Episode 10 | How to Win Your Next Debate October 03, 2021
GUEST: John Donvan, Host and Moderator, Intelligence Squared U.S. Debate Series
With polarization and deeply entrenched ideology threatening our ability to truly listen to one another, is civil discourse dead? Our guest John Donvan isn’t ready to admit defeat just yet. In our latest episode, the host and moderator of the Intelligence Squared U.S. debate series shares how he’s seen firsthand how reasoned and constructive discourse can make us all smarter. By focusing on facts, reason, and a respect of other viewpoints, you not only become a better debater, but you may even persuade the most intractable listeners to your way of thinking.
GUEST BIO:
Since 2008, John Donvan has moderated the Intelligence Squared U.S. debate series, which was launched in 2006 with the intent of restoring critical thinking and civility in public discourse through thought-provoking conversations about a wide variety of subjects. Donvan is a veteran network correspondent for ABC, CNN, and PBS, having served in multiple overseas assignments in Moscow, Amman, Jerusalem, and London. He’s a four-time Emmy Award winner, as well as a bestselling author. His 2016 book, In a Different Key: The Story of Autism, who he co-authored with Caren Zucker, was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize.
LINKS:
Debates
Intelligence Squared U.S. — You can view previous debates on the website.
“Genetically Modify Food” debate, Dec. 3, 2014
Apps
Intelligence Squared U.S. app on Google Play
Intelligence Squared U.S. app on App Store
Podcast:
Videos:
Full Transcript
BRAD PHILLIPS, HOST, THE SPEAK GOOD PODCAST:
Monsanto – the giant agribusiness company – was deeply unpopular with many progressives. Among other controversial products and practices, the now defunct Monsanto pioneered genetically modified crops, which opponents feared would risk food security, hurt the environment, and compromise human health.
The company’s vice president and chief technology officer, Robert Fraley, was invited to debate Monsanto’s critics in December 2014 at the elegant Kaufman Music Center in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I think it is important here to set the political context, the Upper West Side, like Manhattan itself, leans pretty far to the political left. As an example, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump there by almost 80 points in 2016, and Joe Biden beat Trump by 70 points in 2020. So, as I entered the hall to attend the debate that night in the Upper West Side, I suspected that Mr. Fraley would be in for a rough ride in front of a very unsympathetic crowd. More on that in a moment.
That debate – and more than 200 others like it – was part of the long-running Intelligence Squared U.S. debate series. IQ Squared uses the Oxford-style debate format, in which both sides argue either for or against a simply stated motion. The motion that night was titled “Genetically Modify Food.” Two people argued for that proposition; two opponents argued against it. Other recent debates have taken on similarly provocative topics, such as “Forgive Student Debt,” “Legalize Psychedelics,” and “The New York Times Has Lost Its Way.”
The debates, while often energetic and vigorously argued, remain respectful. Intelligence Squared U.S. defines its mission as working to restore civility, reasoned analysis, and constructive public discourse to today’s media landscape. Having attended several debates through the years, I can attest that they leave audiences smarter – or at least more informed about an opposition view. The debates are polar opposites of the unproductive cable news food fights and shout fests that pit two sides against one another for the sole purpose of creating a viral clip that sparks outrage and retweets.
And here’s the really cool thing. The debates serve as a laboratory to observe, in real time, the art and science of persuasion. Because before the debate begins, the audience is asked to use a handheld device – or, in the age of COVID, their keyboard – to vote on their views on the motion. Press one for “agree” that foods should be genetically modified; press two if you disagree with that; press three if you’re unsure.
Then, at the end of the debate – after hearing both sides of the argument – the audience votes again. The winner is not the side with the most vote. The winner is the one that swayed the most minds during the debate.
