic
5. Walking Away
   • Situations where walking away might be seen as losing or ending the debate
   • Impact of unfinished business with friends
   • Importance of long-term relationship dynamics

Effective Strategies for Managing Debates and Disagreements

1. Allowing Space and Letting Them Speak
   • Apologizing for interruptions
   • Focusing on active listening
   • Methods to signal attention and readiness to listen
2. Reducing Pressure
   • Giving control over the timing and location of the conversation
   • Allowing autonomy and choice
   • Examples of reducing perceived pressure
3. Respect and Deference
   • Being overly deferential and respectful in both language and behavior
   • Treating the other person’s perspective with seriousness and importance
   • Situational examples of applying respect and deference
4. Steel Manning
   • Definition of steel manning
   • Techniques to present the other person’s argument in the best possible light
   • Benefits of acknowledging the internal logic of others’ perspectives
5. Leaving Room for Continued Dialogue
   • Confirming the opportunity for future discussions
   • Suggestions for ending conversations on good terms
   • Validating different views without pressure to resolve immediately

Transcript

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Well, hello, and welcome back to the Conflict Skills Podcast. I'm your host, professional mediator, Simon Good. I set up this podcast to provide free resources and tools for dealing with conflict, whether that was connected to workplace conflict or situations outside of work. So if that sounds like the kind of thing that's useful for you, please consider pressing subscribe. In the episode today, I'm going to be talking about 5 debate tactics, and I probably could have put a little brackets there, online debate tactics that don't work with your friends and what to do instead. I have to put my hand up on this one. I've used a lot of these different debate tactics, especially when I was in high school and and in university age and, to be honest, probably throughout my twenties and probably most of my thirties as well. Just when I was talking to people at a barbecue or in the lunch room at work or something and we were talking about an issue, like, at the moment, you'll see people wanting to get in debate debate with you about climate change or immigration or the COVID decisions that happened at the time or all of the, you know, free speech or something. There are these particular issues at the moment that have really stirred people up and I think caused a lot of disruption to the normal harmony that we used to experience in our friends and, you know, colleagues at work and this kind of thing. Because people feel very attached to their view. There's a level of emotional reactivity that, you know, to me, it seems like that's largely driven by a lot of social media and pumping us with this constant emotion of anger and fear. But you see it spilling out. And the way that people have learned to communicate about these kind of topics is to try and attack the other person's view. Now, that kind of an approach attacking the other person's view, it works really well in online debates or televised debates or formal debates or that kind of thing. But it doesn't work with your friends. And for me, when I used to do it, like, I was in high school and I would try to talk to my friends about my religious views. And if they said they have a different one, I would almost ridicule it or laugh at them or be like, oh, you're telling me you think this, do you? That just sounds bloody ridiculous. I thought you're an intelligent person or something. And it just would have been so irritating. And, honestly, I wonder about what level of connection and closeness that cost me just needing to peacock and win, so to speak. And I didn't let go of it even ironically as my own subjective views changed. Like at early uni, I can remember largely standing up and saying social justice is really value I've got and all this kind of thing because I was working in youth crisis centers and with homelessness. And I set up a refugee, mentoring program in the first job that I had when I was working with Sir Vincent de Paul. You know, I really did care about helping people who were disadvantaged. And at the time, I thought this concept of social justice was like, it is a way to help us know who to help and what's gonna be the best way to help them. In other words, don't just give someone money, like, help their kids access school so that they might be able to escape some of the same patterns that their parents were sucked into. But that whole phrasing became conscripted, and obviously, there's different kinds of ideologies that are attached to that these days. I'm in my mid forties now, so that was 20 years ago that I was at uni. But for me, my views would change, and I gradually became, in some ways, more conservative, in other ways, more liberal, you know, around different issues. My views would shift around immigration or economic decisions that I thought the government should make. Like, I'm not making any of these decisions. It's so hilarious that I even have to have a subjective view about some of these kind of things. But I used to think that I was right. Now you might listening to me talk, ask me something like or think something like, well, Simon, how could you have been right before as well as after because your view changed? And, you