The Munk Debates Podcast - The best debates of 2023

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

On this special edition of the Munk Debates podcast, host Rudyard Griffiths is joined by senior content producer, Ricki Gurwitz, to discuss some of their favourite debates and dialogues from the over 50 podcast episodes published this year. They also peel back the curtain to give listeners a glimpse into how these debates come together. How do they decide what debates to convene? What makes for a successful debate? And which debate topics are the hardest to book?  The answers may surprise you.   The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths  Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail].   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, access to our Friday Focus podcast, a free Munk Debates book, 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 LynchBecome 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.

You don't help the poor by making everybody poorer. The media has a frame, and the frame is Israel is the oppressor, and the Palestinians are the oppressed. I shouldn't be forced to acknowledge my privilege unless I desire for that to be part of my interaction with somebody else. What I know to be true and what all of my fellow Gen Z know to be true is that this is the most talented generation yet. With respect to every indicia of disadvantage, there is still a racial hierarch. And though I am, of course, in Anglo. I'm certainly not a fucking Saxon. Hello, Monk listeners.

Roger Griffiths here, your host and moderator. Welcome to this, a special edition of the Monk Debates podcast. On this episode, we're joined by our senior content producer, Ricky Gerwitz, to look back at the year that was. We're going to pick our favorite debates and dialogues from the over 50 episodes released in the last 12 months. We're also going to peel back the curtain, so to speak, to give you the listener a glimpse into how,

we decide what debates to convene and what guests to host on our program. What at the end of the day makes for a great month debates podcast? What debate topics are the most difficult to book? The answers may surprise you. So let's get to it. Our 2023 year in review starts now. Hi, Ricky Gerowitz. Hi, Richard Griffith. Well, ladies and gentlemen, as I've set up this show, we're going to do something a little bit different on this installment of the Monk Debates podcast. We're going to lift the proverbial curtain behind the person to introduce you to Ricky Gerowitz, who is our senior content producer for the Monk Debates and the podcast, is responsible for booking all the great guests that you've been listening to the last year

and thinking up a lot of the great debates that I've been able to host, and we hope that you've been able to enjoy. So we thought it might be interesting for you to get a sense of what it's like to produce almost every week, an original debate on a contemporary topic. Ricky, maybe just to begin, give our audience a sense of like what you do. How do you put these debates together? What's the kind of process that over the last, what is it now, three years that you've been at this building the Monk Debates podcast into one of, I think of Canada, is top, like, non-broadcaster podcast in terms of downloads over 150,000 people downloading it each and every month? Talk to us about the process. How does this all happen?

So this is a very collaborative process, and both you and I are always following the news and looking at whether there is a debate to be had with a story that's being watched by the public. And so when we identify that story, then we start to discuss, like, what is the debate here? And it's not just what is the debate. It's what is the debate that can withstand at least 40 minutes of back and forth? Because there's a lot of debates that are over in about two minutes. So, and then once we've kind of nailed that down, we try to find the person who is best equipped to present either side of the argument. And I would say that's the hardest part of producing the debates because there's a lot of people who might be experts in certain fields, but they're not willing to debate.

Some of them who are willing to debate might not be good debaters. So you kind of have to make sure that they tick a lot of boxes and sometimes we get it wrong. You know, as we will talk about in this episode, you can cast someone who you think is going to be great. And then all of a sudden within one sentence, within their opening statement, you realize, oh, no, this is not the way that we had planned. You can kind of follow a script and try to do everything possible to get the right people and the right debate. But ultimately, when we hit record, it's out of our hands and it's not up to the producers anymore. Yeah. So if you think about this, Ricky, and we've been at this, I'm just looking here, I think we started in the fall of 2019.

So we're in the fall of 2023. We've done, I don't know, what is it now? Well over 100 plus debates. What do you think are the ingredients that make for like a really good podcast debate? What are the things that you look for as a producer to say, okay, I can see that this thing is going to line up. It's going to be the type of debate that we hope to deliver to our listeners every week on the month debates. First, they actually have to disagree. Sometimes, you know, someone will say that they will take a certain stance and they come on and they don't.