So, back to Monsanto. Before the debate, only 32 percent of audience members said they were for the motion, that they thought foods should be genetically modified. After the debate, that number jumped to a stunning 60 percent, almost doubling the original vote total. In fact, I was there that night and remember the audience gasped when the results were displayed. They recognized, we recognized that the debate had been a blowout. And, frankly, I wasn’t surprised. The “pro” side was much better prepared for the debate. They came armed with credible-sounding information that was ineffectively rebutted by an uninspired opposition.
In an age when it seems that our ideas are deeply entrenched and inflexible, Intelligence Squared often proves the opposite – that quality argument can still open minds. Today, we’ll explore what larger lessons can be learned from these civilized debates, how great debaters persuade their audiences, and how you can become a more effective debater. My guest is John Donvan, the host and moderator of Intelligence Squared debates since 2008. He’s also a longtime correspondent with ABC News, where we worked together at Nightline in the late 1990s. And, on a personal note, it was his recommendation at the time that helped me secure my next job in journalism, at CNN. It’s fair to say that without his testimony on my behalf at that point, my path might have looked very different. And, this podcast – and my career as a communications coach – may have looked, very, very different.
(MUSIC PLAYS)
PHILLIPS:
John, the place I want to begin with you is I think there has always been an important place for these types of debates, but it seems to me in recent years, more than before, people have started talking about how do we have conversations, even in our personal lives, around some very divisive issues. So, I’m just wondering, as someone who’s moderated these debates now for a long time, have you seen their relevance increase, if anything, as those discussions have continued?
JOHN DONVAN, HOST OF INTELLIGENCE SQUARED U.S.:
By their relevance, do you mean their sort of social utility, the good that they can do in society?
PHILLIPS:
That’s right. That it’s almost an instruction manual for how to have respectful dialogue.
DONVAN:
I would say Intelligence Squared, to some degree, works as an antidote to the state of discourse in society right now. I often draw an analogy with countries can go to war, but the Olympic movement was a movement that said, let’s compete with each other, but let’s do it with some rules. And, let’s do it about shot put and javelin throw and running races; let’s compete at that level. And, of course, it hasn’t worked to deter war, but the concept of let’s find another way to channel that energy of national competition. A debate is not the only, or even necessarily the ideal way, to thrash out a path to the truth, or that’s too highfalutin a word, a path to the correct policy choice or to the correct meaningful consensus.
But it is one way. And, like sport, it’s a little bit artificial in that we are putting two teams on a stage and we’re telling them, this is the one statement that you have to prove, and the other side has to disprove. You have this much time to do it. And, there’s this rule and that rule and this limitation. So it’s an artificial construct in that sense. So, it’s not really spontaneous and natural the way we often speak about debate, “We had a debate over our Thanksgiving table about such and such.” But it is a kind of debate, and it does serve, I think, a really, really useful purpose to show, which we really strive to do, that people can disagree, that they can disagree with reasonable positions on both sides of that disagreement, as artificial as we may have set it up to be, we do try to echo authentic divides in society and we can come pretty close to that. And, we can show that after having that conversation, each side might be able to actually to have learned a little bit of something from the other side, just by virtue of having had to listen. You have to listen, because if you’re going to refute, you need to know what you’re refuting. And so, I would say unlike the quality of discourse you see in the sort of MSNBC, Fox, CNN head-to-head type of thing, those those programs, they’re not really about persuasion. They’re about trying to score points off the other side with the sort of unnamed audience, and just sort of best each other by landing some point in the audience’s head. But, they don’t really try to refute each other. They just try to have their parallel, forward-looking offense on and no real defense.
So, yeah, I think the long answer to your basic question, are we doing good? Is there utility? Are we relevant? I think we are because you don’t get what we’re doing in very many other places. And I think we are because we have a really devoted and always growing audience that really likes it. And I think we are because the things that the audience writes to us and reaches out to us to say is, “Wow, I haven’t experienced anything like this before. It’s really refreshing.” And what’s really interesting is there are people who say, “And I changed my mind on this topic. I never would have thought I would change my mind, but I hadn’t really heard the other argument before. And, actually, there was more there than I thought before. I’m not sure I’m going to go over completely, but I’m not where I was at the start.” And it’s not our goal to change minds. It’s our goal to show that one’s mind can be changed and that’s a good thing. I’m not talking about being a flip-flopper in life, but that’s a good thing because you do need to sort of update your sense of what the world is about as more information comes in.
