I joined the debate team during my final year at Palomar College, during the 2010-2011 school year. I went in to improve my speaking and persuasive abilities, as well as learn more about all the lofty ideas and multifaceted issues I was sure to encounter. I ended up doing well enough in the activity- I wasn't great at it, but I wasn't bad, either- and tried to stick with it after I transferred. Unfortunately, UC Irvine didn't have much of a team, and I wasn't able to keep competing due to lack of a partner; I did, however, continue with the activity as an occasional coach, judge, and guest lecturer for Palomar.
There is a lot of bullshit in debate. Some people care less about the personal growth/education aspect and more about winning. I don't blame them, either; there are scholarships available if you are good enough, and higher education ain't cheap. Regardless, there's a lot of tricks that people used that will never actually help you outside of a debate round: speaking fast so the opposing team has trouble keeping up ("spreading"), using overly verbose and/or convoluted terms so that the opposing team has no idea what is happening, throwing out a shit ton of half-assed arguments- so many that the opposing team can't possibly address all of them- and then hammering away at the ones the opponents didn't address, etc.
I bring that up not to talk shit, but to make sure I don't idealize college debate as this flawless, purely intellectual activity. Those of us in the debate community are subject to bullshit just like anyone. Other than our rock hard abs, we're just like everybody else.
Debaters in between rounds.
Still, there was a lot I gained from the activity. Here are four things that have helped me as someone who likes to discuss and debate socio-political issues.
4. Clash
If I were asked to point to just one thing that makes online debates terrible- aside from "everything" and "racism"- it would be the lack of clash in these debates. In the debate circuit, "clash" means that you have to address everything your opponent says, line by line, point by point, and your opponent must do the same. In novice rounds, matches are often decided in large part simply by who actually addresses their opponent's arguments.
This is the fundamental problem with a lot of online debates. Participants will often exchange talking points and call each other fools, addressing only a [distorted version of] their opponent's main thesis, and never actually respond to the points they gave in support of that argument (or only cherry picking a point or two to respond to).
Let's say Person A thinks the death penalty should be legal, and Person B doesn't. Person A says that it should be legal because victim's families should be able to find closure and the punishment should fit the crime; Person B says the state can't say murder is wrong while murdering, and also brings up the alarming racial disparity in who gets the death penalty. Person A responds by reiterating their points and elaborating more on what they said, and Person B responds by addressing common arguments made by pro-death penalty people instead of the arguments specifically brought out by Person A.
Then Raekwon comes in and advocates for a Guillotine and Swordz policy.
In this all too familiar scenario, neither person is "clashing" with their opponent's arguments. Throwing talking points back and forth, and addressing points that have either been distorted or not brought up at all, destroy good dialogues far too often.
Next time you find yourself in a discussion, try to see how much clash is or isn't happening. If it's not happening, call attention to it (and try to evaluate if it is happening on your end, too). If the conversation continues with no clash then it isn't going anywhere, and probably not worth continuing.
3. Paying Attention to Criteria
In competitive debate, the affirmative team gets to set the parameters for the round at the beginning. They are able to define the words in the resolution, decide what type of round it is, and, perhaps most importantly, define the criteria for victory (if this sounds unfair, know that if the negative team doesn't like the parameters the affirmative set for the round, they can argue against them). Usually the criteria set for the round is "net benefits", which means whichever team makes the world an overall better place. Other criteria can be chosen if the affirmative team so desires, however, and the criteria can be anything ranging from net benefits for a specific group (net benefits for oppressed people, the environment, the economy, etc) to concepts (such as fairness).
Criteria: whichever plan better preserves the Lifestream.
This is another aspect that is often a "gotcha!" moment for new debaters. The affirmative team might set the criteria as net benefits for religious minorities, and the negative team might ignore that completely while debating as if the criteria were the usual "net benefits [for everyone/everything]" standard. If the affirmative team calls out the fact that every argument the negative team has made that doesn't apply to religious minorities doesn't count at the end of the round, it's a devastating blow that usually wins them the match.
The usefulness for this one goes beyond just debates. If you understand the criteria for success in any given situation, then you can focus on what you need to do to succeed, and you can even get away with a few things if you can argue they aren't important to the criteria at hand. I've worked for years in customer service positions, and I am often able to talk myself out of trouble whenever I disobey store policy in the interest of good customer service (for instance, returning something for an especially kind or loyal customer even if things are past the return date).
