To Win ANY Argument Ben Shapiro Says Do THIS?! | Debate Teacher Reacts

If somebody calls you a bigot, you say that's not true and you're an a**hole, forget about the disrespect.

I don't agree with that. He had me, we were a couple minutes in and now, no, I, no. The best way, in my opinion, to deal with this is to make them back their claim up with some evidence. And apparently, if you're eating an apple while doing it, you get like a million risk points in the process.

A lot of people would, would say that you're simply taking a page out of the Donald Trump book.

I'd be like, which people would say that?

Well, I'm sure a great many Canadians, but.

Debate Reaction to Ben Shapiro’s Advice on Winning Arguments

Welcome back to another video here at Wise Disciple. My name is Nate Sala and I'm helping you become the effective Christian that you were meant to be. Got a great video for those of you who are getting out there, you're engaging others and getting into debates.

Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire recently shared his tips on how to win any argument. Many of you know about Shapiro and his bona fides. I mean, he's made quite a name for himself by specifically arguing with other people for years, but is his advice solid?

Let's take a look at it and evaluate it. By the way, before I created this ministry, I was a debate teacher. So let's see if Shapiro is giving you good advice or not.

All righty, folks. So we are here today to go through five rules for debate. I get asked about this a lot. What are some of the best tactics for debate? It's really not about tactics or tricks or anything like that.

It really is more about trying to understand what the other person thinks and then critiquing what they think in a good faith way. That's the best way to do a discussion and a debate. Actually, there's sort of the same thing.

So I've been wanting to highlight this more as I continue to do debate reactions, because I think it's beneficial for you to understand this. And it's simply the idea that when it comes to debate, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

Whatever I tell you, right, in these debate reactions is my take on it from my vantage point as a debate teacher. But others have different ideas, right? So when it comes to best practices, different people are going to say slightly different things.

Why?

Well, because debate is an art. I was talking to James White about this. It's like rock and roll. And rock and roll artists create their music differently. And at the end of the day, we as the audience still say, man, that's rock and roll, right?

So let's go through Shapiro's philosophy of debating and see if we can pull out some nuggets that can help us be better communicators.

Asking Questions for Clarification

One, you have to ask questions for clarification. It is very important to understand exactly what your opponent is offering. People speak shorthand with one another, and very often this means that they are really inexact in their definition.

So for example, you're talking to somebody and they say, you're a climate denier. You're denying climate change. And you say to them, I need to understand exactly what you're claiming.

This is an excellent point and something that you probably already recognize as you get out there and engage others. People are largely inarticulate communicators. So don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that people are stupid.

I'm saying that many of us have not developed the art of articulating. And so we say things that we know in our own minds, right? We know what we mean to say, but we don't explain it because very often we're not thinking about the fact that the person we're talking to doesn't know what's in our minds.

I'm guilty of this, right? We all are at times. And so we end up leaving crucial pieces of information out of our discussion. But it's very often those very pieces that we need in order to debate and more importantly, in order to clash.

When you ask questions for clarification, it allows you to find areas of agreement because very often when you clarify, you agree or alternatively, you actually see the real grounds of the disagreement.

And that allows you to critique your opponent's argument better.

That's exactly what I'm saying. You cannot clash, which, by the way, clash in debate simply refers to conflict. Clash is the shorter way of referring to a clash of ideas. And so ideally in a debate, you'll have two fully formed positions replete with various contentions that then in turn entails arguments and evidence.

Right. But you want the best representations of two positions to engage with each other. And the way that you do all of that is to draw out clash. But guess what is the enemy of clash? Not defining key terms and phrases, which leads to talking around a person's position.

And this is all why you seek clarification and why you ask questions. And so Shapiro is absolutely correct. This is what you are supposed to do. And he does this extremely well. You know, not only does he ask clarification questions when he needs to, but he also formulates leading questions like a pro.

And of course, I mean, he has a law degree like from Harvard, right?

Not Accepting Your Opponent’s Characterization of You

Second, don't accept your opponent's characterization of you. So when people don't have a good argument, very often what they go to is calling you names. They'll say that you're a bigot, you're a homophobe, you're a hater.

Caitlyn Jenner, I'll call him Caitlyn Jenner.

No, it's her. You're not being polite to the pronoun because it's disrespectful.

OK, this is not actually a tip for folks engaging in formal debates. This is more when you have informal debates, which is what, you know, you see on TV or, you know, this is basically all of our regular discussions with people in person and online.