PHILLIPS:
I’m struck by you describing the debate format as a somewhat artificial format, because the truth is those cable news debates you alluded to are also artificial formats. They’re conducted now in somebody’s home looking into a camera or in a studio, but it’s not how people really talk when they’re sitting around with each other. They are in their own way, trying to score points with the audience. The difference, of course, is that I think the Intelligence Squared debates achieve something really important. They enlighten, inform, and educate people. Whereas I think cable news debates often do the opposite. They’re counterproductive if our goal is to make people more informed about the decisions they’re making. So, I’m curious how much you think the format itself plays a role in that. And I know you touched on that in your previous answer. But, also, how much you think when people walk into a debate hall to listen to two sides, because they’re clear on what their role is or what your ask of them is to listen carefully to both sides, analytically, if they’re not more likely to be able to put their own personal views beside or outside the debate hall and that they are able to listen more openly than they wouldn’t other formats.
DONVAN:
Yeah, we should clarify that the audience is asked to listen and vote to choose the winner. And I have a little conversation with the audience, especially when we’re live. I go out ahead of time and I say, “Hi folks, it’s great that you’re here. I would like you to do something tonight.” I don’t say something you’ve never done before, perhaps, but I say, “I would like you to do something tonight. I would like you to really listen critically and as impartially as possible to the quality of the arguments being made. And I’m not asking them to change their philosophies. I’m asking them to judge which side actually did the better job of being persuasive, almost to the point of whether they persuaded you or not, who actually did the better job here: who brought the better evidence, who was better with logic, who, and it comes down to personality, who charmed you more, who timed things better?
We have two teams of two. So how did they break up the argument with each other? I think our audience tends to rise to the occasion that they go, all right – I mean we definitely know that there’s always a handful of people who come in and say, I gamed it so that my side would win. And I always think, well, why, what did you gain from that? Much more what I like to hear are people saying, I decided to do what you asked today and to just really, really listen to the arguments. And, well, I’m sorry to say that the side that I agreed with in the beginning was the better side and I stuck with them, but a lot of people say the opposite. They’ll say I did change my position because frankly my team wasn’t very good tonight. They’ll still say my team, but they’ll say tonight they weren’t very good. And, again, I’m not sure if they changed their minds for the day after, if they’re still where they were, but at least, at that moment, they’ve heard the other side in a way they haven’t before.
And yes, our structure allows for it because we’re structured in three rounds and the first round is comprised of all four debaters making an opening argument. They’re not interrupted. They’re not yelling at each other. Each speaker has the floor for a set period of time between four and six minutes. And then there’s a sort of more freewheeling conversation. And then they have a closing statement. Again, they have the floor to them themselves, and they’re timed. It’s briefer, but it sort of wraps things up. And by definition, therefore, they’re getting a chance; each side of the argument is getting a chance to speak without being interrupted, without having to defend, to put his or her best foot forward. And again, by definition, the person who’s coming off the street is hearing two sides of an argument. It’s just built into the it’s built into the format. The format also allows me to insist on certain guardrails. There are a few that I really do enforce. No personal attacks because, for no other reason, it chews up so much time. If A attacks B, the next thing B wants to do for the next three minutes is refute the personal attack. And then we’ve lost six minutes. So, I just cut off a personal attack as soon as it happens. But, there are other things too. If A has made a really good point and I turned to B and say, “Alright, A just made a pretty interesting point,” I think a lot of people in the room, I often summon the audience and that’s one of my secret sauce things, “everybody here, (Just so they feel a little bit outnumbered) wants to hear your response to that.” If B doesn’t respond, but goes off, tries to switch the topic, I will stop and say, “You’re not responding. Are you conceding the point?” And then another thing is if somebody is just repetitious, somebody will come in with some cute phrase that they thought up on their own, or they were advised use this little meme – it’s brilliant. And they come in with that tool and they use it over and over and over and over in response to every topic, every challenge that comes up, I will say, “You know, you’ve said that before, you’re not answering the point.”
