a suggestion for debaters...

The BBQ Pit
1

Don’t claim you win when you haven’t won anything.

Don’t claim that your opponent is dancing like a folksy metaphor, on the ropes, squirming, reeling, or otherwise beaten.

You don’t win by claiming victory. Maybe you have won, and maybe the other guy is squirming, but as a participant, are you qualified to judge? If your arguments are solid, and your opponent is reeling, observers will know it. If they don’t know it, your saying so won’t convince them.

As my grampappy told me (this is not my actual grampappy, but a composite of grampapular figures in my life), don’t brag you’ve got a deer 'cause you fired a shot, just show people the dead deer.

That is all.

Incidentally, I only pick Dio and Lib because they’ve had recent examples of easily found and linked material. It’s happened probably hundreds of times. God knows I don’t want this pit to be about Dio or Lib, who each have their share of pit threads.

2

A reasonable criticism. And I’ll bow out now…

3

Nice to finally see you being reasonable for a change, Lib. :smiley:

hides

4

I agree: it’s very rarely a true declaration of victory when someone declares victory in a thread.

At the same time, there are circumstances under which something similar may be said. I think in general it’s better form to say something like, “Okay, it appears you’re not interested in debating so much as in trading content-free insults. That’s not what I’m here for, so I’ll not respond to your posts until there’s some content to which I can respond.”

That’s not a declaration of victory, but it still gets the point across that your debating opponent is behaving toolishly.

Daniel

5

I win :smiley:

6

Yeah, like an ugly bull has titties you win!

Daniel

7

Left Hand is squirming like a nymphoniac meth addict.

8

You seen my picture then?

You also win if you get a LonesomePolecat.

9

“But I don’t wanna understand other points of view! I just want everybody to know I’m smarter than they are. Isn’t that the point of debating?” :rolleyes:

It ain’t just the boards, folks. If I had a nickel for every debate team candidate I’ve had to boot because they came in with an attitude like that…well, I’d be out a few bucks less for tourney entry fees, but you get the point.

Much as I don’t like popping into threads just to “me-too” the OP, this particular issue is a pet peeve of mine IRL. If this same attitude – “Screw explaining myself and listening to others; I must WIN!” – is prevalent here (and I wouldn’t know; oddly enough, I don’t venture into GD much), I would like to point out to the perpetrators that you’re not impressing anyone. Perhaps whatever personal satisfaction it is that you get from “winning” a debate, rather than ensuring that your point is understood and learning everything you can from the other person’s argument, would be better satisfied if you tried football instead. Don’t like sports? Try the chess team.

Yes, formal debate is structured in a “win-lose” format, but if you’ve never done it, you likely have an incorrect perception of what exactly that means. The winner of a debate (poor judging aside) is not the person who best cows their opponent into submission, but rather the one whose argument most satisfactorily upholds the principle or goal that it seeks to support. The bullies don’t always win; far from it. As I used to tell the people that tried this tactic: sure, if you do this, and your opponent is so meek that they can’t even articulate a coherent point, you’re probably going to come out on top. But guess what? At a debate tournament [or GD; not too much difference], don’t count on that happening. I promise you, you’re going to run into plenty of folks who are every bit as mean as you, and have a logical argument, supported by ample evidence, to back up that attitude. At that point, if your primary method of argumentation is being an asshole, you’re fucked. Judges (or other posters) aren’t impressed by the guy who declares himself the winner, they’re impressed by the guy who tells them why he’s won. (At that point, if the person still thought he/she was badass, I’d throw 'em up for a practice round against my attack dog. I’m of the debate school of stoicism; you can yell and scream and bitch at me all the live long day and I’ll calmly refute your “argument” point-by-point as if you’d just read your senior thesis. My good friend, on the other hand, is of a, er, slightly more aggressive persuasion. Beat the ‘mean’ right out of 'em, he would.)

On the other hand, cricetus, now that I think about it…why not just let this sort of thing go on without protest? The only thing it convinces anybody of is that the person using these “tactics” either has no point whatsoever, or is utterly incapable of defending it. I tried to cull this sort of thing because I didn’t want it on my team. Here, though, you can probably safely ignore ‘em. Besides, from what little I have seen, anybody who pulls that shit in GD gets summarily bitch-slapped anyway. Brings back memories of the good ol’ days… :smiley:

10

First, if you really are the guy from Tears for Fears, that’s awesome. I consider your group to be one of the great under-rated 80’s bands.

