Wednesday, October 03, 2018

The debate game



[This essay made the shortlist in the NewPhilosopher Magazine writing contest, August, 2018.]

The engaging articles in the Summer 2018 NewPhilosopher Magazine, the Play edition, are relevant to my job, which for the past fifteen years has been coaching high school debate (I retired from teaching English in 2009).   The issue explored the dual nature of play, as exercise without purpose beyond itself, and as exercise with extended purposes, and inspired me to revisit two long-pondered questions about academic and political debate:  Do they lead to truth, either for students or politicians running for office, and do they result in accurate ranking of students’ or candidates’ abilities? 

Debate coaches and media networks promoting election debates sometimes suggest that debate entails a search for truth.  We hear about its roots in Socratic dialogue and Enlightenment debate societies, which, in theory, existed to stimulate critical thinking and draw out ideas and underlying assumptions.  However, while formal argumentation may at times display truth, the modern game of debate is not designed to do that; it is designed to determine a winner and loser.  


The winner’s arguments are not deemed “true,” but better argued; the loser’s arguments are not deemed “false,” but not argued as well.  Competitive debate is a sport, a verbal boxing match in which each side pummels the other with “facts” and “evidence,” and a judge then decides who did this with the most facility (debate derives from Latin battereto fight). Thus, there is never an epiphany on one side in which a debater sees the wisdom of the opponent’s view- in fact that would constitute a loss for the agreeing side.   There are clear benefits to debate- it sharpens important life-skills and brings to light much information and many points of view- but the imperative to disagree impedes its potential function as a search for truth.


The imperative to disagree is also the default mode in public discourse.  Consider the current gun control debate in America.  Below is an exchange using the arguments we hear in the news, as they might be expressed in one of the popular high school debate events, such as Lincoln-Douglas or Public Forum, starting with a resolution, followed by a back and forth between the Affirmative (Aff) and Negative (Neg):


Resolved: In light of recent mass shootings using automatic weapons with high capacity ammunition clips, combat weaponry should be banned from civilian use.

Aff: There is no legitimate purpose in civilian life for automatic weapons.  Such weapons are necessary only for police and military use.

Neg: The founders wrote the Second Amendment to make sure the population has the right to bear arms. Restricting assault weapons is the first step in a slippery slope leading to prohibition of all firearms. The larger question is protection of freedom.

Aff: We are not talking about restricting all firearms. People would still have the right to arm themselves both for personal protection and for recreational uses such as hunting.

Neg: The ultimate purpose, however, is to ban all firearms from the population.

Aff: No it isn’t.

Neg: Yes it is.

Aff: No it isn’t.

Neg: Yes it is.


Of course the last four statements would not be made, but their equivalents would, ad infinitum.  There is no end to the debate.  Although formal rules force closure, the two sides go at it for an implied eternity.


High school debate at least attempts to approach truth through the requirement for "clash," the precise rebutting of an opponent’s argument (referred to also as "hitting").  The public debate on gun control has reached the pointless point, not only because it is at the “Yes it is/No it isn’t” level, but because the Neg, in this case the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its supporters avoid clash.  If the current national gun control debate were a formal academic debate at a high school tournament, the NRA would lose by virtue of its avoiding clash.


For instance, in an academic debate, if the Neg alleged that civilians need combat weaponry to protect against a hypothetical tyrannical government (a common argument), the Aff could counter that our heavily armed citizenry has already given up its 4th Amendment right to private communication without a shot fired.  Such an Aff response would constitute clash, as it directly addresses the Neg point. If the Neg then responded by ignoring the point, which is what the NRA does, then the judge would give the win to the Aff because it clashed and the Neg did not.


Unfortunately in political debate there is no judge to monitor and award points for clash.  One wishes the general public would be as observant to detail as the average parent/judge at a high school debate tournament. 


My second question about debate concerns our use of it to determine the quality of the speakers, whether they are students vying for first place or candidates seeking votes.  How reliable and appropriate is this use?


My observation, from judging debate rounds at many tournaments, is that at preliminary tournaments- the novice and opens- there is substantial validity to ranking students in numerical order of achievement, because at these levels there are large differences in technical proficiency.  At the final rounds of qualifiers the appropriateness of ranking is less clear.  Finalists in a qualifier are highly polished.  There will be differences, but they are harder to spot.


The real problem is in the final rounds of state tournaments, or the national tournament.  In these rounds there is often no observable difference between the top several students.  The rankings first, second and third can be meaningless, generated in the minds of exhausted judges trying to avoid a tie.  When the rankings are announced at awards, however, they are treated as 100% valid. The situation seems unfortunate in a culture where the overriding goal in all competitions is to place first.   I say this as a coach whose students have placed first and second in state.  I certainly wouldn’t petition the league to invalidate those rankings.  My students were awesome and it’s a rush to win big.  But the process is unreliable.

Ranking political candidates based on their performance in public debate is unreliable as well.  After a presidential debate in the U.S., commentators try to decide who "won," as judges do in high school debate, but how would anyone know who won when there is virtually no clash?  The media formula for identifying the winner of a political debate appears to be an estimate of which candidate was most likeable.  Not that there's anything wrong with being likeable, but if that's all the debate shows, it's a formula for picking demagogues, as they tend to be likeable.  


Several of the articles in the NewPhilosopher Play edition look at the contradiction between the playfulness of play and its seriousness.  For instance, in “Being outside yourself,” Simon Critchley and Nigel Warburton consider the exaggerated sense of meaning felt by fans after their home football team either wins or loses, in the context of the essential meaningless of either winning or losing.  Debate too is a mix of play and serious ambition.  To me as a coach, debate is more play than serious, but I would rather not leave it at that.  

Perhaps we can take another look at debate as play, and see how it might serve serious purposes, both academic and public.  Can we structure debate rules to avoid deadlocks of “Yes it is/No it isn’t”?  Do debaters have to insist they are right?  Are “win” (from Gothic, winnan, "to suffer") and “lose” (from Old English, losian, "to perish, be destroyed"} sufficient outcomes?  Must there be first, second and third places that force judges into subjective and even random decisions?


Hopefully such questions will not become moot.  Academic and public debates are indications of a democratic society.  Recent totalitarian trends, if fulfilled, could mark the end of all but cosmetic debate.  If we can hold on to debate in its current, relatively uncensored form, it might be worthwhile to upgrade the rules and goals with deeper understandings of play and its purposes.

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