So those are the points where I will intervene to try to keep the conversation truly focused on the issue at hand, and truly focused on the points where they disagree and on the points where strong points have been raised, in my opinion, that require a response. So, the format lets me do that also, and to keep it civil. Not too civil, seriously, but civil enough so that people can be heard.
PHILLIPS:
It’s interesting, as someone who does media training professionally, that a couple of the things you mentioned, such as people who use cute phrases or repeating, are things that oftentimes people do in the context of, let’s say, a four-minute hit on cable news. And, in that format, occasionally it can work for them. I think to your point about the brilliance of invoking the audience, suddenly it doesn’t work anymore because you have brought them to your side and expose the device, so that it no longer is as likely to work anymore.
DONVAN:
By the way, I’m not totally against somebody coming in with a well-turned phrase, that they’ve thought through, and kind of nails their point really well. It’s the resort to … it’s having nothing else …
PHILLIPS:
It’s the inauthenticity of just using a pithy cute line that doesn’t drive the debate and the thought forward.
DONVAN:
And, I’ve never yet said it to a debater, but I’ve always wanted to say you don’t have anything else, but that? You said it seven times now. You don’t have anything else? Your opponents over here are taking this really … I mean, that would be devastating to a debater, but it’s the thought that goes through my head.
PHILLIPS:
You’re talking about what Chris Christie did to Marco Rubio during one of the presidential debates. He said what you’re seeing …
DONVAN:
Right.
PHILLIPS:
What you are seeing is the same soundbite four times. And even after Christie, if people don’t remember this, called out Rubio for using the same soundbite over and over again, he did it again and it was devastating. And I can see if you, as the moderator, try to do that, it’s almost as if it’s two against.
DONVAN:
Yeah. And I want to be very careful about that as moderator.
PHILLIPS:
So, you brought up a few things, you use the term guard rails that you try to create to make sure these conversations stay on track. You mentioned that you don’t allow personal attacks, that you don’t allow people to interrupt each other. And so, the one question that I think is especially now where you see families and friendships under threat or ending entirely because of differences in political viewpoints, the question is what types of devices we think we can borrow from Intelligence Squared to have more productive conversations. So those guard rails – not interrupting the other person and truly trying to hear them. Obviously, not launching into personal attacks. Anything else comes to mind from your observation, what works and what doesn’t.
DONVAN:
It’s interesting. We get this question every Thanksgiving.
PHILLIPS:
(LAUGHS)
DONVAN:
It’s sort of become a cliché, kind of. And I have trouble with cliches. But, what can we learn from what Intelligence Squared does so that we can have a good family conversation. And, I’m not sure it’s entirely applicable. Because, again, what we’re doing is artificial and a dinnertime conversation, Thanksgiving conversation is gonna be a much more organic thing. Also the personal relationships are already in place and people know each other. There is no single resolution, so all of that discipline and an artificiality, or let me not use that word artificiality, but that structure, that imposed structure that makes our debates work, wouldn’t be appropriate there. But I think, if there’s a sense that there’s going to be a contentious conversation, I would not appoint a referee because that would be really obnoxious. But, I think maybe one of the grownups at the table should say, look – and I’m just thinking this through this question now, because I’ve always sort of wanted to push off this question about IQ2 being applicable – but I think certain things are, because I bring them into my own life as a result of doing the debates. I will notice my own tendency when there’s somebody I disagree with delivering his or her version. And, I was going to say her, because I was thinking about both my wife and also a colleague I work with, who is a woman also, but we work a lot together and we disagree in a lot of the creative stuff. I have been trying to catch myself to say, I’m not actually still listening because I disagreed with something you said in the first 15 seconds and I want to respond to that. And I’m waiting for my turn. And I haven’t heard the rest of your point, and maybe I’m missing your point by not having heard the rest of it.