In formal debates, if you just name call your opponent, you lose. Like you might as well not have gotten up on the stage in the first place. In informal debates, if you name call, you sometimes win. So Shapiro says, don't let people do that to you.

The proper response to that is not what people typically do when somebody calls you a bigot or a hater or a racist or anything like that. Very often, your normal, natural human response, say, I'm not those things.

I'm not a bigot. I'm not a racist. Why would you do that? Why would you say that? That is not the proper response because you do not.

Well, and what happens is you end up you getting you get nervous. It's almost like you want to clutch your pearls. Right. And it throws you off your game. Whatever it was that you were thinking of saying that was more related to the issue at hand for the you know, that provides the fuel for the entire discussion in the first place.

Now you've forgotten it. So sometimes people do this. They call you names because that's just what they're doing. They're emoting. Sometimes people do this on purpose to throw you off.

And you're a bigot means that they're a reasonable person calling you a bigot, which suggests that a reasonable person might think you're a bigot. If somebody calls you a bigot, you say that's not true.

And you're forget about the disrespect. Facts. Don't care about your feelings. That is the actual proper response to that because they're attacking you as a human.

Being. I don't agree with that. He had me. We were a couple of minutes in and now. No, I know. If somebody says you're being a jerk and then you say back, that's not true. Also, you're the jerk. Right.

Is that the proper. Is that the proper response? No. Here's the problem. When someone says anything about your character, they're making a claim. OK, the best way, in my opinion, to deal with this is to make them back their claim up with some evidence in order to make an actual argument.

And apparently if you're eating an apple while doing it, you get like a million risk points in the process. Take a look at what this Canadian politician did when somebody tried to impugn his character on the on the topic.

I mean, in terms of your sort of strategy, currently you're obviously taking the populist pathway.

What does that mean?

Well, appealing, appealing to people's more emotional levels, I would guess. I mean, certainly, certainly, certainly you tap, certainly you tap very strong ideological language quite frequently.

Like what?

Left wing, you know, this and that right wing. I mean, it's that that type of ideological thing.

I never really talk about left or right.

Anyways, a lot of people don't really believe in that. OK, a lot of people would would say that you're simply taking a page out of the.

Donald Trump. Like which people would say that?

Well, I'm sure a great many Canadians, but.

Like who?

I don't know who, but.

Well, you're the one who asked the question, so you must know somebody.

Forcing your opponent to back up their unfounded claims is also the quickest way to make them look foolish, which, by the way, making someone look foolish is not the goal. The goal is just to keep the debate focused on the clash of ideas and off the name calling.

Right. That's how you do that. That's what that looks like. So don't call people. Don't listen to Shapiro on this one. I disagree. Be more like this Canadian politician. I don't even know what his name is.

Having said all that, if you are the type of person your opponent claims you are, you are a jerk in actuality, in real life, then no amount of rhetoric is going to get you out of that one. So bear that in mind, too.

Staying on Topic and Exposing Contradictions

Third, don't get distracted. Don't let your opponent change topics. So people on the left particularly like to shift the argument from one topic to another when they are pressed on the argument.

So here's an example. Yeah, this happens all the time. Sometimes it's unintentional. A lot of times it's intentional. I just pointed this out in a debate reaction I did between Rob Bell and Andrew Wilson.

Bell got pressed by Wilson. And then instead of answering the question, literally shifted subjects by asking Wilson questions about his interpretation of the scripture. What I've taught people for years is when this happens to you, narrate the conversation to your interlocutor.

In other words, say, hey, I was asking a question about this. And then you started talking about something else. Before we shift and we go there, would you mind answering my original question? You see?

So you've narrated the discussion to your interlocutor. And now both of you should be on the same page with how the conversation should move forward productively. That is the best response to someone changing topics.

Hey, real quick. I'm so grateful that you're watching. If I've earned the right to get your sub, I'd love it if you would just click the like and subscribe button. It would really help me to get the video out to more and more people.

I really do appreciate you. You need to get really good at this, guys. And you need to be able to quickly identify when someone does this to you. Shapiro is absolutely correct. Don't let your opponent change topics on you.

You'll be talking about the fact that the police do not disproportionately shoot and kill black men. And they'll immediately shift to, well, you know, what about slavery? So what? We can talk about slavery.

We can talk about the root causes of crime and all those things. That's not what we're talking about right now. Sticking to the topic at hand before moving on to the next topic allows you to have a productive conversation for you have to point out contradictions in arguments that are brought about by your opponent's refusal to be clear in their definitions.

