The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Dialogue with Rudyard Griffiths and Ricki Gurwitz: the Munk Debates in 2025

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

On this special edition of the Munk Debates podcast, host Rudyard Griffiths and managing director Ricki Gurwitz take listeners behind the scenes of our Munk Debate on anti-Zionism and explain the reasons behind cancellation of the autumn debate with RFK Jr. They also give a sneak peak into what to expect in 2025 with a revamped podcast and some exciting plans for our in person debates.   The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths  To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 15+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Editor: Kieran Lynch  Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We tried socialism all through the 20th century, and it failed every time. We should restore dignity to the working class and stop saying you need a credential in order to achieve the most basic, modest version of the American dream. Netanyahu is the worst leader the Jewish people ever had. He should be impeached. Genocide is the latest modern blood liable that anti-Semites use to justify their anti-Zionism. We should prioritize making sure that no more Ukrainians do. die that this war is brought to an end. All parents want to help children with their feelings, but I argue that not every feeling is worth paying attention to.

Why are these students covering their faces? I think it says something about their movement, about their ideology, and also simply the fact that they're also cowards. Hi, Roger Griffiths here, the chair of the Monk Debates. Welcome to this, a special program of the Monk Debates podcast. Every year or so, we like to have a conversation with our valued Monk Debates community. tell you a little bit about what's going on behind the scenes here at the Monk Debates. And to do this, I'm joined as I was last time by Ricky Gurwis, the managing director of the Monk Debates,

who makes everything happen 365 days a year. Oh, Frederick. You're being too kind. No, podcast, mainstage debates. It's been a busy year. And we're going to look back a little bit at 24, but also, Ricky, tell our audience about what's going on for 2025. Some changes coming, which we think are exciting. But let me begin by asking you about the year that was. You were responsible largely for the anti-Zionism debate. I wonder if you give a sense to our audience of what it was like to put that debate together. What were you trying to accomplish? And were you surprised by the public reaction? Yeah, so we actually were preparing a different debate.

I know it feels like a long time ago, but we had, I think we were doing, we were trying to do a debate on universities. It just couldn't get there. Yeah. You know, Ricky, stop there for a second, because I think that's a really interesting thing. Maybe that people don't understand the extent to which so many of the debates that we do kind of end up on the proverbial cutting room floor? Yeah, so a lot of the work that we put into the debates

end up not coming to any kind of fruition because for whatever reason, the debate topic wasn't, we didn't feel relevant anymore. We couldn't find the right guests to debate or certain guests didn't want to engage in the debate. So there are so many ways that, debates go sideways. And that was our experience last spring when we were trying to do a debate on universities. Still, I think, a worthwhile debate, but it just couldn't happen at that time.

And we had been obviously noticing this, as everyone else, this huge rise in criticism of Israel, bordering on anti-Zionism, which is different from just criticism of Israel. It is the belief that Israel as a society should not, sorry, that Israel as a country should not exist as the homeland of the Jewish people, and people conflating it with anti-Semitism, which is the hatred of Jews. And this is a debate that has been done in the past, And yet we felt with the events of October 7th and the war that followed, it took on a new urgency. Yeah, so that was a debate that almost didn't happen. It was a debate where there was a lot of behind-the-scenes controversy about even having a debate on anti-Zionism.

Maybe be interesting for our audience to hear a little bit about the extent, to which the threat of protests almost led the monk debate on anti-Zionism to not happen this spring. Yeah, so leading up to the debate, there had been a lot of protests in Toronto where we are based, where we put the debates on. They were protests about Israel, but at venues and events that seemingly had nothing to do with Israel. So, for instance, our prime minister met with the prime minister of Italy, Georgia Maloney, downtown, and there was a huge protest there about Israel. And that made us nervous because that event had nothing to do with Israel. And yes, it elicited that huge response.