PHILLIPS:
Right.
DONVAN:
And so, what I think I might say for the Thanksgiving conversation is No. 1, let’s not make it personal. Let’s not say, “George, you say that over and over again, and I’m sick of it.” Let’s not do that. Let’s suppress that. And let’s suppress the desire to break in and just commit and say, “I am going to listen to you, George. I want to hear it all the way through. And then I want to take a beat and then I want you to listen to me.” And I think that’s the degree. So, there is a sense of, of protected time without interruption for somebody to get their point all the way through, because I think the longer most of us talk, the chances get higher and higher that we are going to find something to agree with each other about. So I would bring that to the Thanksgiving table. Let’s not let it get personal. If it starts to get personal, let’s all catch it. Let’s not get mad at the person who got personal. Let’s just catch it and stop it and step back. And then let people talk without interruption. Just take turns, kind of like who’s holding the conch, I think would be the two things that I would take from it.
PHILLIPS:
I’m glad you didn’t push the question away because I take your point that it’s an artificial construct. On the other hand, it’s an effective one. And the more organic conversation around the family dinner table, it might be organic, but it might be ineffective. So, I like what you said. And the one other thing, beyond listening hard and truly giving somebody a platform to express their views that I have tried to do, sometimes with more success than others, is to try to find what the common ground is. So even if we disagree on what the conclusion of a certain ideas, we can both say, so we both care a lot about national security. And, then it’s the details of how you achieve that, that we disagree on.
DONVAN:
Yeah. I think that’s a way for everybody to leave the table still feeling like a family. To recognize there’s a lot of common ground. And I still kind of believe, still in my heart sort of believe, that there is sufficient common ground for the body politic for that to be the case for us to all be Americans in the end. Although sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. The other thing I would not do that I do in the debate is I keep people on point. And a dinnertime conversation really does want to go here and there, and that should happen in a dinnertime conversation. There shouldn’t be an obnoxious moderator saying, “I’m sorry, we’re not talking about that.”
PHILLIPS:
(LAUGHS)
That’s right. So, let’s move on to some of the elements of persuasion, because ultimately, as I said in the open, in some ways, these debates are laboratories of persuasive techniques and an ability that you and the audience have to see what does it doesn’t work. I’m going to ask you kind of a Monty Hall pick Door A or Door B, I’m sure the answer is it’s both, Door C. But, I am curious because if you boil it down, people can try to persuade others through their logic and the quality of their argument, that’s more on the side of rhetoric. Or, they can use their personal characteristics, charm, charisma, building a personal rapport with members of the audience. And as I say, I’m sure it’s some combination of both. I am wondering if you’ve seen one have more importance than the others over the course of so many debates.
DONVAN:
That’s hard to sort out. If you don’t come in with a pretty strong argument, I don’t think charm is going to win it for you without that. But charm is really important and I’m using charm to mean all kinds of things like ability to make the audience feel like you’re speaking to them, ability for the audience to feel that they can identify with you, your ability to make them laugh, your ability to make them cry. It’s the feeling side. It’s the non-cerebral side of the debate, and it’s really important. We like to call ourselves a test of ideas and we are, but the debate is actually more than a test of ideas. But, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a debater win who didn’t really have a strong argument. And the strong argument does seem, at least to our audience, to depend a lot on having some sense of data that goes beyond anecdote and also having a logical, sense of logic to it – A plus B does equal C – also to have a defense against and have thought through against the critiques that are going to come up. Sometimes, by the way, this is part charm, part debate skill, and part cerebral is to concede the other point has a side. But, don’t struggle with it. Concede it. Move on. Try to ignore it. But, again, that’s a debating skill that’s sidestepping a challenge, which doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting to truth with a capital T, but it can be more persuasive or less persuasive depending on your ability to do that.
