In Defense of the Online Debaters
How my faith in the possibilities of online discourse was renewed.
Editor’s Note: Today’s contribution comes from Murtaza Hussein, a reporter from The Intercept, friend of Wisdom of Crowds, and a sometime online debater. In his essay, Murtaza recounts how he recently came to appreciate the positive side of online debate, and its potential for truly informing and educating the audience. Even debates that encompass both sides of a deeply polarizing issue—especially those types of debates—can contribute positively to public discussion.
— Santiago Ramos, Executive Editor
For better or worse, one of the defining features of social media is its culture of debate. By some accounts, the internet today accounts for up to two percent of global electricity use. One can only imagine how much of that energy burden is being devoted to broadcasting internet flame wars and YouTube arguments. Most of this verbal combat winds up being an intractable ideological standoff, fruitless for participants and observers alike. Once in a while, however, one comes across an online conversation that is worth the time and energy.
Last week, the podcaster Lex Fridman published a debate on X about the Israel-Palestine conflict. The discussion featured the scholars Norman Finkelstein, Mouin Rabbani, Benny Morris, and the video streamer Steven Bonnell, known as Destiny. The debate, running a whopping five hours, was contentious, scholarly, tense, and occasionally humorous. It did not wind up in agreement about the topic, or even a general consensus.
But to me, the exchange highlighted the best of what debate or discussion with an ideological adversary can accomplish: Teaching observers what the stakes are, while sharpening one’s own views by putting them up to the challenge of contact with an ideological opponent. The conversation was a welcome reminder of the virtues of engagement and argument between views that are radically opposed one to the other.
Most people, including myself, live in relatively narrow epistemological bubbles, where people around us mostly share the same views and perspectives. But my own life experiences have pushed me outside of that safe space. Working as a journalist over the past decade, I’ve been forced to step out of the normal bubbles of class, ethnicity, and ideology to engage with people who are radically different or even hostile to me. In my career, I have sat down to interview members of Al Qaeda, neo-Nazis, Bosnian Serb war criminals, Israeli settler extremists, anti-Muslim activists, and many other people whom I would not feel comfortable inviting home to dinner with my family.
Those experiences did not usually engender much sympathy for my subjects. Nor did they sway me from my moral principles, which are grounded in a classical liberal and traditionally religious perspective of the world. But they taught me something valuable about the human condition by forcing me to confront people face-to-face who viewed the world in diametrically opposite terms as my own. Encounters like that can be emotional, frightening, or infuriating, which is why many people avoid them. But many years ago I taught myself how to compartmentalize my emotions when working, usually by drawing on my faith as a wellspring of inner strength and composure. While I can’t say it’s changed the world, in terms of my own intellectual growth the results have been positive.
Over the years, my habits around what I read, watch, and who I engage in conversation with have changed radically. Instead of seeking reassurance in what I already believe by gravitating to like-minded people, today I look for the most intelligent adversaries of my worldview who are willing to engage. Despite being broadly liberal in politics, today I prefer to read mostly conservative authors. When seeking out partners in conversation, I search for who the most effective and sober interlocutor is who is opposed to my worldview.
What I have discovered is that the most interesting and challenging encounters tend to happen with people who are most different from myself. My purpose in engaging in debate and discussion across differences is not usually to find common ground, which is often not possible. It is simply to seek out a challenge and broaden my perspective. Occasionally, it even forces me to reflect by confronting criticisms that contain the sting of truth.
Much of modern progressive activism is focused on opposition to “platforming” views which are deemed ideologically incorrect, or even potentially dangerous. In this context, debate or conversation with political opponents, aside from ritual denunciations, is considered verboten. There are indeed some people who are not worth hearing from, either because they do not care about the facts, lack emotional regulation, or are simply uninformed. There is no point engaging with a screaming lunatic, nor a mere liar.
But refusing to hear or debate with opposite perspectives, even when rendered sincerely and rationally, can push people into an intellectual ghetto. Absent constant challenge, people often become oblivious to flaws and blindspots in their own worldview. In my opinion, any personal advancement must begin on a basis of self-scrutiny. No one has a keener eye for your missteps and blind spots than your worst enemy.
