Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking

by Mehdi Hasan

Philosophically, I consider argument and debate to be the lifeblood of democracy, as well as the only surefire way to establish the truth. Arguments can help us solve problems, uncover ideas we would’ve never considered, and hurry our disagreements toward (even begrudging) understanding.

nineteenth-century French essayist Joseph Joubert, who is said to have remarked: “It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.”

He never shied away from an argument over the merits or demerits of a particular issue. It was he who taught me to question everything, to be both curious and skeptical, to take nothing on blind faith, and to relish every challenge and objection.

He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.

This is how you make an argument in front of a skeptical audience. You have to be able to adapt, you have to be agile, and to do that, you have to know your audience and cater to it.

Remember: anytime an audience is present, you cannot, cannot, afford to ignore them or take them for granted.

The key benefit of knowing your audience is that it grants you the ability to modify the language you use to make your case.

So remember: cite facts, figures, and quotes that not only bolster your own argument but also appeal to the specific audience in front of you.

1. Start with a strong opening line

2. Start with a question Ideally, a “provocative” question, say those comms experts. “Starting with a question creates a knowledge gap: a gap between what the listeners know and what they don’t know,”

3. Start with a story Ideally, a personal anecdote. You get bonus points if it’s funny, able to get people laughing and relaxed—and paying attention—from the get-go. Storytelling helps with instant engagement because everyone loves a great yarn. Plus, our brains are built to fall in love with a good story—one that taps into imagination and empathy from the very beginning.

Pay close attention to your first sentence if you want anyone else to pay attention to what you have to say. Surprise your audience with a striking one-liner, an irresistible question, or a visceral story.

CONNECT WITH THEM

1. Make eye contact

2. Heap praise

3. Get personal

says author Jay Heinrichs, we put all our energy into crafting a speech that sounds appealing to us—rather than one that will sound appealing to a group of strangers.

Let me conclude with this quote from movie director Billy Wilder. “An audience is never wrong,” he remarked. “An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark—that is critical genius.”

People are stubborn, and wary, and reactive, and bored, and overconfident, and afraid of change—all at once. Sure, facts might not care about any of those feelings, but consider this: our feelings rarely care about the facts.

To move people to your side, you need to make them care. You’ll need your facts, your figures, your argument to be rock solid. But you’ll also need an approach that goes back millennia: you have to appeal to people’s hearts, not just their heads.

this is where I differ from the great Aristotle. He tended to give equal treatment to all three of his modes of persuasion. But the reality is that pathos beats logos almost every time.

But even when you have your facts locked down, they won’t have any impact unless you incorporate feelings as well. Pathos not only beats logos when it comes to influencing your audience, but pathos is also perhaps the best way to deliver logos to your audience. It is the perfect vehicle for it. Study after study shows that if you can tap into your audience’s emotions, you are more likely to win over their minds.

“Humans are not either thinking machines or feeling machines,” says Damasio, “but rather feeling machines that think.”

1. Tell a story “Those who tell stories rule society” is a quote attributed to Plato, Aristotle’s teacher. Human beings have always been captivated by good stories, by a solid narrative arc; by a beginning, a middle, and an end.

“story is up to 22 times more memorable than facts alone.”

opponents in a debate “respect moral beliefs more when they are supported by personal experiences, not facts.” Gray and his coauthors call this “the respect-inducing power of personal experiences.” So what is the first rule for connecting with other people on an emotional level? Tell them a compelling story.

2. Choose words carefully “Your language will be appropriate if it expresses emotion and character,” writes Aristotle in Rhetoric. “To express emotion, you will employ the language of anger in speaking of outrage; the language of disgust and discreet reluctance to utter a word when speaking of impiety or foulness; the language of exultation for a tale of glory, and that of humiliation for a tale of pity, and so in all other cases.”

3. Show, don’t just tell The orator, wrote a young Winston Churchill in his 1897 essay “The Scaffolding of Rhetoric,” “is the embodiment of the passions of the multitude. Before he can inspire them with any emotion he must be swayed by it himself. When he would rouse their indignation his heart is filled with anger. Before he can move their tears his own must flow. To convince them he must himself believe.”