Yet it elicited that huge response. So we are actually doing something about Israel, the cause that everyone is talking about, everyone has feelings, but everyone has an opinion about, and what kind of response would it get? Yeah. Well, and thanks to the support of you, our Monk Debates community, we were able to use some additional financial resources to bring on a whole lot of extra security

to help make our venue feel that the debate could happen successfully and safely. And Ricky, it did. And the interesting thing is on the night of the debate, there were no protesters. There were no protesters outside the hall. There were no protesters inside the hall. I know, Roger, you were so disappointed. I wanted at least one or two protesters.

For those at home, Richard, he's an avid biker and he strolled. He came in through the front, hoping on his bike, hoping to confront some protesters, and he was very disappointed that day. Crickets, crickets. But anyway, was, I would say, Ricky, one of our more successful debates measured by the audience that we ended up attracting, not simply in the hall, Roy Thompson Hall, downtown Toronto, filled with 3,000 people to capacity, but give our listeners and our community a little bit of sense of how that debate ended up reverberating outside of the hall, really across the world over the preceding days and weeks.

Yeah, the response was unlike anything we had experienced in our 30-year history. I mean, part of that has to do with digital media taking on a life of its own in a way that we didn't, that wasn't available to us 10 years ago. But certainly the subject matter and the speakers themselves, I think, elevated it and it went viral. We had more people sign up to watch the debate on that night, June 17th, and the following week than I think cumulatively in our monk debates history. And actually, the website almost went down. because we had so many people coming to watch it. And the clips themselves from the debate just went crazy.

Like, they were everywhere. You couldn't, it was trending on Twitter. Every kind of, every radio show was talking about it. And it was really something to behold, which actually goes to show that, you know, having smart, intelligent conversation resonates with people. Yeah. No, I was really proud of the series.

I was proud of the Monk Foundation for supporting that debate because it was a debate that the city of Toronto needed to have, not simply the topic itself, but the very fact that we could have the debate and that, you know, people could gather together of different points of view, sharply held at times opposing, but nonetheless, be in that hall, listen to those arguments, and walk away and draw their own conclusions. And that, to me, is what the Monk Debates has always been about.

It's about saying to our audience and the people that discover us, whether through the Internet or however, that we think that they're adults and they should be making up their own minds about the issues. We'll provide you with both sides of the story. You decide. That's kind of our motto. Well, after the big success of the spring, something happened in the fall, the first time in the history of the monk debate series. We had a debate planned. We had announced it, and we had to pull the debate down.

And I think our community would love to hear a little bit of the backstory of why that happened. And maybe some of the lessons that we learned from that process. Needless to say, monk members, you know, we take these debates very seriously. seriously. We spend a lot of time, Ricky certainly does, on each and every one of them. And we had really had a high conviction. That fall debate with Robert F. Kennedy was an important one and could have happened. Unfortunately, in the 11th hour, it didn't. So Ricky, why don't you give us some background on why RFK pulled out of the debate at the last moment? Sure. So something that we struggle with at the debates when we're planning these events is to make them as timely as possible, but to be able to book them with enough time in advance to get everything you need to make them successful. And so by that I mean, the speakers that we invite to these events are highly sought after. They have

very busy schedules. So we try to reach out to them and to book them months in advance. However, sometimes the topic changes and we want to follow the topic, not the speakers. And so we decided for this debate, we would have it about U.S. politics, but we weren't sure at that moment who was going to win the election. Right. So first we had to wait for the election to happen, which pushed us much later into the fall than we normally would have even had a debate. And I guess the point you're making is important one is like, that's when we had to start chasing for guests for the debate, was when we would normally have already booked the debate and the speakers weeks ago to hold the debate in early November, if I remember.

And instead, we were starting at basically at the starting line, knowing that Trump had won, able then to cast the debate to make it as relevant as possible in terms of the election that it just happened. Exactly. November 6th was basically our starting line. We were off to the races and it was a time crunch. And we had been in touch with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. previously. He was very open to debate.