know, that's an incredibly good point. And I have to say that that never particularly occurred to me. And I don't think I was actually open to other people's perspectives at the time. I really did approach conversations as a bit of a debate, and my goal was largely to win. And one of the things I've really enjoyed about Jordan Peterson's general approach, you know, what he says you should do, but also what he actually does when he's in conversations is that he really does attempt to learn. And assuming that the other person knows something that you don't know, for example, might be a good starting point to help you come at it from that kind of a lens is that this is a curious issue here. Even like, how can you hold that view? I know that you're a smart and intelligent person. I would like to know what happened or what you learned that led you to believe that this kind of thing. So if we're not going to use the aggressive, you know, argumentative kind of debate tactics that we see on online debates. What else should we do? So I'm going to go through 5 specific debate tactics that I've seen people use, and I've used myself when I've been in conversations with friends or colleagues or this kind of thing. And I'm also then going to talk about the opposite. I'll explain why that happens and why these kind of things affect us so much and why some of those other strategies that we can use would be so much more helpful. So the first topic that I wanted to talk about was this general concept of interrupting, talking over, controlling, trying to steer the conversation to a particular example, trying to make them answer your question before you answer theirs. It's all of this kind of like I'm in control, I'm dominating you patterns of communication. Now you might feel very justified in doing it. It's possible that they just talked for 5 minutes, and as soon as you've said something, they've jumped in and interrupted you. And so it is a bit of a power game, I think, sometimes, like, who's in control of the conversation? And so you would need to decide in that kind of a moment, what's your goal? Like, if this is a debate, if you're in a work meeting, for example, and someone keeps interrupting you, you probably wouldn't let it continue indefinitely. You'd find some, some point to stand up for yourself and to say, I beg your pardon. Would you mind if I finish speaking before you you respond? I'd be happy to listen to you then. But would you mind if I just express my view first? I did my best to listen to you. Would you mind listening to me? And then I'd be happy to turn it back over to you and give you a chance to respond. But with your friends, it just feels so clunky to say, you know, oh, come on. You talked for ages. Can't you listen to me when I'm talking? Like, why? Do you know what I mean? And when you control the other person, what tends to happen is that they overreact. You know what I mean? Like, they might not be aware of the fact that they're interrupting you because as they become more emotional and they become more escalated, they lose sight of it. Their perception adjusts. They lose track of that peripheral vision kind of things, like the nonverbal cues that you're giving them. Like your eyebrows are furrowed because you're like, what the hell is wrong with you? Like, why are you jumping in? I wasn't obviously not finished talking or something like that. But what you don't want to do is to respond in kind every time you're interrupting or talking over the top or controlling or trying to steer the conversation to a particular example or point. These kind of tactics work well in online debates, but when you're talking to your friends or or family or other relationships, it's obviously not going to be very helpful. So the second topic that I wanted to talk about was applying pressure. This could be manifested in a few different ways. It might be forcing them into fixed choice questions like, well, is it true or not? I asked you a yes or no kind of question. Like, why won't you answer me? It could be this kind of thing. It might be not letting him have time to think, like, well, well, you don't have anything to say, do you? Like, following up a question with those kind of things. And, oh, man, it's just so tempting. It feels so good when you finally caught someone out and you're like, well, got nothing to say. You got no grounds to stand on, do you? You know, how is the other person going to react? It's like a cat that's been cornered, and they're gonna come out scratching. They're gonna come out swinging. This is often the point where they'll just say, f off or something like that. Like, just tell us to go jump, but probably use a lot stronger language than that. Because when you exert pressure, they're probably going to feel the need to exert pressure in response. It happens physically. Like when someone approaches us and crowds in and gets really in your face, you start to feel escalated. And the same thing is true intellectually. When someone's crowding us and getting in our face, we start to feel like we need to defend ourselves. So obviously, the opposite of this would be to allow greater space, give them a sense of control. We'll go through some additional options that we can use for that in a moment. But that's the second tactic that you want to avoid is applying pressure In a debate, oh, it's just magnificent. It's so entertaining when someone's caught out wrong and they're put on