In debates, ask yourself what the criteria might be for you to successfully persuade someone. In a generic internet debate, this might prove tricky. In discussion in specific contexts, however, this line of thinking can be quite helpful.
Imagine you were a candidate running for office; you will, of course, need to debate your political opponent(s) at some point. Imagine your main issue is to make education free. Now imagine you were having three debates with your opponent on the issue, but in three areas: a university, a business owners convention, and a military base. In each area, it would be important to think of what criteria you should be focusing on in this debate. In the first, you'd have an easy time; in the second, you could talk about the positive economic impacts of an educated populace; in the third, you could talk about how much people who serve in the military are often cheated out of the GI Bill.
Almost as if, for some wacky reason, the government doesn't want veterans to be educated.
This the importance of thinking of criteria. Whenever you find yourself trying to persuade, ask yourself: what criteria should I operate under?
2. Impacts
Another part of debate rounds is discussing why your plan or counter-plan matters, and why your opponent's plan or counter-plan sucks. Usually, the way this happens is through what are called advantages (different reasons as to why your shit is awesome) or disadvantages (different reasons as to why your opponent's shit isn't). The basic structure is the harm (what is going on that sucks right now), the link (how your plan addresses that problem or your opponent's plan makes it worse), and the impacts (why this matters/what results from it; literally, the impact that it has). Often there are more parts added to these, but for the sake of simplicity, we'll stick to the harm-link-impact model.
In the higher levels of debate, when debaters have learned the tricks and how to avoid falling for them, impacts often become a deciding factor in who wins a round. So you're passing a plan for free education free of any strings attached that barely raises taxes? Fantastic. But it doesn't mean anything unless you can explain why this is a good thing.
Let's try to impact this out. First, to create advantages. Let's say you have three: poverty, knowledge of self, and the economy. In the first advantage, you'd list the harm (poverty being a thing), the link (making education more accessible), and finally, the impacts (increasing upward mobility, meaning more people can work their way out of poverty, meaning more people will be able to secure livings with fiscal security, meaning more people will be able to have food and shelter, etc). For the other two, you'd explain why having increased knowledge of self and why the improvements to the economy brought about by more affordable education are awesome in the same harm-link-impact format.
The overall organization of an advantage or disadvantage is important, but what really stands out is the impact. That's what has the power to make people think and feel. When you're advocating something, or taking issue with it, and are actually trying to persuade people (whether your opponent or audience), adding impacts to what you say is crucial. Otherwise, you're just talking about ideas, rather than the affect these ideas have on the world.
1. Don't Be Afraid of Bullshit
Earlier, I mentioned that there is plenty of bullshit in the debate community. Bullshit is everywhere in this world, and can't be escaped. While the examples of bullshit I mentioned before don't usually come up outside of debate, I don't need to tell you that debates and discussions the world over are full of la caca del toro.
Instead of trying not to encounter bullshit, try to become comfortable around it. Like anything else, the more you get to understand something inside and out, the more you'll be able to deal with it. No one can avoid a punch to the face like a boxer.
"But my super secret, too deadly to spar style uses the sacred-" lolno.
When I joined debate, I was very optimistic about how purely educational the activity would be, how every debater would carry themselves with the utmost intellectual and moral integrity. And there are plenty of coaches and competitors like that. But, as I said before, there were also those who put winning above everything else, and weren't afraid to bullshit.
At first I was disillusioned with these competitors and hated facing them. As time went on, however, I grew to value these types of matches. Most people you debate with in life are going to try to pull some sort of bullshit- and, if we're being honest with ourselves, so are we. It's inevitable, even with good intentions.
Eventually, calling out the bullshit of these debaters helped me learn to better call out bullshit in general. This is a skill that can't be underestimated, especially when you need it to stop yourself from being screwed over. It might be a boss who is full of shit, or a family member, or a salesperson for something you need, or anyone else whom you can't simply avoid. In those times, being able to (calmly, and with an attention to criteria) call someone out is so, so important.
So don't think you're above bullshit. You've done it before, I've done it before, everyone does it. It's as much an inevitable part of life as death and tragic handjobs. Instead, learn to understand and confront it. You'll be way better off.
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