And he signed a contract. He was very happy to debate Donald Trump and why he was. he thought he would make a good president in his second term. But all that changed when Trump nominated him for Secretary of Health. And so for those who don't know the process of how that happens, essentially the president-elect makes these nominations, and then those nominees need to go through confirmation process in the Senate. And RFK was basically told by Trump's team under no conditions are you able to engage in any public talks. So his hands were tied. He did feel really bad about it. He reached out to you personally. I thought that showed some, yeah,

some manners on his part despite disappointing us with his with, with draw. Yeah, he's actually a good guy. So I felt bad for him, but I also felt really bad for us. And it's just really unfortunate because I think it would have been a really timely and important conversation. And we did get a bit of flack. This is also interesting. We do get pushback on some of the people that we have on stage. And we wouldn't be doing our job if there wasn't some pushback, at least against one debater or two debaters, is that anyone debate, because that's the whole point, is to bring people that are going to bring the heat and bring the argument and other people who don't like those views react to it. Now, I get

it. RFK is a spicy brew at the best of times, and people were certainly reacting to that. But, yeah, I felt okay, extending the invitation of the Monk's debate stage to him. and we're disappointed that that debate did not happen, and we appreciate the understanding of our audience that we sometimes take risks and we push things because we're really trying to bring to our community the best possible debate that we can. And as you said, it's a question of timing

that we often have to move really fast in order to capitalize on an event of the moment. Well, one thing, just, just, you know, on that note about inviting people who are sometimes considered a little spicy, you know, there's a threshold that we adhere to. Yes. We don't want to push the envelope so much that we are inviting people who are so unpalatable that they are considered outside the Overton window that is often referred to. You know, we don't want to elevate voices that we think are actually kind of destructive. Now, that being said, we felt with RFK Jr., he is part of an administration that, like it or not for some people, had the majority of votes. And so, and this is something that we consistently get pushed back on when we invite people or when, you know, Steve Bannon was previously on the stage,

to ignore half the country just because some people find them unpalatable, it doesn't serve to better understand each other and have those oftentimes tough conversations that are still necessary. Yeah, look, I mean, we're all about speaking across the divides, you know, sending the semaphores from one tribe to another because that's the very polarization that the monk debates is trying to combat, that we're trying to get above in a sense. And you can take or leave it.

Look, I often say to people, it's a free country. You don't have to attend the monk debates. You don't have to watch the monk debates. You don't have to anything to do. We're not publicly subsidized. We don't accept a dollar from government. So don't worry, your tax dollars aren't funding us. This is all privately funded by the monk family.

Let's turn to 2025 because the coming year is going to see some changes at the monk debates. We feel it's always important to like adapt and evolve. And a lot of those big changes are going to happen with regards. to our podcast. So why don't, as our podcast producer who is responsible for over 100 episodes that we produce every year, tell us a little bit about what audiences can expect from the Monk podcast in the year to come? So we have some exciting episodes lined up. We are trying something new. We are going to, instead of having new guests every week, we're going to have a few reoccurring guests. Each episode will focus on kind of either U.S. politics, cultural issues, or geopolitics.

And the speakers that are going to be joining us are really, we think, thought leaders, people who have kind of a unique insight to add to the conversation. So it's not just kind of a usual talking points that you might hear on a cable news network, you know, left versus right. We're really trying to elevate the conversation with people who are taking their arguments one step further. Yeah. So the idea, I think, Ricky, is that we want to provide the listening community with some voices that they can come back to again and again and hopefully build a sense of an understanding of where this person is coming from, how they are positioning their arguments, how they're making their arguments. I think what we felt a little bit about the way we've been doing the podcast for the last couple of years, which, again, is a different pair of people each week on a different topic, is that there sometimes isn't that relationship with our audience.

Understandably, you're either interested in that debate or you're not. So I think what we want to try to do is replicate a little bit of the success of Friday Focus, which we'll talk about in a moment. where we have, in that case, Janice and me each week, and you come to have a little bit of a sense as an audience member as to what the heck is Rudyard saying this week or, you know, yeah, Janice, I want to hear what she has to say about issue X, Y, or Z. So I think that'll be an interesting experiment for us, and we certainly welcome the feedback of the community as we roll out these new, in a sense, regular guests.

