At a minimum, I personally know of active school/university debate societies in the United Kingdom and Australia. And while it sounds like you've had some bad experiences, my personal sense is that the majority of people with formal debate experience are actually better, on average, at staying within the bounds of civil discourse.

Having said that, there is indeed an overly aggressive subset of the population that is, as I think you're suggesting, attracted to debate for all the wrong reasons. But based on the literally hundreds I've met, I'd say as a population they are on average more civil and more likely to follow norms of "fair argument". They are much more likely to aspire to be erudite policy wonks than to be angry talk show pundits. YMMV obviously.