And so you end up getting a lot of agreement, which is great for a dialogue, but not great for what we had in mind for the discussion. But I think having people who are thoughtful, so you don't want to get the super extreme of sides because those guests tend to. to not interact. They just talk over each other and it can become quite hostile. And really, the mission of the debates is to move the conversation forward. I point to a debate we had on affirmative action. And that was a debate whether class, not race, should be the considering factor when admitting underprivileged students. We booked John McWhorter, who is a linguistics professor at Columbia and Randall Kennedy, who's a professor at Harvard, and they were fantastic. I mean, that debate just sung because they respected each other as colleagues. They held different

views, but they spoke in a really respectful way. As a moderator, you just took a step back, because you could see right off the bat that it was such a great conversation that they could take it on their own. And I don't think you even interject it until closing statements. Yeah, let's play a little clip from that debate right now just to give a taste to our audience. So here it is. And as far as I'm concerned, I would rather have race sensitive policies that are about disadvantage. And there are various ways of doing it, be that about socioeconomics, be that about wealth, be that about zip code, rather than just saying, here is a brown person, okay, they don't have to hit as high a bar because they're brown and it makes us feel good to let them in.

That was okay for a good 50 years. Time to let that go. A couple of things. Number one on the question of people decrying, you know, being labeled affirmative action babies. There are people who decry that. I am not one of them. I am an affirmative action baby. That was a clip of our debate on affirmative action. One that I really enjoyed too, Ricky. And you're right. The great debates are often the ones where I find, like, I don't even have to moderate. It's like watching a great tennis game where the ball is just going back and forth over the net.

And I don't have to do anything. And that was certainly one of those debates that excelled. You're listening to our year in recap of the Monk debates. I'm talking with Ricky Gerwitz, the senior content producer at the Monk Debate. Debates, who produces all of our podcasts, a well over 200 shows a year, if you add in our regular weekly main podcast and Friday Focus, Ricky is responsible for it all, and we're just talking about some of the lessons, the learnings, hopefully giving you a bit of a perspective as a listener about what actually goes on at the Monk Debates. Talk to us, Ricky,

about another debate that you felt this year really excelled or delivered on the Monk Debates promise and maybe one that you've, you know, was tough for you to put together. Because I think what people maybe don't appreciate is that there are a lot of debates that you work on that just never make it to the show, right? They kind of die in the debate about the debate. Is that right? Oh, absolutely. And it's becoming harder and harder to book debates, especially when it comes to cultural issues. So it's a trend that I've noticed ever since I started working at the Monk debates that when we want to do a debate that that falls under the umbrella of the culture wars. So I'm talking about DEI. I'm talking about transgender issues. I'm talking

about free speech and censorship. People don't want to debate. And I wouldn't say everyone, I would say it tends to be people who are on the left of these issues don't want a debate. The common response that I get is that they don't want to give a platform to the other side because then by engaging with them in a debate, they are legitimizing that other viewpoint. So that is a- I will say though, Ricky, you did manage to pull off all those debates. So what happens there is it that you, you're talking about. talking to somebody and then they bail and then you're trying to find somebody else and they bail.

And then how do you keep up the quality of the of the guests in that case? And I guess those were debates that did really well for us, weren't they, in terms of like audience engagement. And we watch all the downloads, listeners. So we're seeing kind of what you're doing. How much of each debate do you consume? How long are we holding you on the program? We've got all those statistics and your choices as listeners. really does influence and direct our behavior in terms of what we try to produce for you.

Yeah. Generally, our audience is interested in those debates. I think that's probably just symbolic of the larger population. I think most people are interested in those debates right now. They're the ones that are happening around dinner tables and in classrooms. So there's a few ways we are able to pull those off. Sometimes we have to consult with a guest about who we're booking. and make sure that they are okay with that person.

Sometimes we have to promote the idea that this is really a public service, which it is, and that people want to hear this side. And by not including that perspective, like, that side is not being heard. So you're amplifying the other side. So it's just about how you talk to these guests and how you make them kind of want to participate. Yeah. What people don't know is that Ricky is absolutely relentless when it comes to chasing guests. She tracks the private cell phone number of, I think, two billionaires this year, which is kind of cool.

I'm not giving my secrets away. Leon Cooperman and the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. I'm such a non-sports person. I'm forgetting his name. Mark Cuban. Mark Cuban who came on the show this year, too. That was a cool get for you. But I want to go back to Ricky, something you said about this is becoming more difficult for you over the last three years that you've been programming this show.

And what you're saying or what I'm hearing you're saying is that people don't want to provide the other side with, in a sense, the legitimacy of what would it be their time, their arguments, their reputation. You think that's getting worse. What, you know, what's behind that? Is it, is it pure pressure? Is it social media? and the fact that, you know, these things do kind of blow up on social media. Is it the format of debate that people are just, you know, it's not like a speech, right? A speech you control things.