the spot and you can see them squirming, especially if you agreed with the other person and you thought that they were wrong. It's like seeing them get their just desserts, isn't it? But in reality, when we're dealing with our friends, I if it's someone that I care about, I don't want to see them get their just desserts. Now, by the way, I'm focusing on relationships today with our friends and the kind of strategies that work or don't work there. But you should also think about this for other kind of relationships, even if you're not friends. Like one example would be your ex partner. If you've gone through divorce and separated and you have kids together. So you need to do separated parenting and that kind of thing. Like, I don't want my separated parent to be smashed down with all these arguments in public and be ridiculed and shamed and embarrassed. I mean, the truth is, I probably do want that. Like, there is a part of me that probably would like to get revenge, especially if they cheated on me or they didn't give me a chance to do counseling or whatever the thing is that I'm still upset about. But we need to actively resist that inclination that we've got, that drive towards getting control and writing the ledger and, you know, punishing the person that's angry at us and getting revenge. It's so tantalizing when it's in front of us. So we might need to what's that phrase that I used to hear? It was in the circle of security training. Parents need to be bigger, wiser, calmer, and kinder than their kids. And I think for separated parents, it's no different. And deciding not to apply pressure when you can, I think that's probably an example of deciding to be the bigger person in that kind of a situation? I don't know. What do you think? I'd I'd be curious to hear your perspective on all of that kind of stuff. Excuse me. As I have a drink, the the best way to get in touch is the email address podcast at simongood.com. And I've I've had some just really lovely emails coming through lately. So, thank you very much for those kind people who have been willing to write in and let me know, you know, where you where you're from and why you listen to the podcast and what do you think of it all and what's useful, that kind of thing. So we've talked about that first topic of interrupting, talking over, controlling. The second general theme there was adding pressure, putting the person on the spot, increasing that level of intensity. The 3rd, I think, tactic that often works in a debate is humor and a little bit of mixed a little bit of ridicule mixed in, if that makes sense. So it might be responding sarcastically to the something that the person says or, like, really it could be the tone of voice, I guess, is what I'm saying, or you might sarcastically refer to the scant level of evidence that they have. So even though despite the fact that there's absolutely no evidence for this, you still claim that that's something that you know is true, even though, as I've said, there is already no evidence for it. I mean, of course, if you're going to say that kind of thing to somebody, it just upsets them. And I really like the way that some people stand their ground on this one when I'm doing training workshops. I'll say, you know, sarcasm and humor, look, they're just potentially risky. I'm not saying you wouldn't do them in all relationships and all context, but especially when we're thinking about conflict and the tension is starting to increase a little bit. Ridicule, sarcasm, humor, all that kind of stuff just might not be the best option to use here. And some people say, oh, I'm just the kind of person that uses sarcasm or something. It's like, well, what's that old saying? If you always do what you've always done, then you'll always get what you've already got. And so I think for a lot of people, when they use sarcasm, it triggers the other person, and and I don't think they care or I don't think they notice, but it's one or the other because they're probably going to just continue to upset the other person. Why? It's because of part of why we're wired to live in tribes. We don't want shame and embarrassment and ridicule as a part of that because it's not good for our survival. Historically speaking, if people see us doing something dumb, they're not going to prioritize us. They're not going to share resources with us as freely. They don't want to trade with us. They don't want to partner with us to, you know, make babies and all this kind of thing. So it's not good for our general survival to look bad in front of the other people around you. And some people are a little bit more sensitive to this than others. And you might even find that when people are wrong and they realize that they might be put on the spot for being wrong, that little bit of sarcasm or that little bit of humor, the twinge in your voice that maybe they could deal with on other days on this particular day, it might really set them off. So the 4th debate tactic that I think doesn't work particularly with your friends is straw manning arguments. This is where we try to look for the least positive way of framing the other person's view. You know, we say, so you so you've made a jump from this to this, have you? And they're like, no. There's a few different bits and pieces in there. You're skipping over the fact that there's all the science. And so you might quote them and say, oh, so the science is the thing that convinced you. Is it