Remember Ben Shapiro?
He's been falling apart and losing eyes for a long time now, and his desperate insistence on supporting Israel isn't giving him any favours, but before any of that he was the right-wing's Debate Guy. The guy who goes to universities to "debate" students so he can get some brownie points and look good for the camera.
Debates, in my mind, come in two flavours. The Verbal War, and the Synthesis - and the difference between the two comes primarily from the existence of a winner.
In a verbal war, a debate has multiple sides - with each side having its own argument and foundation, before they are forced to face each other. This is purely entertainment - and a big reason why is that in this scenario, everyone is working for themselves and simply trying to push their idea at all costs - no matter how true it really is. Verbal War is no place for information to be derived, or found, or discovered. It is an exercise in sophistry that functions as a gladiatorial battle where one person's argument emerges as the victor. There is no focus placed on facts, or sources, or any path to discover the truth - instead the endeavour is a game show where charisma rules all. In other words, it is a charisma contest. Your argument can be garbage, your foundation a complete sham, and yet you can still win an argument by simply playing the audience well enough.
Exhibit A would be Ben Shapiro since I mentioned earlier - but I believe you all know who Exhibit B is, and if you don't, then consider a certain leader who became president twice despite being deeply unqualified by any and all respects. The fact that democracy relies on verbal wars shows how doomed to fail it is as a system, but Democracy's over-dependency on Charisma is something for another time.
Now, like I said, the main difference is that the Synthesis doesn't have a winner. First, I'd like to explain the name - I'm referencing the triadic model of Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. This isn't a truly serious model, but rather a sort of beginner's course for dialectics. The way it works is easy - you have a Thesis which is an argument, and an Antithesis which works primarily against that argument. Having these face against each other, you eventually reach a conclusion which is an argument that has elements of both, but also more which is birthed from valid contradictions raised by the Antithesis, and this final argument is the Synthesis of the two.
Here I use Synthesis in a similar way - a Debate focused on Synthesis doesn't have victors, instead it has many pursuers of truth - each with their own understanding, and the Debate is a method through which people's arguments can be expressed, contradictions explored, holes understood, truths recognized. The internal models of logic built by the arguers conflict with one another, and in so doing a clearer image emerges. The emphasis lies in the argument, not the war. Mind you, a war is still ongoing here, but it is not at the expense of everyone - but the opposite.
A True Debate is one in which multiple people, each with a thorough yet incomplete understanding and model, compare the contradictions, reinforcements, and omissions between each other's models, and use these parts to formulate other understandings and models which are stronger, and more robust - because they have been tempered by conflict, and thus tested. Of course, the resulting argument may be deeply flawed - however more often than not it will be better than any individual part which played a hand in its creation.
So now you understand the difference. A verbal war starts with multiple arguments, and has one emerge as the victor. A true debate starts with multiple arguments, and has a number of new ones emerge at the end - could be one, could be more.
Before I leave you, let me try and explain this with a very simple example.
There's two people, A and B. A believes that the sky is blue because it's where rain comes from, and water is kinda blue. B believes that the sky is blue because space is also blue.
In a verbal war, while discoveries can be made, they are very much not the focus and will likely be bent such that they serve to reinforce an argument. In the end, even though A and B are both wrong, one will win.
In a synthesis, A and B aren't trying to prove their way, or disprove the other - but instead try to aim for a higher truth. As a result, although both would be inclined to defend their model and attack the other, they are much slower in simply rejecting anything the other suggests. Considering these models are way off, it'd be a miracle for them to arrive to the real reason why the sky is blue, however that misses the point.
The point is that, in trying to argue their side, both A and B may reach the point where they unearth several flaws with the other side's argument, but are unable to fix the flaws in their own. They may come to a synthesis and form some conclusions, but the important part is that those flaws remain. Because the pursuit is for truth, and not a victor, the flaws cannot exactly be sidelined. Instead, they become a marker - things that need further looking into. Maybe A and B could debate each other numerous times, finding this to be productive as they further their understanding in a way which not only bolsters their argument, but also evolves it.
Maybe they arrive to an incorrect synthesis. People aren't perfect. But there is a very high likelihood that this path will lead to an argument that is far stronger - and due to the pursuit of something true and correct, this strength will serve the truth firstly, so much so that if it is contradicted, it will only result in a stronger, more accurate argument. At the end of the day, this is how most progress works.
So when you see someone own someone else - keep this in mind. You're not watching anything with merit. You're watching entertainment. There's nothing wrong with that - but be wary that you don't give it too much importance. The same way that you wouldn't call twitter Humanity's Consensus just because it has a lot of loudmouths.
For a debate to work, everyone involved must be open to the idea that they might be wrong.