But regardless of your actual association with 80’s pop bands, you venture into territory I think about often. I really want discussions that investigate serious topics without the obligation to “pick a side, argue, win” attitude, and I proposed that we create a new category of thread for those topics. But the SDMB faithful shouted me down… we’re stuck with the idea that discussions are either debate OR (according to an administrator) “Debate Light”.

11

I find that most of the threads in GD are somewhere between a debate and a discussion. Even in a discussion you’ll learn more by having an opposing view.
I’d enjoy a discussion type forum but have been satisfied with GD and the Pit for those things. After hearing that IMHO can be for serious discussions as well I’ll check it out more often.

There’s no winning or losing here as far as I can see. Some people present solid intelligent arguements while others do not. I’ve participated in some great discussions and learned a lot. I would like to see more people acknowledge a solid arguement or a well made point rather than just go into denial but oh well. Folks is folks

12

Just for the record, I am quite not. I think I was about two when TFF hit the height of their popularity. Maybe it’s finally time to get around to my often-discussed username change.

I, too, see little reason to distinguish between the two. Yes, one purpose of debate is to advance one’s own viewpoint…but if, in the process of attempting to do so, we are exposed to new information, or the new explanations of the logical merits of different ideas, why should we then feel compelled to treat the entire situation as a battle? We end up conjuring up ways to stave off points we don’t like, attempting to recuperate our defenses in order to launch a new line of attack, or else we evade the opposing point entirely, in favor of striking from a different angle and conveniently leaving the original thought behind us. Why, instead, should we not just pause for a moment, and consider the repercussions of those elements of others’ views which might seem to warrant acceptance? Perhaps we might even seek ways to combine them with our own, to see if, together, they are not so contradictory as they might seem, and determine what new and interesting results are produced when we think the whole thing through at once.

But of course, doing this would require the “other side” to exercise equal restraint. It’s nigh-impossible to take a thoughtful and open-minded approach in a discussion with one who takes any minor concession, perceived or otherwise, and tries to ram it down your throat. As long as a single person engaged in the debate views it as some sort of mental masturbatory kung-fu battle, we’re just going to keep heading around in the same old circles we’ve all been whirling in since the beginning of time. What I do whenever this occurs is to glean whatever I can from it in the way of new ideas, then bow out silently without attempting to escalate the discussion to a higher plane of abstraction (which, when contemplating the outcome of new additions to the core-level process, is necessary in order to obtain anything meaningful). I’ve been accused (not here, or at least not that I’ve noticed) of “running away” when I do this, allowing the other person/people to claim “victory” and tout their superiority, but hey, what can you do. You’ve said your piece and you’ve listened to his. What he does with it is up him, and what other people think about the whole thing is up to them, so you’re under no obligation to care about it. What’s up to you is what you do with anything you may have learned. And whatever that may be, as long as you neither ignore nor dismiss it, I would personally consider the whole thing a successful and profitable endeavor.

Then again, I’m one o’ those freaky idealist-type peoples. WhaddoIknow?

13

Band name!

14

Well, it’s hard to win when there’s no contest; however, that does not mean that if one has strung together a solid argument that is not meanfully addressed, then one certainly has a claim to be provisionally correct. In that regard, pointing out that one has “won” is not useful in and of itself, but if it comes with an explanation of why, then it is appropriate indeed. At the very least, it announces that one is not convinced and sets out the specific points why, thus clearing up the points of conflict so they can be easily seen.

It is obvious that a sub-argument may arise on whether a point is proved, relevant, or what have you. That’s okay. Any person with debate experience will tell you that is part and parcel of the game; e.g., topicality arguments are completely appropriate in formal debate.

15

I think rhetoric and dialectic ( as Schopenhauer used the term) is as much a part of the boards as discussion, debate and argument.

Among the interesting strategies found at the linked site: Claim Victory Despite Defeat and Make Your Opponent Angry. It is a bit Machiavellian, but it also contains bits of wisdom, including the direction:

16

That’s good stuff, Six. It certainly makes me rethink my Internet posting habits.