You get to kind of say how you take the listener from A to B to Z, whereas in a debate, you've got a live person on the other end who's challenging you. So what do you think is responsible here for this growing unwillingness of people to debate each other? I think it's something that you mentioned, which is reputational consequence. I think that if someone were to engage in a debate that their community deems irresponsible or not up for a debate, then they face consequences within that group. And as we know, we're constantly put into tribes and no one wants to jeopardize their place in their tribe. And you find this, Ricky, and again, we're saying this not because we have a point of view. We don't.

We try to be studiously neutral. But you find that this is happening more on with guests who might, for lack of a better expression, be to the left on the political spectrum. Like when it comes to the issue that we're debating, they're generally taking more of a progressive left of center view. So any thoughts about why this kind of. skepticism or reluctance to debate is stronger on the left. And again, we're using kind of crude ways of dividing a lot of sophisticated thinking here. But nonetheless, this is what you're seeing. And I'm just curious as to why you think people, a lot of our right-of-centered debaters

often seem really keen to be part of the debate. Is it because their arguments they feel aren't getting as much play, let's say, in mainstream media? so they're willing to, you know, respond to you and respond to the monk debates because, hey, I get to talk about what I want to talk about. When you say left, I think we should specify that the group we're talking about are more progressively aligned. So center left guests typically want to debate. I would say people on the more far left, I'm talking about the AOC camp.

the people who are much more identitarian-based, they're the ones who don't want to debate. What I'm hearing from the right-leaning guests is that they feel that Twitter offers people the chance to say whatever they want and not get pushback. But when it comes to debate, they have to actually hold their arguments up to scrutiny,

and they're not prepared to do that. Right. I'm glad you mentioned Twitter because you have like a love, hate relationship with Twitter in the context of your job and what you do for us. Talk a little bit about that. Like what have you, because Twitter is a big part, I think, of the, it's an overused word, but I'll use it, the ecosystem of debate. And it's certainly changed over the last, you know, period of time under Elon Musk's kind of management.

I'm wondering if you think that's somehow reflective of some. of the challenges that we're having at the Monk debates and, you know, finding debaters trying to model civil and substantive debate. Yeah, I wouldn't say Twitter champions civil and substantive debate. It has become kind of a cesspool. And unfortunately, I have to spend a lot of time on there in order to find people who are passionate about topics, which is the best kind of debater. You want to find people who are passionate about something that's taking place in the public discourse. And those people tend to voice their opinions on Twitter, but you also get a lot of people who don't know what they're talking about, and they can spew all the misinformation they

want, and they have a lot of followers, which is really concerning. So I have to spend a lot of time on Twitter, but I don't enjoy the time that I spend on Twitter. Sign up now for a complimentary monk membership. As a free monk member, you get all kinds of great perks and privileges, including streaming of select debates, dialogues, and podcasts on our website, a 24-hour advanced ticketing window to access seats to our in-person debates before the general public, written transcripts of all of our content, and email updates on special offers and promotions,

You can grab your complimentary monk membership right now at triple W monk debates. That's MUNK Debates with an S.com. Simply click on the membership tab in the top right of our navigation. Grab your monk membership and open your mind to a world of great debate. Let's talk a little bit about what happens when these debates are released and how they kind of play out because sometimes that's great. Everything goes to plan. People like the debate.

The participants are happy with it. Other times, I believe, like, Ricky, sometimes people feel disappointment, having participated in a debate. I find that kind of curious, like interesting. What's going on there? Why are some people who take part in debates then kind of having second thoughts after,

after the fact. Well, I think it comes down to performance. If they think that they didn't do well, then they have regret. I think, you know, we had this free speech debate. This is a couple years ago. And the person who was debating in favor of free speech, it was very clear that he was winning the debate. And the person who argued that censorship does not stifle free speech, she was

very clearly losing the debate. And afterwards, I never heard from her again. And, you know, I reached out several times and to let her know that the podcast was out and nothing. And she just went quiet. And so I don't think, like, if I were to reach out to her for another debate, there's no way she would do it. I point to our mainstream media debate from last year, you know, which got a lot of publicity. Douglas Murray was really a star in that debate. And and he came down hard on Malcolm Gladwell. And I think Malcolm Gladwell's reputation suffered from that debate.