And one of the things I’ve seen is that sometimes debaters come in and they have a personal story to tell in combination with an argument and an argument with some data, some numbers. A personal story, particularly if it comes at the end of the debate can really be powerful. It can really pull over the audience, especially those who are wavering to, to come to your side. But there are debaters who have come in with nothing more than a personal story or an anecdote or two. And they do disastrously with our audience because these debates go on for an hour and a half and all kinds of challenges will come up. And if all you do is keep telling your story and don’t really refute the more data-based arguments that are being made on the other side, the audience hey might like you, but they start to think you don’t really have an argument.
PHILLIPS:
I find it fascinating what you just said about the placement of the story itself is an important factor. That once you’ve built the quality of your argument, if you place the story strategically toward the end, in many cases, it may be more effective than leading with that, when the audience might have an expectation that you’re leading with argument and data first. So that’s an interesting takeaway. I’m curious in terms of your own booking decisions. I mean, I think in many of these, you mentioned before we started, that the latest debate that you recorded was expanding the Supreme Court. So I’d imagine when you are starting to think about who your guests are for an episode, there are some obvious people you might think about because they’re the clear experts in the field. But how much are you thinking about not just that they’re the guy or the woman or the person, but also that they’re able to bring it on a debate stage.
DONVAN:
Oh, it’s really important.
PHILLIPS:
Right. So, are you looking at the people that you’re less familiar with? You’re looking at their video and seeing how much physical presence they have on a stage?
DONVAN:
There’s no question. Is this a person who has something to say that’s meaningful and in-depth? And, does this person say it well? That’s really, really important to us. That’s a little bit unfair, in a certain sense, in that they’re just going to be people who have something important to say who aren’t really that great at being in front of an audience. They might be nervous. They might lose their place. They might lose their confidence being in front of a crowd. And that would be sort of disastrous, but there are places for those kinds of debates in the pages of the Atlantic and other print organs that will put a side-by-side debate kind of thing together that you can write it, you can it through. But the short answer to your question is we sure do check out the vibe of the person, how they speak, how they sound, how confident they are.
PHILLIPS:
I’m curious. And again, I mentioned in the open that I made an incorrect assumption when I attended the debate where there was a Monsanto representative on the stage, but I am guessing there are times when there’s a less friendly audience for some of the debaters, depending on what the topic is and which side of that topic they’re on. What have you seen debaters do, especially when perhaps the audience isn’t on their side from the start to shrink that gap and maybe bring the audience over to them.
DONVAN:
The sort of the easiest, most successful move for somebody who knows that he’s got the audience against them is to acknowledge that fact and to say that’s okay with me. So, we did a debate many years ago now where the resolution was George W. Bush is the worst president of the last 50 years. I forget the time period, I think the last 50 years. So we were going back to, um, we were going back to Kennedy or maybe to Eisenhower. And one of the debaters was Karl Rove. And Karl Rove was there to defend George W. Bush’s legacy. And we held the debate in New York City. And in New York City was, you know, notoriously or reputedly not very fond of George W. Bush. And we held the debate in a part of town known as the Upper West Side. And that part of town in particular, I think, would not have been George Bush territory. It would have been Barack Obama territory. I’m sorry, I’m missing on my presidents.
PHILLIPS:
I pulled the statistics on this. I think in Manhattan, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 80 points, Joe Brown beat Trump by 70 points. So, yeah, you’re on pretty firm ground there to say this was not a Karl Rove crowd.
DONVAN:
And I was mixing up my presidential races. So, the second race was against John Kerry. It would have been a John Kerry crowd. So, Karl Rove gets up and from the minute I introduce him, I can hear a sort of rumble. Here to make the argument in support of George W. Bush, here is former presidential adviser, Karl Rove. He walks up to the microphone, and he looks out and he said something like: “Tthe Upper West Side of New York, it’s great to be among friends.” And the whole place exploded in laughter. I think he might’ve even gotten a little bit of applause and he won the debate that night. So I think it was a great start. So I think that tactic of acknowledging the awkwardness, owning it, it was a little bit of a tiny bit of a hint of vulnerability too, a little bit of I’m in trouble here, but I’m going to do the best I can. I don’t think that’s the only reason that he won the debate. I think the quality of the debates went, but I think that really helped him a lot.