the science? Do you listen to the science even if it tells you to jump off a cliff? Like, this is an example of straw manning them. You know, even though they might not have looked into the science in detail, it's not like other decisions that we make in general society doesn't follow what experts recommend. So you might be challenging either the accuracy of the science and the evidence that they're talking about or trying to point out the fact that they might not be familiar with it even though they think that they are or that the particular people that they're talking about are biased or, you know, it's usually much more effective to actually go to the heart of what's wrong with the other person's argument. Whereas if all we do is come across as straw manning it, not giving it the benefit of the doubt, then it tends to make people just want to disengage. If you don't show up with a general view that you're going to make an attempt to listen to the other person and give them the benefit of the doubt and sort of do your best to understand their point of view and assume that it's probably reasonable, at least from their perspective and where they they see it, then they're probably not gonna wanna continue talking to you. And for me, I think, especially as a teenager, this was probably the number one of these different options that I used to use. Definitely, I had the sarcasm and the ridicule built in, but the straw manning kind of stuff, I I used it because, you know, I I read a lot. Like, I I had a good, vocabulary even back then, and so I could probably find some way to make it sound a little bit stupid or something like that. And and, again, ironically, these are often views that now I've shifted into and now hold myself, but at the time, I was quite anti. So the 5th theme, the 5th of these different tactics that usually doesn't work, they do work in debates, though, is just walking away, just storming off, just hanging up, mic drop. I think sometimes this can be a sign of losing. You know, if you're not willing to continue, that's alright. But I think in other situations, it's like there is a point where you just stop. You've said your point. You've pointed out what they've what, why what they've said is wrong. You've addressed the concerns that they've raised. You've repeated yourself a couple of times. Like, in some situations, I think that's time when it's just like this is the end. But certainly, in a lot of online debates, you'll see there's a timer. Like, it's a 10 minute thing, and then that's the end. Or it's a 1 hour thing, and that's the end. And they storm off and hang up. And the challenge is that with your friends, it doesn't just stop there. Like, if you've really smashed them for an hour and made them feel really silly and ridiculed the worldview that their parents have or something else, then you're gonna see them again next time. So this flow on effect that we often encounter later due to the way that we've acted, it really does affect the closeness that we have with our friends or the level of trust or how warm they feel towards us or how supported they feel by us and and all this kind of thing. So let's go through some of the different strategies that we can use instead. Now, obviously, it's typically going to be the opposite that tends to work. So instead of interrupting and talking over the top of the other person, let them speak. Now if you can't resist, if you just blurt something out before you've realized that now all of a sudden you have interrupted them, immediately apologize and let them continue. I'm so sorry. Please continue. And you might even say things like, look. I'd I'd I'd really like to do my best just to listen if that would be okay. I'm sorry. I know that for some of these things, it's a bit personal for me, and and I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks. But I do want to understand where you're coming from. If you'd be willing to share it, I'll do my best to listen. And and if I do interrupt, just let me know, and I'll I'll try and zip it again. So it's kind of acknowledging ahead of time that I might have a little bit of trouble with this, but you want to let them know that they can have your attention, like, that you've got their they've got your focus. This is part of what I talk about when I'm doing de escalation skills training in the element of status. We want to give them their attention. We want to give them our focus. And it's not just giving them our attention or giving them our focus. It's their perception of our attention. So body language and and all of those different aspects, letting them know you're going to focus on them, letting them know that they've got this much time or you shut the door in your office or something like that. There are all sorts of different cues that we can send the other person that lets them know that we're listening. Excuse me as I just have another drink. Just water today. I promise. I've heard about the trick of, putting vodka or whiskey or something like that in a coffee mug. And so that's one of the downsides of having video is that I won't be able to continue my rampant alcoholism, but, you know, I suppose I could still find some sort of a way to do it, with, you know, clear colored alcohol or something like that if I need. So the next strategy that tends to work as opposed to those online debate tactics is reducing the pressure. We want to give them a sense of control. Let them choose