But let's switch to Friday focus, because I think it's important to know. note that this does not replace Friday Focus. It's in addition to Friday Focus. And, Ricky, it's been interesting over the last year how Friday Focus continues to build a really loyal and enthusiastic following. Oh, yeah. You wouldn't believe how many emails I get about Friday Focus. Yeah. Lots of opinions out there about what you and Janice have to say. Yeah. And again, I think that's terrific. And I think it's the benefit in some ways of podcasting that you hopefully find a show that you like and you come back to that show because it's going to give you the thing that you enjoyed last time the next time. And I think what we maybe felt about the main Monk Debate podcast feed, which was a different debate with different debaters each week, that we would end up, you know, sometimes, again, giving you a topic that you liked or you didn't like.

I don't know. In this new format, Ricky, it sounds like we'll be able to potentially explore multiple topics on a single show. I won't have the same debate resolution as the overarching theme for that episode. Instead, what we'll do is react to the news from that week. We might kind of unpack several different news stories and offer different perspectives on those news stories. And it's not going to be a vote afterwards about who won or who didn't. Really, the objective is just to do what we do. best, which is offer different perspectives on the hot button issues with leading thinkers.

If you're enjoying the Monk Debates podcast, come over to our website at triple W monkdebates.com. That's MUNK DebateswithanS.com and check out our free monk membership. As a complimentary monk member, you get all kinds of great perks and benefits, access to our weekly email, summarizing our best debates, and ticketing privileges at our main stage debates, special news information, and offers all courtesy of the Monk debates. You can grab your complimentary monk membership again right now at triple W monkdebates.com. Simply look to the top navigation on the website and follow the links. Thanks in advance for joining our community.

So can you give us a little bit of a preview if we move on to main stage debates about when the next main stage debate will happen and some of the topics and ideas that we're exploring right now. Obviously, events in the world can change between now and the next debate, and we always like to be topical and relevant. But when are you thinking of scheduling the next mainstream debate, and what are some of the issues that have caught your attention right now? So we are looking at May for those who live in Toronto.

know. So try to keep that month somewhat open, if you can. That seems to be a good month for us to hold our spring debates. There's a few topics that are really, that have us interested at the moment. One of them, Rudyard, you brought up a couple weeks ago, and the minute you said it, I was like, yes. And sometimes when both me and Rudyard are just like, yes, that's like a really good kind of indication that there's some legs there. And you brought up experts and how our trust in experts has eroded so much over the past. I mean, most people would point to COVID, but I think it goes even further back to the Great Recession.

And what has that done to our society? Is that net positive, net negative? essentially do they deserve our trust? And so that's one of the debates we are exploring, but we're all. Yeah. So just to jump in on that one, I think it's, you know, one of the things we like to do at the monk debates is sometimes have very specific debates on a, usually on a single issue. So we've had, you know, debates on Iran's nuclear program, or we've, you know, had a debate on the first Trump presidency and would he make America clear?

great again. Other times the monk debates, what I enjoy about the series is we step back. So we've done higher level debates, I call them like macro debates on religion. We just did a debate a year or so ago on, you know, liberalism, small L liberalism, classical liberalism. I enjoy those debates because it's kind of, it's often what you don't get in the media each and every time. You don't get those bigger picture paintings on a larger Canvas. And I think that a debate in experts or trust in experts is one of those types of topics. And it's certainly something we should look at for the spring. I know also for the spring, you're thinking that some of these issues around diversity have come to the four, not just

in Canada, but internationally. And the extent to which our societies feel really disunited right now, it feels like the diversity which many of us hope continues to be a strength in our society in certain quarters and places and because of certain events seems to have actually become a source of polarization, a way that our societies feel like they're being frayed or pulled apart. There's almost too much diversity. Maybe too much diversity is a bad thing in a society in the 21st century that's being buffeted and pushed around by all these different, you know, forces domestic and international. How would you approach a debate like that?