I came back to these thoughts while watching the debate between Rabbani, Finkelstein, Morris, and Bonnell. On social media, clips of Finkelstein, in his typically colorful style, denouncing Bonnell as an “imbecile” went viral and were what first focused my attention on the discussion. But I found that instead of slapstick Curb Your Enthusiasm-style antics, most of the event was actually a master class in pointed debate. Finkelstein, a famously cantankerous public commentator on the conflict, was informative about history and entertaining in delivery. Bonnell, the only non-scholar in the debate, did not evince a deep grasp of the topic, but effectively articulated a lay pro-Israel viewpoint.
The highlight of the debate was Mouin Rabbani, a Middle East scholar of Palestinian extraction, and his exchanges with the prolific Israeli historian Benny Morris. Much of the debate, from the perspective of Morris and Bonnell, was based on challenging fundamental tenets of the Palestinian national story, as well as justifying the experience of displacement that Palestinians experienced after the foundation of the State of Israel. Despite the emotionally weighted subject matter, Rabbani handled these challenges like a consummate professional. He never indulged any impulse towards emotion or accusation, but instead methodically pointed out what he saw as the flaws in his interlocutors' arguments, while filling in the gaps of history from a Palestinian perspective.
Such an exchange would probably not be welcome in many spaces today. Morris, one of the most prominent of Israel’s “New Historians,” is considered persona non grata by some younger progressive activists due to his defense of acts of ethnic cleansing (or as he puts it, wartime displacement) that created the Palestinian refugee crisis. Yet instead of canceling or ignoring him, the decision to engage proved fruitful. Seeing the contrast between his position and Rabbani’s, laid out methodically by both sides in the context of a sober discussion, was edifying. The conversation somehow held my attention through the entire five hours, broken up over a few days. It would have been a shame had the discussion been deemed off limits by either side on ideological grounds.
Not everyone is cut out for debating, or even conversing, with people who may disagree with them, hold them in contempt, or even, in some extreme cases, wish them harm. But for those people who can keep their emotions in check and who are firmly grounded in their own beliefs, I believe there is little to lose and much to gain. Despite my initial skepticism, I found that the debate hosted by Fridman was a gift for viewers, many of whom are likely young and relatively new to the topic of Israel-Palestine. Instead of strawmanning their opponents, they got to see a fair picture of how their ideological rivals see history and the present. Having heard two complete arguments, they can make their minds up accordingly.
As much as online discourse is derided as a wellspring of hatred, misanthropy, disinformation, extremism, and other evils, Lex Fridman’s moderated debate showed that at times it can exemplify the best principles of free speech and engagement—far better than most establishment media outlets can accomplish. Too much of our engagement with political subjects is reduced by technology to soundbites and slogans, with deeper explorations of history rarely conducted. This debate even dispelled some of my own cynicism about the virtues of such conversations, at a time of suffering and crisis like today, when mere words can feel so inadequate.
This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.
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Thank you for this article. I think I went through similar process as well. I always want to find what good speakers and writers from every school of thought is thinking about a matter, and where they stand. Plus, I also found that there is a spectrum even on each school of thought (which is fascinating !)
I am too, in favor of such online discussions and debates. Even if, a lot of times it transorfms into fights of egos, I think it also have the benefit to show who is lacking arguments, who have huge egos, and who is teaching us interesting stuff. It also teaches how to confront or discuss with someone while "improvising".
Also, we have some responsability as viewers and listeners : if we are wasting our time watching something, let's quit the video as soon as possible. If we find a behavior inappropriate or not interesting, we should comment to let them know etc...
I hope we will still have a free, safe and respectful framework to debate in the next years, because the trials due to Youtube debates and discussions are growing...
Mr Hussein, thank you for your thoughtful and levelheaded essay and comments. I will now watch this episode of Lex’s podcast. And it is encouraging to know that you, and at least a few others, can engage in civil disagreement. My gloomy impression had been that almost all online debate inevitably turns vile. Perhaps, with luck, I’m wrong.