where and when a conversation happens. Let them decide whether or not they continue. This is an incredibly useful tactic, I think. Like, I'm sorry. This might not be the best time to talk about all of this kind of stuff. Or if you're in the ute driving along with one of your workmates and things get a bit heated, like, you might just decide to stop or or give them the choice of stopping. I'm sorry. I mean, this isn't the kind of thing that you probably normally get into with the people that you work with. Look. I'll be happy just to leave it there if you want or if you wanna keep talking about it, that's fine with me as well. But I'm not adding that sense of pressure. Like, I want an answer from you. I'm saying to them, hey. Do you wanna have a chat about this? Or what do you reckon? Like, should we talk about the cricket or the footy or something instead? Or have you got a particular perspective on that? Would you be willing to walk me through it? I'm curious about that kind of thing. So we're wanting to reduce that sense of pressure, give them a sense of being in control, allow them that autonomy, their sense of choice. The third strategy that we could use is to add a sense of being respectful or deferential. This is something I know that Bill Eddy talks about when he's dealing with high conflict personalities, the important aspects of being friendly or respectful, so to speak. But I think it works with everybody, especially if they're starting to get angry and you're talking about a disagreement that you've got with one of their views. You know, there probably is an element in the way that you're communicating that does come across as disrespectful. It's in the eye of the perceiver, so they might just experience it in that way. And that's not necessarily connected to anything that you're doing. Like, you might be the kind of person that doesn't mind having pretty robust direct conversations with someone even if you disagree. That's something that you can manage. Whereas other people, it's not part of either their value system or what they're used to. That kind of muscle memory almost isn't built into them to engage in this kind of conversation. So you might need to do your best to appear overly deferential or overly respectful in terms of the language that you're using, the tone of voice, even like letting them choose where to see it or, I don't know, offering them a notepad or something like that. We want to help them to feel important. Let them choose the first agenda item. Let them go first in, you know, putting their point forward. If you're getting in an argument about which footy team's gonna win or something like that, it's probably not such a big deal. If it's an argument about, I don't know, what we're gonna do with grandma's ashes and it's one of your siblings, then you might deal with it a little bit more formally, if you know what I mean. But those online debate tactics are still not going to work. We want to be overly deferential and overly respectful. The 4th option that I wanted to mention is we want to give them a steel man. Now, a straw man is when we take their argument and make it seem as crap and illogical and, you know, just as stupid as possible, basically. Whereas the steel man argument is where we make the other person's perspective seem as valid as possible. We can understand the logic in it. We can understand that although this is their subjective perspective, that internally it does make sense. Or we could say that the ethics underneath it we agree with. It's just probably we've got different ideas about the way to implement it. We could say that because we've got very different experiences, of course, it makes sense that we're gonna have different views around some of these things. And you could even say, look, ultimately, it's probably not the end of the world if we disagree about this. Neither of us are decision makers around, I don't know, sustainable energy decisions or something like that. And so I'm wanting to show them that I'm I just really do appreciate the fact that their view to them probably does make sense. And I don't want to give them the sense that my goal is to come in and rip the heart out of it. I want to give them the sense that my goal is to understand it. So I might say something like, look, if I understand you correctly, it sounds like you believe this and this. You think this, and that's largely because of the evidence around this. This is primarily because of this thing that happened or this expert or this, you know, document or something, but you also add some weight to this other observation that you've had as well. So in that way, it really does seem like we're giving their view a lot of credibility. And once we can acknowledge it and validate it, that's often the point where they might start to feel comfortable considering or reconsidering it. Whereas if we say you're you're obviously wrong, give me a break here, then they're just going to probably not even engage us. And certainly, we don't have very much chance of changing their mind. I don't know. What what are your perspectives around all of that? So then the final one is, let them know that you can continue. Like, whereas walking away and storming off and hanging up, like, that kind of thing can work sometimes in the online debates, you know, arguably. It certainly doesn't work with our friends. So let them know that we can continue. If you've had a tense conversation, let them