PHILLIPS:
Yeah. That self-awareness, that sense of, oh, he gets it, probably helps to bind the audience to him a little bit. I do want to ask, I mean, obviously the question of having diverse representation on the stage is not a new one. I think it’s gotten more attention in recent years, which is a very good thing. How do you think about that and making sure that you have a balance of not only viewpoint, which the debate itself seems to take care of, but age, race, geography, nationality, and all of the other factors.
DONVAN:
I think like everybody else, every other institution, we’ve been evolving and we’ve accelerated that evolution. In the early days, when you look back to our first couple of years, most of the panels were all men, and we worked very hard to change that. And we also began having more visible representation in terms of people of color and I would say that’s become an important benchmark for us. And it’s one that we’re striving to address and have been addressing, especially this past year.
PHILLIPS:
I’d like to end by asking you, and this is probably another of those cliche questions, because I know every musician hates to get that question, what’s the favorite song? What song do you not like to play in concert? So I won’t ask you what your favorite is, but I will ask you if, for whatever reason, a moment more than any other has really stood out to you. And if so, what that is.
DONVAN:
Oh, that one I can do. So we did a debate back around 2009, where we were debating, as I recall, the topic was whether the Palestine Liberation Organization should be given a full standing representation at the United Nations. And we had two opponents who were both Jewish, and as I say, they’re opponents. So, they were on opposite sides of the issue. And there was really, really bad feeling between the two of them. I don’t know that they’d ever met before, but certainly on our stage, it was clear that they disliked each other for their views. And that each was finding the other’s argument really, really personally offensive. Not that there were personal attacks, it wasn’t at all, but that they found that the position that they were taking on the issue truly offensive. And they were the way that we’re set up on stage is there’s two desks or tables, and I’m in the middle at a standing at a podium. So down to one side, I have one table and down to the other side, I have another table. Well, they were the two inside debaters. I had one right on my right and one right on my left. And they’d be, as I said, we’re, okay in the middle section with people interrupting each other if it’s organic, if it’s not a tactic to interrupt each other. But, if they break in on each other, and things were getting more and more heated between the two of them, and I’ve always wondered what would I do if I really totally lost control of a debate? I know that there’s a certain point in which I can do nothing. So, I haven’t had that point come yet, but it came close to that night because the guy sitting to my right started like leaning around the podium in front of me and … and the other guy on the other side was leaning around and (both were going at each other) and it got bigger and bigger, and louder and louder and louder, and I was saying, gentlemen, gentlemen, please, but I was doing, gentlemen, please, please. Hello, please. And finally they didn’t even hear me. I finally, and again channeling the audience is really important, left my position behind the lectern, and I went around to the front of the stage facing the audience. And then I turned my back to the audience so I was facing the full panel of debaters. And I raised my hands above my head, sort of Charlton Heston, 10 commandments parting the Red Sea. And I just held my hands up and it caught both their eyes and they both stopped talking and the audience exploded in applause.
And I went back to the lectern and I think I did a very mild, because the point had been made, I didn’t want to be too much of a schoolmarm, but I made a very mild, you know, let’s not do that anymore. And things went on before. And, I remember it because I was really worried that I didn’t know what to do. I was really worried that wasn’t gonna work. I didn’t have a next move. But I remember that the audience really appreciated having the bulls**t stop, forgive my use of the word, but, I’m usually more proper in public.
PHILLIPS:
We will have to put the explicit language label on our podcasts now.