Where the quality of an argument rests on the accuracy and reliability of certain alleged facts, and where it is not convenient to check those facts for yourself, it is not fallacious to take into account the reputation of the person offering those facts.

“there is no such thing as an ad hominem fallacy.” Why? Because sometimes calling your opponent’s ethos into question is warranted. As Hitchcock concludes, “a move that is sometimes legitimate and sometimes mistaken is not a fallacy.”

Listening requires absorbing, processing, and comprehending what you’ve just heard. You’re consciously and actively engaged in the process.

Critical listening is about going beyond hearing to mentally engage with what’s being said. It’s a very dynamic process, where you’re consciously absorbing, comprehending, and evaluating the information given to you by a speaker in real time. “Is it true or false?” “Does it make sense or not?” “Can I trust or believe what I am hearing?”

Critical listening is what you should be doing when your opponent is speaking. But empathetic listening is what you should be doing when an audience member is speaking. Empathetic listening is about connecting with the speaker and trying to see the world through that person’s eyes. The goal of empathetic listening is to focus on the speaker’s views and to understand where that person is coming from. It requires you to give your “full attention” to the other person, writes listening expert Ximena Vengoechea, and to show empathy (obviously!) as well as humility.

Mandela showed empathy as a listener not merely out of the goodness of his heart but also because he understood how effective it was as a tool of persuasion. “It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea,” he pointed out.

“He thought the leader’s role was to speak last, summarize what had been said before, and try to find consensus.”

One of my favorite quotes, often attributed to Oscar Wilde, says: “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”

If something happens once, it’s just a one-off. Twice? It’s a coincidence. But when it happens three times, we tend to see a pattern—and a pattern makes us think, “Oh, something predictable is actually going on.” It gives us a sense of order and comfort—and understanding.

Here’s what you should do, say the experts. Separate your speech, presentation, or argument into: Introduction Body Conclusion In the Body, make sure you present three main arguments. In the Conclusion, make sure you summarize and repeat those three main arguments.

In fact, tell your audience or interlocutors in advance that you plan to deploy the Rule of Three. Don’t be afraid to say: “I’ve got three reasons why you should listen to me.” It gets people’s attention because, as we discussed, most of us have been hardwired to recognize patterns of three, and by saying it out loud, it’s like giving your audience driving directions. They know where they’re about to go and they’ll have an easier time following along.

There’s the most basic approach, which I mentioned: Introduction, Body, Conclusion. Or: Three Main Points. Or: Three Stories. Or: Pros, Cons, Recommendation. Or there’s my own personal favorite: making a Political, an Economic, and a Moral argument for or against something. In my experience, that always seems to hit the spot. Three arguments. Three items. Three points. As Dlugan puts it, “Limit yourself to your best three points. Any fewer, and your message

what the ancient Greeks called procatalepsis (from the Greek word for “anticipation”).

Humans don’t make decisions, or conclusions, based on facts alone. We interpret those facts, and doing so requires context and background; our conclusions depend on how we “frame” a particular situation. Frames, say experts, are the “filters” our brains use to try and process and interpret information in any given setting.

“All the best off-the-cuff remarks are prepared days beforehand.”

The Spartans of Ancient Greece were the masters of brevity when it came to quips and comebacks—to the point where dry wit is known today as laconic humor (after Laconia, the historical region of Greece that included the city-state of Sparta).

Even a line you’ve prepared needs to be delivered in a way that sounds perfectly spontaneous, and this is not always easy.

Knowing where the trap is—that’s the first step in evading it. —Duke Leto Atreides, in Frank Herbert’s Dune

The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than is needed to produce it. —Alberto Brandolini, computer programmer

(The fact-checkers at the Washington Post would later calculate that the forty-fifth president of the United States made 30,573 false claims during his four years in office—almost certainly a conservative underestimate.)

There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars. —Mark Twain

The truth is that most people are “rooting for you,” writes psychologist Lybi Ma. “Why wouldn’t they?” Of course, our minds are terrible at absorbing this idea. We remember the one person who teased us in high school better than the hundred who were casually friendly. We stew over the one frown, as the saying goes, in a sea of smiles.