And I think he would regret having participated in it. And I do worry that if we reach out to him again, he might not want to do us because... Well, I would say, though, credit, to Malcolm's Gladwell's credit, and I urge our listeners to check it out, he did a very amusing podcast for his own very, very popular podcast feed on his disastrous monk debate.

And he met with debate coaches at a school in New York who, like, analyzed his performance. Anyway, it was very Gladwell-esque. But I appreciated it. And I kind of, you know, it got me thinking, at least for our main stage debates, it might be interesting to think more in the future about having our debaters react after the debate, you know, after some time has passed, what did they think about it? How did they perform? Where, because I'm often interested in, many people ask me, like, what makes for a great debater, having moderated so many of these now over the years? And I think, you know, I'd like to say it's,

you know, having really clear arguments or fantastic research and points, but often debate is kind of what makes it fun. It's a rhetorical exercise. There's a lot of performance. in debate and in great debate. And I find, you know, Douglas Murray is like a prize-winning champion of the rhetorical flourishes and all the entertainment that great debate can provide. And I hope that comes through, you know, Ricky and I think you feel this way too, that, like, we do like to stress the civil and substantive because we're trying to be a bit of an antidote to the rest of the debate that's happening out there in Twitter and elsewhere,

which is sometimes kind of toxic. At the same time, we like to have fun, right? I mean, that debates should be entertaining and engaging and should stimulate thinking, but also should have a sense of like, wow, that was a really great performance. And I think we do that from time to time on the podcast. Let's talk about a few more of your favorite debates from this last year. Sure. So we did one recently on whether Western media has an anti-eastern.

Israel bias. I liked this debate a lot because it's something that, you know, we are in the media, so it's obviously something that we are interested in. But when we talked earlier about discussions that we kind of follow online or in public discourse, this one has just become so loud since October 7th, this specific debate. And whether, and there's a lot of instances that people point to that can show their side. And, why their side is right, why the media either has an anti-Israel biased or a pro-Israel biased. So we felt that that set the stage for what would be an interesting debate, but we wanted people who were in the media to participate,

and also people who weren't necessarily on the fringes of the media. And by that I mean we weren't going to get someone from Novara Media. We weren't going to get someone from a super right-wing kind of conspiracy theorist. We wanted to have people, sensible people, who really had a role to play in this conflict. And I think we did that with James Kirchick and Arwa Damon. She's a former CNN correspondent. He's a writer for tablet and airmail. Now let's play a clip from that debate just to give you a taste of the dialogue.

Where are the Western media exposés, the mainstream media exposés on what life was like in Gaza before? October 7th on the corruption of the Palestinian Authority, on the corruption of Hamas, we don't see that sort of reporting because it doesn't fit the narrative, which the mainstream media has adopted on this conflict, which is that Israel is a colonialist aggressor, and the Palestinians are pitiable victims. That was our debate on, be it resolved, Western media has an anti-Israeli bias. One of your other favorites, Ricky, from this past year, Trump's prosecution is bad for American democracy, be it resolved. Why did you like that one? Why was that one of your top three or four debates the last 12 months? Because I think that,

you know, there's been so many debates on Trump. And I think we're all kind of tired of Trump. I know I am. But this was an interesting take on Trump in that I think it wasn't about necessarily him. It was about the consequences of going after him. And what that might do to American democracy, belief in the justice system, the nonpartisanship of the justice system. And so there were a lot of interesting questions that this debate brought up. But also the debaters, as you mentioned before, we want them to have fun with each other. And these debaters really did. Sarah Isker, she's with the dispatch.

She's just fantastic. I urge anyone to check her out. And Norm Eisen, who's a really really real. well-respected lawyer in Washington. And they really liked each other. And so it was just fun to listen to. Yeah, let's play a clip from that now. This case is bad for democracy because they knew they wanted to get the guy.

There were political reasons why they wanted to do it. And what they're having to do to the law to bring this case, I think, sets a dangerous precedent down the road that will be followed by Republican elected district attorneys, other democratically elected district attorneys. that's what I'm worried about. Are the consequences yet to come? It's a legit question. And I think it's an important debate to have.

