our Twitter (X) feedView our Youtube channelView our Instagram feedView our Substack feedView our Spotify feed Two-time debate champion Bo Seo breaks down why arguments fail, four bad-faith personas that hijack conversations, and a four-question framework for picking worthy fights. Bo Seo is a two-time world champion debater and a former coach of the Australian national debating team and the Harvard College Debating Union. One of the most recognized figures[…] Bo Seo is a two-time world champion debater and a former coach of the Australian national debating team and the Harvard College Debating Union.
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But it's also the hidden crisis of all the people who are driven away from participating in those conversations at all because they fear that it's going to be pointless or it's going to be painful and it's not going to be worth their time. Good arguments is not only what democracies have to do. It's what they on their best days aspire to be, which is a conversation between people who disagree sometimes over irreconcilable things to find areas of agreement to spot points where they need to work across their differences to reach a better solution.
One of the reasons why our arguments are so divisive and painful and present is that we've allowed the skills of disagreeing well to atrophy. We no longer view argument as a skill and as something to be worked at. Rather, we see it as something we jump into out of instinct or defensiveness.
The bad arguments that result in turn decrease our confidence in what disagreements can do for us. And when we lack that faith in what arguments can do, we tend to approach them more defensively. We tend to go into it with a more defensive posture.
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