What would be the type of lens that you would put over an issue like that to bring it to the main stage at Roy Thompson Hall? Yeah. So, I mean, here at the Monk Debates, we always follow kind of trends and news stories that are taking place across much of the Western world. And something that, you know, as Roger you just alluded to, was about diversity and multiculturalism and whether countries in the West that are experiencing this kind of, real shift in demographics, whether this is ultimately a good thing for them in the future, whether this will unite and bring about real progress, and whether, you know, we should embrace this change or whether, as others argue, that it's actually fracturing. Yeah, and then we'll obviously keep an eye out between now and the early spring where we have to really

start getting our ducks in a row and nailing down our speakers about issues that could come up, like Canada the 51st state of the United States. Be it resolved, Canada should join the United States. Have I just thought of a great topic for a spring debate? And Janice Stein, I should, I'll throw in an honorable mention for her, the debate she wants to do, whether Elon Musk is a threat to democracy. Yes. Well, I threat to UK democracy at this moment with all the tweet storms that he's going with Starmer, the UK Prime Minister. Well, Ricky, this was a great catch-up. Any final kind of message that you want to leave the community with as they think about

the monk debates? So many of you have been so generous in your support over the years, and we really, really appreciate that and let you know that we're working hard on the podcast, on the main stage debates, on our membership program. it's all in service of this cause of more and better public debate of the big issues of our time. Yeah, you know, as I spend a lot of time online, I just worry about the echo chambers because, you know, I have opinions too. You have opinions. Everyone has opinions.

And it's so much easier to be spoon-fed the other opinions that confirm your own. And it's dangerous. And we're not asking you to engage with. opinions that are destructive, we're just asking you to engage with perspectives that might challenge your assumptions. Yeah. Look, I think it's, I often think of the monk debates, certainly organizing them. It's a kind of, it's a mental exercise. It's putting yourself in someone else's position, whether you agree with the argument or not, and trying to see how they see the issue. And I think that's always been the enduring value of debate.

And as you say, debate is dying in a lot of the rest of our society. Our social media platforms and the algorithms are sorting people into tribes. They're sorting them into pro and con teams. Some wearing red shirts. Some wearing blue shirts. There's very little space left in our society where people can come together in good faith to hear arguments and understand the kind of the mental and civic kind of benefit of just simply practicing that discipline, of keeping your mind open to the other point of view.

You don't have to adopt it. You don't have to like it. But listening is lost art, I think, unfortunately, in 2025 in the 21st century. And if the monk debates is about anything, it's not just great debate. It's about restoring the art of listening to each. other and spending a little bit of time in each other's shoes. And hopefully, yeah, in a small way, we make a contribution to a less polarized society, a society more maybe capable of dealing with some of these huge challenges that are coming

down the proverbial pipe. So Ricky, thanks so much once again for doing an update with me for our Monk Debates membership and community. And we look forward to the launch of the new podcast. Will that be later this month in January? Out next week? Yeah. So the idea again,

we'll be these two debaters will appear together over a number of weeks to give you our listening audience a good sense of what they think on the big issues of the day. They're going to bring different perspectives, different data sets,

different POVs, and we're going to kind of try to keep coming back to them to provide, again, that little bit more of a sense of continuity and reliability, hopefully in terms of the Monk Debate podcast and what we can offer our audience. So I look forward to taping that new show with you next week and sharing it with our community.

So with that, we'll say bye-bye to everybody. Thanks for watching and listening. That's right, watching. We're recording this in a studio. So there may be some clips that have made it on to a social media platform somewhere. Thanks again, everybody. We'll be back to you with our regular podcast next week. Bye-bye.

The Monk debates are a project of the Aurea and Peter and Melanie Monk Charitable Foundations. Rudyard Griffiths and Ricky Gerwitz are. the producers. Be sure to download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like us, feel free to give us a five-star rating. Thank you again for listening.