When I took a debate clinic, I don’t remember burden of proof, which would give one side an advantage, being involved. However it is a better one than entertainment value.
This is not to say that humor or even going a bit over the top aren’t good things to do in support of a position. Just not instead of support for a position.
I suspect these teams won with these tactics against teams that did support their positions. I blame those judges. By the time you get to the point where no participant addresses the question it is too late.
BTW I stopped listening to the NPR debate show (Oxford style) because the debaters were a lot more into jokes and mots than arguments. Though they’d fail in this style since they are still understandable.
Actually the biggest thing I got out of debating was being forced to look at the other side. Getting assigned a position you disagree with, and having to logically defend it, is a lot more useful than dropping it altogether to do bits. That’s the easy way out.
Maybe the politicians of today who never learned how to compromise or see another point of view got trained this way instead of the traditional way.
Ever watch oral arguments presented to the Supreme Court? Ever read an argument asking for an appeal from any court?
So, they’re debates that turn a blind eye to logic. Uh, okay… Oh wait, what makes them debates again? It’s more like performance theater competitions.
Oh, cry me a friggin’ river. No one is saying that we shouldn’t encourage all kids—white kids, brown kids, black kids and polka dot kids—to participate in things like law and medicine. The point is that abandoning logic ain’t gonna help them in those endeavors. If you can’t answer a question by—oh I don’t know—actually answering it; or if you can’t, when asked to list the virtues of or problems with X, have your answer actually talk about X, you’re going to have problems doing anything in life well. Encouraging the type of nonsense outlined in the articles is UNhelpful in the extreme.
And you know who I’d like to become our doctors and lawyers and politicians? People who can think critically. But maybe I’m being quaint. Me—If I go to a doctor with an appendicitis attack and he puts me under, when I wake up and discover I’m missing something it had better be my appendix. You—maybe you’d be fine having the same ailment and waking up to discover your foot has been removed. Maybe even give the young doctor a pat on the back for not being constrained by the thinking of Old White Men. What creativity!
I would be interested to hear the judges explanation of why they’d give top honors to a team that didn’t debate the actual resolution – if that is indeed what happened. The whole thing sounds so fishy it makes me wonder if the reporting is accurate.
What does that have to do with politics? I’d hope that if a lawyer did a political stump speech the old judges would come around the bench and pound his ass.
BTW, since it appears that this travesty has been going on for ages, I bet lots of white kids have won for doing similarly dumb things.
I wonder if Ted Cruz participated in this - since it seems to be as logical as his arguments.
No. Have you ever gone to the court? Those arguments are not televised.
I’ve read some court rulings and decisions, yes.
Exactly! It’s a performance. So what difference does it make to you (or anyone) if it becomes a slightly different type of performance? If you think about it, that sounds a lot less outrageous than this whole thing about liberals saying people of color shouldn’t have to pay attention to logic because logic is racist.
You already said you don’t care if they participate. You can’t unring that bell.
I agree. But I don’t think that has anything to do with the topic under discussion because it sounds like these debates have nothing to do with any sort of real-world critical thinking.
I wonder if the teams made it to the finals by ignoring the debate topic. If so, it is probably too late in the day to complain if they did it again in the finals.
Let’s hope none of the contestants decide to go into law. Although I have to admit a certain entertainment value in reading the transcripts of the appellate courts when some defendant they represented argues that his conviction should be overturned because his lawyer’s briefs on tax law consisted of a spoken word poem on the plight of the Black man in Amerikkka.
Has anyone bothered to read about this debate style?
It is not and has never been about using logic the way a lawyer or Supreme Court justice would. It is not training to become a leader, or a logic course. It’s not even great
It’s about making a verbal exchange according to a set of arbitrary, entirely artificial constraints, which are then judged according to a stylized, artificial set of criteria, which people voluntarily engage in because they find it entertaining. In other words, it’s a game. Arguing that it makes no sense is like arguing that the “get of of jail free” card makes nonsense, or that it makes no sense for aces to be wild.
These kids have found an interesting use of an inherently absurd game. Apparently this is nothing new, and people have been pushing the limits of this particular format since the 70s. But they did so it while wearing dashikis and dreadlocks. So I guess you win on that.
Actually, reading the article again and this thread, I’m kind of confused now too. Is the problem that people are having that rule violations are not being punished, or that expected standards of discourse are not being observed?
How do we know the kid who didn’t enter the debate is bad at it? Maybe I’m mistaken, but the proving grounds of elite leadership are not solely found in debate halls. Kids from Emporia State University might beat the elite school kids at some debate tourney, but the elite kids are mostly the ones getting the internships at AEI and Carnegie and Brookings and they are mostly the ones who are continuing to run things.
It’s not the rules of logic at play here, it’s the standards of discourse.
Actually, my cynical side just thinks that the gain is more entertaining and/or interesting debates. It’s a game after all. White kids can make passionate arguments too if they want. Plus there’s all the kids who don’t fit into the Black-White binary.
What do you mean by “this”? The innovations, or the intra-debate world controversy, or the way that this has been taken more widely?
The problem is that this still amounts to an argument that the rules of Policy Debate, as currently formulated, produce good outcomes in terms of logical arguments, sharp critical thinking and correct “diagnosis” of debate topics. (Or rather, the one debate topic permitted each year.) And that therefore, to challenge or to change them is to sacrifice clear benefits for no good reason. Having read through the rules on wiki, it’s very, very hard to believe that that’s the case.
I believe that debate in general can and does produce all these benefits - the people who used to win the competitions I debated at are now, in fact, lawyers, political advisors, journalists etc. I’ve seen some of them on TV, handling themselves well in live panel shows. They definitely honed their knowledge and skills on the debating circuit. But under rules that didn’t amount to a speed reading (sorry, “spreading”) competition.
In fact, to address one of your specific concerns, shifting the debate to an unexpected topic was common tactic. Doing it well was the sign of a good debater. Having it done to you and being able to respond on those terms without prep was the sign of an excellent debater.
For those who strongly dislike what’s happening in the world of debate tournaments, it’s probably not just about debate tournaments. What they’re seeing is symptomatic of changes that have hit the entire academic world. Debaters using profanity and racial slurs and throwing furniture? Reminds one of vulgarity elsewhere. Avoidance of logic and clear factual reasoning? Reminds one of declining academic standards. Students switching from the topic they’re given to rant about the supposed racism of the government? Reminds one how left wing groups have hijacked so many academic institutions.
Some people still have this vague, odd idea that universities are supposed to make their students a bit more intellectual, logical, and moral when they leave than when they enter. Perhaps such people see the academic world moving away from those goals and the debate tournament business as an example of that.
No, it appears to be right on target. The people in question can’t debate logically, so they resort to hijacks and whining about racism. If someone attempted such in GD, you would mod them, and rightly so.
On the other hand, if we had a forum with CEDA-based rules, they would win. The problem is not with academia, racism or liberalism. The problem, if there is one, is with CEDA.
Again, the problem is people expect college debate to be debate. It isn’t. It’s like people expecting Cincinnati chili to be chili. Two completely different things that just happen to share the same name.