I didn't watch the programme either; but it is obvious what is happening here: both of you found convincing the arguments of the one who embraced the side of the argument you support yourself, and absurd the one which opposed it ~~ a most common phenomenon in all argument and debate, as Socrates, according to Plato, demonstrated just a few years back.

The other thing that clearly happened is that each side convinced by means of what literary critic John Gross described as the practice of a noted predecessor in that genre, F R Leavis, as his "air of having triumphantly demonstrated what has merely been vigorously asserted".

So one of you perceived Peter Hitchens as the triumphant demonstrator because you agreed with his stance from the off, and vice versa for the other of you with regard to Will Self.

Absolute par for the course. Hardly advances the main argument, though, does it?!

~M~