So, Sarah, I value you asking the hard questions. That was our debate on Trump, taking a different slice at it, be it resolved Trump's prosecution is bad for American democracy. That would be one of my favorites from the last year, too. You're listening to our kind of, you're in review of the monk debates. I'm speaking with Ricky Gerwitz, the senior content producer at the monk debates, who's responsible for all of our podcasts and helps out with our main stage debates too. If you've had a favorite debate over the last year at the monk debates, let us know,

because your feedback is always important in terms of what Ricky thinks about in terms of new topics and ideas for 2024. You can send us your comments right now, your favorite debate at the year, a debate that you'd like us to have podcast at monk m unk debates with an s dot com now this year ricky we started to add into the program feed a full-length kind of long-form conversations what was something we're calling monk dialogues it picks up on a video program we did during the pandemic also called the muck dialogues where we experimented with this kind of longer form conversation, 40 minutes, sense that you can really hopefully get to know a guest better. You can go deeper into their ideas than a lot of the rest of the media does through, you know,

the traditional five-minute cable type conversation. So what were some of your favorite monk dialogues from the last 12 months? And let's talk about what makes for a great interview subject and maybe how for you as a producer, it's different putting together the dialogues versus the debates. Right. So with the dialogues, our mandate is obviously different, but we tried to have kind of big name guests, people who are well known and who have done something or have learned something that we feel we want to share with our audience. And so one dialogue that really sticks out to me is the one that we aired right after October 7th. And so I want to share a little bit of background on how we came to book this.

On October 8th, we were planning to air a dialogue with Martin Indic that we had recorded the week before. Now, Martin Indic is the former ambassador to U.S. ambassador to Israel. And the subject of that dialogue was on Saudi Israel relations. And then the day before we were going to release that, the attack on Israel happened on October 7th. And there was just no way we could air that. It was the Saudi Israel normalization agreement looked to be off the table. And it was not when, obviously, it was not what anyone was talking about. So both you and I kind of went back and forth, like, who is?

the person that we want to hear from right now. And we settled on Brett Stevens, and I think we made a really good decision because he was able to articulate not only kind of the sadness and the horror that had befallen Israel and the Israeli community, but also he was able to predict the fallout from this and how Israel was going to respond and how the American public would respond to that response. And I think a lot of what he said in that interview has come to pass. Yeah, that was a really emotional interview for me to do because, you know, just the rawness of that moment. Brett's, you know, was clearly upset as everyone should be. And Yeah, it was a memorable interview from the last year.

And again, listeners, if you have a favorite dialogue or long-form interview that you heard in the last year on the Monk Debates podcast, if you let us know, podcast at monkdebates.com. Another favorite, I think, that we both enjoyed was the U.S. political scientist Stephen Walt, who has done a mainstage debate from us, Ricky, but we had them back on the Monk Dialogues this year. for a conversation. Why was that one of your favorites in the last year? Stephen Walt is a realist political scientist, and he takes a different approach

when he looks at the conflicts that are taking place around the world. It's not what you might hear from the kind of mainstream political thought. And so it's interesting to hear from him about, what he thinks about what's going on in Ukraine or Israel. And it was also really interesting to talk to him a year after our mainstage debate with him because a lot of the things that he talked about at that main stage debate really came to pass. And, you know, he was almost able to do a little victory dance in our dialogue with him. Because I think he won the debate in the long term.

Yeah, good point. That was from this past August. Let's have a listen to Stephen Waltz now on the Russia-Ukraine war. I think we've all been surprised to discover how unprepared NATO and the United States, the West as a whole, were for modern industrial strength warfare. We were accustomed to fighting these short, quick campaigns against relatively weak opponents like the Iraqi army or fighting counterinsurgency campaign. like the war in Afghanistan, but not a big, you know, artillery and armor-based war of attrition involving massive amounts of ammunition. And we're discovering, of course, that the West just isn't ready for that. That was our conversation with American political scientist Stephen Walt,

one of our series of Monk Dialogues over the course of the year. Ricky, how easy or hard is it for you to convince people to convince people to, come on to the podcast. I mean, I think one of the lovely things about podcasting, and maybe our listeners understand this, is that in the vast majority of cases, just only, I think, a few exceptions a year, we don't pay our guests. Our guests, there's something nice about podcasting. It's kind of like public lectures. People give of their time. But at the same time, nobody has any time. So how do you, what do you find, like, the, I don't know, the awareness of the monk debates is when you talk to people or how they react to us?

Be interesting just your views on that. I mean, how hard is it to get people to come on? Because, I mean, you've had some great guests this year. Mark Cuban, Leon Cooperman. We just did a terrific debate about Henry Kissinger with Henry Kissinger's biographer, Neil Ferguson. I mean, it just seems like often we're lucky or you do the hard work and we end up having the right person

on the right topic. So I think there's two methods. of persuasion, if you will. One is, like you said, reputationalally, the monk debates are known. And I think that people trust us to convene civil, substantive, respectful, informed debate. They know we're not a cable news program that are going to just encourage people to yell at each other.

