There are three essential demands of an effective debate — moral courage, a calm mind and inclusivity. I will start with moral courage.

Mustering the strength to challenge ideas can be a scary feat. But without it, we cower from disputing ideas we consider irrational or ethically wrong. We are terrified of agitating others and losing their favour. This cowardice, however, has drastic repercussions.

Take this example, assume I believe it’s justifiable to hit my wife to maintain authority in my household. I refrain from discussing it with others except in fleeting jokes. My friends, who don’t deem it’s justifiable, overlook my jokes hoping they are just harmless jests. Considering this, it is unlikely my friends will challenge my reasoning. It’s understandable. My friends and I clash over an ethic that plays an important role in who we are, how can our friendships endure if they were to confront me. So they do not address the issue.

This strategy is, however, an unethical way of handling the disagreement. Here a woman is being physically abused. We both hold opposing views and we can’t both be right. We don’t learn from each other's ideas and we don’t progress them. With moral courage, my friend would challenge my thinking. This particular belief is very hard to morally justify and upon a challenge, it would be an arduous toil to protect.

Let me give you a heartbreaking statistic to promote this example — in the US, one in three women and one in six men experience some form of contact sexual violence in their lifetime [1]. This statistic fluctuates from country too country but is still horrifyingly high. It is probable you know someone who is a victim or a perpetrator. The high probability is because it is logistically difficult for a tiny minority to be attacking these people. The violent reasoning is accommodated by too many minds. Confronting this belief in our friends and family reduces the number of sufferers.

You may think these examples dismissable because you and your friends do not execute violence towards loved ones but passivity is observed in all difficult subjects. Religion and politics being easy examples. Friends and family often drop outdated and damaging beliefs like a waterfall and many of us cast our eyes someplace else. Ignorance never solved anything.

Not everyone flinches from an uncomfortable dialogue. Many have the opposite approach and attack. Their enthusiasm and desire to support is admirable but the results are not any better.

Attacking someone doesn’t make them see reason, the recipient takes one of two actions. They protect themselves, becoming more rooted in their ideas or they flee, regressing in courage never asserting their feelings again. This is excellent if you want a restrained totalitarian society. It may be a despotism of your socially progressive beliefs but it is oppression. This demonstrates the necessity of a calm mind in discourse.

With a tempered heart and mind we see the path to peace but to follow it we need companions. Debate benefits from inclusivity. People from diverse backgrounds with different ideas will be able to challenge ours from viewpoints external to our own awareness. If you converse with people who have similar beliefs to your own it is unlikely these views will be challenged and therefore progress is chocked just as it was about to be liberated. This lack of inclusivity is one of the reasons rural neighbourhoods often linger behind cities in enlightenment thinking.

Debate, is our shield in this war of ideas. Regrettably, this manner of discussion is not the standard in society and when it is utilised it is abundant with rational fallacies. There is too much weight on the emotion of someone’s argument and not the reasoning itself. This makes attaining a resolution unimaginable, driving us to a polarised society. However, if we are brave, calm of mind and open we can arm ourselves with debate to be the heroes this world desperately needs.