DONVAN:
Okay. It really is something that I’m learning in these debates is that as much as the ratings, supposedly, while they do spike for Fox and MSNBC, the more people are arguing with each other and bickering with each other, and the more Twitter is that sort of cesspool of addictive argument, arguing, bickering, spatting, not even arguing, I would call it, as much as I think that that’s a real thing, a real dynamic and really true. In our debates, what I hear from people a time and time again, is, oh, what a relief. What a relief to have watched four people argue tonight, really tough argument. They really disagree. The one we just did on the Supreme Court, they really disagreed, but they shed light through their disagreement. And they were able to say at the end, to each other, I really enjoyed this conversation. And the audience, our audiences at our events come away with that same thing. I love going to the lobby afterward. And as people stream out, I just chat with them. How was the debate? And they say, this is a amazing, I never … you know more than once, maybe three or four times, I’ve heard somebody say, oh, well, my date dragged me here, you know, debate for our date night, but it was amazing. It was really fantastic. Why? It’s just so refreshing. And I learned something, and I changed my mind. I didn’t know I could do that. So I think that that information I got from the audience when I raised my hands and they applauded, they wanted them to shut up. And the whole dynamic that we present of just let’s listen to each other and see where that gets us is something that goes back to your first question. Are we relevant? Yeah, I think we are because that’s a real thing that we do.
PHILLIPS:
And I have been to three or four of these debates through the years, and I always feel like I leave smarter than I walked in. And I think that’s a testament to the format itself, but also how you conduct yourself on stage and the expectations you create, not only for the panelists, but for the audience, Because I think we do feel an obligation to do right by Intelligence Squared, because we’ve been invited into that hallowed ground to do that. I would like to ask for people interested in either listening to, or participating in an Intelligence Squared debate, how could they go about doing that?
You’ll find if you go to our website IQ2US.org that we’ve done a lot of evolution in the last year in response to the pandemic. Our founder, Robert Rosenkranz, he’s the reason that intelligence, where it exists in the first place, when the pandemic happens, if we’re going to survive this. And then, um, he, he gave the mission to our CEO, our new CEO, Clea Connor, figure out how to make this happen. And, um, and we were going through a lot of personal transition anyway, because of people moving. Um, some of that, again, I think potentially pandemic related people having changes in their lives, Clea put together a team. David Ariosto, I don’t know if you know him, David used to be at CNN, NPR, became our head of editorial and he’s put together a team.
So, what you’ll see on our website is our traditional debates. The, but mostly the ones that we’ve been talking about, we’ve got more than 200 of them. And they’re on stage in front of a live audience, but then beginning with the pandemic, you’ll see us going through various format changes over the past year, as we tried different things, to see how it would work. So, you’ll get a kind of different experience almost month by month, but except for the quality of the argument and the quality of the booking. We have an app on the Apple Play Store and the Google store as well.
PHILLIPS:
That’s OK. We will on our podcast page at throughline group.com/podcast, we’ll put links to some of your most recent debates at the time that we post this to your main page. And maybe even, I think you’re on some NPR affiliates as well. Correct?
DONVAN:
We are carried by a lot of NPR stations. I was just traveling and visiting with friends in upstate New York and around Connecticut. And I heard from three people who said, oh, I heard you on the radio today. So we were carried on WNYC in New York and on the Connecticut public radio system, or we are carried a lot on Minnesota public radio, Florida, San Francisco, especially debates that are especially topical and timely, which we do a lot of. But, we also do some debates that are sort of fun and theoretical. We’ve done one where the resolution was lifespans are long enough. We’ve done one on ways dating apps destroy romance. But, just two weeks ago we did one on should we have stayed in Afghanistan? My saying that is not me endorsing what that statement says. That’s what the resolution was. So, one side was arguing we should have stayed. The other side was absolutely not. So, it’s a really interesting mix of topics. And most of them, though they go back to 2006, are still very, very relevant.
PHILLIPS:
John, thank you very much. It’s great talking to you again.
DONVAN:
Brad, it has really been a pleasure.
PHILLIPS:
Thank you.
DONVAN:
It’s been really great.
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