know that you're happy to talk about it. Maybe once the dust is settled and you've had a chance to clear your heads a little bit or, after you've both had a chance to get a bit of distance or something like that. Or maybe you don't. But you don't wanna give the sense that they have to sort it out right now. You don't need to disagree about everything. You're willing to give it some thought. And that's, I think, a nice way of ending these kind of disagreements if we have them with their friends to say something like, look. I really appreciate you sharing your view, and and I'd like to give it some thought. So you're not promising. You're not saying they're right or anything. It's just yeah. I I really appreciate that. If there's something genuinely respectful that you can say that can be helpful, I actually haven't thought about it in exactly that way before. Or I'm not sure whether I've heard anyone put it in that way. The way that you articulated some of that, it it it really did make sense why if this was your priority, then you might think this was what should happen moving forward. Whereas I've got different things that I'm looking at in terms of what's the priority. So it makes sense then what why the plan that I would come up with might look a little bit different. So we're just normalizing and validating that potential difference. We've had different experiences, so, of course, we're gonna have different views. Final drink of water. So I hope that that's been helpful for you thinking about those 5 different debate tactics that tend not to work, the interrupting and talking over the top, adding the pressure, the adding humor and ridicule, the straw manning of the arguments, and then the sudden ends or the abrupt and final ends. And some of those options that we can use instead, letting them space, speak, giving them space, resisting the urge to blurt something out or apologizing when that happens, adding a sense of control, reducing the sense of perceived pressure, letting them choose when and where, giving them a choice, all of that kind of stuff. We want to increase the sense of being respectful and deferential. We don't want to straw man. In fact, we want to steel man their arguments instead. Let them know that we can understand the internal logic and maybe even just suggest that there might be different circumstances where we would think in the same way as them or at least differently to how we think at the moment. And let them know that you're willing to continue even though there's not the pressure to sort it out. It's okay to disagree, so to speak, in the in the short term, that you're willing to listen to them and ultimately to still hear what they have to say down the track. I think this is the give and take that people are often looking for. If our goal ultimately is to convince them that we're right and, you know, of course, arrogant Simon usually still does think that he's right about all of these different things. I was saying to my wife the other day, you know, it's still bizarre to me that not everybody thinks the way that I do. And she's laughing saying, yeah. I've noticed that one actually. That that does seem to be a perspective that you've got. And she's ironically noticing the same thing that I said earlier, that my views have changed so much. But I still expect everything else to logically and rationally come to exactly the same conclusions that I've got. So we don't wanna make that mistake of assuming that everybody thinks the way that we do. Instead, we want to convey that impression that to some extent, it's okay, natural that we're going to have different perspectives on this. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we can't have a discussion to talk it through, maybe refine the ideas that we've got to consider options for tweaking and managing things differently moving forward or holding on to what's working. And ultimately, I suppose my hope is that in hearing some of these different debate tactics, whether or not it's on the side that tend not to be very helpful or some of those more positive ones that I've mentioned, is that you might be able to avoid making some of those awkward and embarrassing teenage and 20 year old Simon and 30 year old Simon, kind of communication mistakes that I used to make with my friends. And I'm very grateful to say that I don't make them as much as I used to. And if you've got an idea for a future episode of the podcast or a question about something that I've mentioned there, please feel free to get in touch. The best way to contact me is by email. The address is podcast at simongood.com, and my name is simon, s I m o n, and then good is g, double o, d e.com. So as I mentioned, if you've got an idea for a future episode, but I also just love to hear from you. Like, where are you from and what role are you in and why do you find the podcast helpful and do you like the workplace kind of stuff or the personal conflict kind of side of things or what is it that resonates with you? I would really like to know that because my goal is to make the podcast as useful as possible. So when I can get that feedback directly from you or the people who are listening, I just value it so much. So So thank you in advance if that's something that you're prepared to do. If it's useful, please consider pressing like and give me a good review and subscribe for additional resources for dealing with conflict. Thank you very much. Bye for now.