In December of 2025, CBS and the Bank of America announced the “Things That Matter” series of town hall debates. According to editor-in-chief Bari Weiss,
We believe that the vast majority of Americans crave honest conversation and civil, passionate debate…In a moment in which people believe that truth is whatever they are served on their social media feed, we can think of nothing more important than insisting that the only way to get to the truth is by speaking to one another.
Debates are popular these days. The YouTube channel Jubilee, for example, claims to “Provoke human connection” by producing videos where one central figure debates numerous contrarians (often 20 or more), with recent video titles including: “Doctor Mike vs. 20 RFK Jr. Supporters,” “Andrew Callahan vs. 20 Conspiracy Theorists,” and “Piers Morgan vs. 20 Woke Liberals.” These videos receive millions of views, and the Jubilee channel itself boasts over 10 million subscribers.
Our current moment is often presented as one in which polarization is running amok. Think pieces and books abound on the need to bridge social divisions, and debating issues is often seen as the best way to reach across political aisles to address those issues rationally and productively. But despite their popularity and promise of healing divides, maybe what we need is a little less debate.
What do I mean by “debate”? While they can take different forms, debates are generally ways of engaging with issues where parties take opposing stances on a particular issue, present arguments for their view, and criticize and respond to the arguments of their opponents. In engaging in a debate, the ultimate goal is to “win”: in formal debates, a “winner” or “loser” may be declared, while in more informal debates, it is left up to an audience or the participants themselves to reach a verdict.
Issues can be debated in better or worse ways. A debate where people are screaming and insulting each other isn’t a good one; hence, we see “civility” commonly espoused as a characteristic of a quality debate. There is no shortage of additional advice about how to debate well: books on proper debating techniques like Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking and Good Arguments: What the art of debating can teach us about listening better and disagreeing well emphasize rhetorical strategies alongside proper debate decorum, with the promise of helping their readers get the edge over their ideological rivals.
If we’re going to debate, then we should want to do it well. One of the main criticisms of Jubilee, for example, is not that it features debates, but that the debates it features are bad: participants arrive unprepared and talk over one another, many of the arguments are specious, and the overall vibe is more chaotic than civilized. However, we might think that something like the “Things That Matter” series, which promises well-informed speakers and civil engagement, would be the ideal way to address divisive political issues.
The lineup of the “Things That Matter” series, however, illustrates one of the major problems with how political and ideological issues are presented for debate, at least in the media: while debates are often presented as ways to critically evaluate views from a neutral position, choosing which issues to debate is itself a political act.
For example, one of the purported issues that “matter” in the CBS series concerns feminism, with the question “Has feminism failed women?” being up for debate. While it is certainly worthwhile to discuss feminism and its relation to American politics, the question is presented in a way that places two positions on equal footing: one that claims that feminism has failed women, and one that says it hasn’t. Using debate to address political issues thus presents them as being equally worthy of consideration, even when they’re not. There are plenty of examples of this kind of “bothsidesism” in the popular debate landscape, for example: flat earthers vs. scientists, doctors vs. antivaxxers, etc. The mere fact that there are people who disagree on some issues, then, does not mean that they ought to be presented as issues for debate.
Some commenters have also criticized the “Things that Matter” series in particular for the choice of debate topics. In addition to “Has feminism failed women?”, the series includes the questions “Does America need God?” and “Should gen Z believe in the American dream?” Again, these are certainly topics some Americans disagree about, and they may even be ones that have some well-formulated arguments on both sides. However, in the current moment, they are arguably far from the most pressing. Choosing an issue for debate, especially as part of a major national televised event, thus elevates it as being particularly important. Again, choosing which issues to debate becomes a political act.
These might be problems when it comes to big, televised events or social media channels with millions of followers, but surely, when it comes to our own personal disagreements, we should still encourage engagement with people we disagree with in a way that emphasizes civility and well-formulated arguments. What would it mean to say that we should be debating less with each other?
There are ways to engage with contentious issues that don’t involve debating them. Philosophers, arguably, do not debate; instead, they discuss different views. While the difference between debates and discussions might seem semantic, the philosopher’s discussion is motivated by pursuing the force of arguments and working collaboratively to find the best such arguments to gain a deeper understanding. While philosophical argumentation can also be done in better or worse ways, the virtuous philosophical argument is not motivated by a desire to defeat an opponent.
Indeed, that debates encourage adopting the mindset of wanting to emerge as a “winner” in turn encourages obstinacy in the face of evidence that one might be wrong. Sometimes, though, the most reasonable course of action in the face of arguments is to change your mind. That this would constitute “losing” a debate underscores both the artificiality of debates and how ill-suited the debate mindset is to engaging with complex political issues.
Debating isn’t all bad. As many books about debating point out, to debate well, you need to know how to do other important things, such as analyzing and formulating arguments. But the idea that the best approach to socially divisive issues is to debate them fails to acknowledge how debates can amplify political differences rather than bridge them.