This happens all the time. So people on the left very often will bring out an argument that is vague and that appears to be internally coherent. But when you actually drill down on the definitions is totally incoherent.

This happens a lot in the Christian non-Christian space as well, where, for example, a non-believer will, on the one hand, claim that the ultimate grounding of morality is purely subjective to individuals and then in the very next breath also make objectively moral proclamations about how people should function in society.

OK, but you see how all of this really does come back to clash, right? Asking for clarification, listening closely to contentions and arguments and evidence. Right. And then pointing out contradictions along the way.

All of this draws out clash. And that's what two people should truly be after in any kind of debate. It's not about the person winning. It's about the two positions on a given issue truly clashing and then evaluating which one is superior to the other.

I call that genuinely seeking truth. And that is a unfortunately a very rare feature of the kinds of debates that we typically see, especially here on YouTube.

Remaining Calm and Not Getting Defensive

Fifth, don't get defensive. Hey, this is the biggest one. So I tend to be pretty unflappable in debate. I tend to be pretty removed. But you can catch me on an off day. It's happened before. And getting defensive is the biggest mistake that you can make in a debate because so much of it's attitudinal.

So much of it's about how you look to the rest of the audience. And the truth is that body language matters. You know, having an open affect when you're speaking, right? Using a tone of voice that doesn't appear to be aggressive.

And this stuff is very important in debate. People tend to think that debate is about shouting down the other guy or being more angry than the other guy. That's not true. Debate and discussion to productive discussion is about actually being open to the position of the other person so much so that you're willing to internalize it, understand it, and then agree or disagree with that.

When you do that, you can become a really, really good debater.

I agree with this as well. Remaining calm, not getting defensive is one of the ways that you rhetorically further your position in a debate. Sometimes I talk about the rhetorical aspect of debate and some of the other videos and then people misunderstand and they start thinking about like manipulation.

It's not about manipulation when debate is done properly. Chris Voss talks about this when he mentions the FBI's terrorist negotiation strategies. It's not about manipulating people. It's about recognizing what Aristotle knew a long time ago.

Right. Rhetoric. Okay. Ethos, pathos, and logos all working together at the same time. The reason why it's effective is because people are largely emotional creatures. And we have to acknowledge that emotions are all wrapped up in our decision making.

It's all wrapped up in what it means to take in information and to understand issues and to draw conclusions. Emotions are always there. They are always present. And so the practical example of this with regard to debate is if you start to get visibly emotional, let's say you get angry in a debate.

Right. We just watched a video. We looked at the ex-pastor in the car. Right. He was very mad. Okay. By the way, all these sorts of quick references to other videos. I'll try to give you links to all these in the notes below.

But remember, so the practical example is when somebody gets visibly upset during a disagreement and you see that as an observer. Okay. Maybe you're across from the person. You're like a participator in the disagreement.

It can very easily skew how you view the content of what they're arguing. That's why you need to remain calm and unflappable. It's so that the ideas and the arguments don't become obscured in some sense because of the emotions that are on display.

Laying the Better Framework in a Debate

Yeah, those were some very helpful tips from Ben Shapiro. I think everyone should take a look at the full video because he provides a lot of examples of the things that he was talking about. And just again, listen carefully to what he has to say.

Besides my disagreement with his response, when people name call, I would say that his tips were very helpful. The only thing I would, I think something's missing, right? Arguably more than one. But the only thing I would probably add along these lines is in a debate, the one who lays a better framework typically wins.

Okay. And so the tip that I would give is to make sure that you develop your ability to lay a better framework than the other guy, than the other girl, than your opponent. In other words, a framework, what I mean by that is just a story that you tell about the discussion or the debate.

And in the way that you're telling that story, you're interpreting the clash. You're interpreting the disagreement. You're interpreting the main contentions on both sides, as well as providing a way to make sense of the debate.

Right. All in the way that you are telling the story, in the way that you talk about the debate. And if you lay that framework and folks adopt your framework of the debate, you win. There's a lot more to say about that.

I have other videos on this that go into more depth, but there you go. I enjoy watching Shapiro. I think he's an excellent critical thinker, a very, very superb debater. But all right, it's time for you to weigh in now.

What did you think about Shapiro's tips? Are they good? Are they bad? Did he leave something out that you thought should have been mentioned? Let me know in the comments below. As always, if you made it this far, you need to join my Patreon community.

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