There's also name recognition. You know, there's a lot of people who have been on our stage or on our podcast. who others in their field look up to. But also, it's about finding something that someone is passionate about. So someone like Neil Ferguson, he wanted to talk about Henry Kissinger because he spent years writing a biography on him. You know, Leon Cooperman wanted to talk about what was going on on campuses because that was something that was personal to him

when it came to his own donation to Columbia, which we learned during the dialogue that he was discontinuing. Mark Cuban, for instance, he launched a new company which offers low-cost drugs, and he's really changing that entire landscape. He's very passionate about what he's doing right now. In fact, he's mentioned that he wants this to be his legacy, so he wants to talk about that. So I think it's about finding the things that make people, want to talk.

Yeah, that's a key point. It often, you know, it really does make for the best conversations when people have, like, are there really clear POV or there's an issue that they want to, you know, surface. And we really welcome having those conversations with our monk dialogue guests. So, Ricky, if you step back and you just think of the year as a whole, over 200 shows, I guess over the course of the year, you know, a million and a half or more downloads, mainly Canada, the United States. That's where most of our audience is.

What do you hope that the audience kind of takes away or gets from the shows that you produce? Like, what are you, what's the effect that you're trying to have in terms of the listenership? So I would hope that someone listening to our debate comes into it with one point of view. And then after listening to what we have put together, they come out thinking, oh, I didn't actually, I hadn't thought about it that way before. So maybe they've learned something or maybe they've altered their perspective a bit. maybe they're going to go home and talk about it with their family and bring up some of the points that, you know, were mentioned in the podcast. That to me would be the sign of a podcast well done. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we take this seriously at the Monk debate. It's like,

unlike maybe some other shows out there, we really think you, the audience are smart, intelligent, intellectually curious people. So we want to give you two views, two takes on an issue. And then it's up to you to kind of make up your mind if you want to make up your mind

or as Ricky said, if you want to take something away from that conversation. And, you know, I get it. There's a lot of people in our society that really love violently agreeing with each other and debate is not their thing. But we really do appreciate you,

our listeners, of you who are kind of interested in this intellectual exercise. And, you know, actually there's more and more science now that says it's kind of actually good for your brain health to hear other arguments, to try to synthesize them, to have your views challenged. It actually kind of moves our minds out of like stasis. And I think of Lisa Feldman Barrett, the neurologist that we've interviewed, that's a great one to listen to about like the importance of debate, our conversation with David.

Brooks this year about just how to have like meaningful conversations with people. That was a really monk dialogue that stuck with me. So I, you know, I hope our listenership gets a feeling that like we're trying to entertain. We're trying to engage. But there's also like a mission in the work that we do and that we like we literally think it could be good for your health, at least in addition to hopefully just broadening the scope of debate. so that more points of view can kind of come to the four. Well, Ricky, I just want to thank you on behalf the Monk Debates community for all your hard work.

It's an impressive roster of shows and programs, and we'll, again, include in the show notes for our listeners, a list of your favorite debates from the last year and some of your top picks for Monk Dialogs. People want to do some listening over the holiday season. And again, just to reiterate that, you know, a show is its listeners. You guys are what make us gladly, excitedly, each and every day, get up and try to produce debates and dialogues. So, Ricky, let me give you the last word in this year-end review program.

Well, I do want to end by saying that we do read all your emails. So if there is a debate that you really feel that we really feel that we're going to be, we need to convene. You know, we're all ears. And it's a real pleasure to be able to do this every day. Yeah. Well, that email again podcast at Monk Debates, MUNK, DebateswithanS.com. Send us your thoughts, suggestions on debates that you've heard, debates that you'd like us to do. Ricky is all ears. and 2024 looks like another great year for podcasting, debates, and dialogues at the Monk Debates. Thanks for listening and have a great holiday season. Well, that wraps up today's special edition of the Monk Debates podcast with our senior content producer, Ricky Gerwitz.

I hope you enjoyed our year in review. We'd love your comments or suggestions as to debates that you'd like to see us produce in 2024. We always value your input. But please send us an email to podcast at monkdebates.com. That's MUNK, DebateswithanS.com. Thank you for lending your time and attention these past 12 months to our efforts to restore the art of civil and substantive public debate. We really appreciate you being along for the ride.

I'm your host and moderator, Rudyard Griffith. 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.