The Medium is the Message, Debate Edition
My thoughts on the true value of competitive debate and speech on societal discourse
Introduction
I’ve been debating for almost 2 years now (shorter than many, i know) but I feel that I’ve gotten pretty involved in the circuit and have spoken at a few pretty big competitions and events, met some cool people along the way. But as I do it more, the true value and purpose behind it seems far more complex than it appears. Is there really value? Or are we just yelling at each other over zoom screens and wasting our time?
I’m going to explore 3 core aspects of debating
The foundations/origins of debate and why people do it
The positive impacts it has on the individual when used as a means of communication
The risks of debating and how it deters healthy, or meaningful discourse.
This type of structure is what is required in competitive debating- clean introductions, roadmaps, strategic illustrations and layers of structural analysis to get the judge to believe that you are correct, or more likely to be correct than the other team. Competitive debate as a medium, shows how discourse can enhance individual thinking and public speaking skills, but also the competitive and absolute nature of it drives away discussion from its core, and heavily advantages those who are societally conceived as being more intelligent.
What is debating?
Theoretically, debate is defined as confrontation where individuals attempt to convince the judge and each other through logic, evidence and arguments relevant arguments. This is characterized as free discourse, both parties speaking whenever without rules or speaker points. And as Aristotle suggests, “if we have the ability to go through the difficulties on either side we shall more readily discern the true as well as the false in any subject”, and this confrontation and discussion allows for people to recognize mistakes, find solutions, and understand issues through a variety of perspectives. Competitive debate differs, as it is highly institutionalized and there are various rules (such as speaking time, speaking order) that conducts debate in a mannerly way. For parliamentary debate, which is one of the most popular forms of competitive debate, debaters are given topics/motions 15-30 minutes before they start speaking and need to rely on prior knowledge and intuitive logic to convince the judge.
Historically, competitive debate was first invented as a momentous innovation, created as a break from traditions and educational structures that taught the truth was absolute in the doctrine and other written forms of text, rather than something that could be acquired from critical discussion. As generations passed, America started to use it as a way to teach argumentation in the colonial period, as ways to have effective communication, but rather than the structured form, it was a looser form of argumentation known as forensic disputation. However, as the roots of debate got blurred, and individualism through capitalistic gains, and the emphasis on intense competition within academics was normalized, students turned it into a competitive form of interscholastic, intellectual play, grounded in topics that were less philosophical, and focused more on practical issues. Some common topics are regarding social movements, the criminal justice systems, culture and economics.
The benefits
The discussions of issues in the status quo and arguing solutions has helped contribute in fulfilling people's desire for discourse and expressing their opinion. Many people assume debaters debate for the prizes, for the university applications or for the intelligent persona it suggests, but I think it is deeper than that. Exchange theory suggests that the motivation for human behavior is that the more valuable one's actions are, if this value outweighs the cost of performing that activity (time, effort, energy etc..), those individuals continue participating. Since not every debater receives awards or cash prizes at tournaments, the real reason as to why people get so addicted and compete every weekend must be a different motivation.
I would argue that on an internal level, debate is an activity that allows people to feel heard and important, and in a world where students are often shunned for “just being a child”, this feeling is empowering. Bo Seo, champion of World University Debate Championship once said in an interview “I was born in Korea and moved to Australia at the age of ten and I didn't speak any English… debate was one of the few activities that guaranteed me a platform and guaranteed me a room in which my views would be heard. I've really treasured that feeling” So especially for minorities, or those that are naturally shy and introverted, debate is a sport that allows them to step out of their comfort zone in a professional way while having a guaranteed audience. Cori Dauber even goes as far as to suggest that “debate teaches students that they ought not be intimidated by the rhetoric of expertise” and that it gives them the confidence to interact with peers and authority figures. Thus, debate fulfills humans' natural desire to be heard and receive attention, which is validating and empowering.
However, competitive debating as a medium of communication has many more impacts than having fun, or feeling heard. There's a multiplicity of benefits it has on the individual.
Firstly, competitive debate fosters the Increase of critical thinking skills.
Numerous studies have shown that debate and critical thinking are linked and are a useful tool for developing rationality, empathy and learning to make reasonable decisions. Specifically a study done within Malaysia to study the effects of competitive debate on Malaysian second language learners demonstrated a rise in score on a critical thinking taste after the debate activity. This is due to the high level of knowledge and logic debaters need to use to make arguments sound compelling. Each argument requires several layers of analysis to prove it is true, mechanisms to provide why their envisionment of the world is likely, what the impacts are and why it’s important, while also sounding compelling, confident and calm. It requires a massive amount of spontaneous but deep thinking to analyze what's wrong with the opponents arguments. Thus, when students are debating competitively, all concentration is poured into finding flaws of your and the opponents’ arguments which forces debaters to think critically and logically.
Secondly, debating helps improve communication skills and community building.
Communication skills between team members during short preparation time is crucial for winning and making compelling arguments. Though this is stressful, pressuring time constraints, team members need to cooperate with each other and this is why national debate teams like Team Hong Kong or Singapore have invested so much time into practicing preparation and setting specific roles. This was tested by competitive debate being used as “inter-team gamification” with 4th year students in Business school which suggested that there was a clear increase in participants' communication and public speaking skills. This improves cooperation, and public speaking in a way that is convincing and using emotional rhetoric which is useful in the future for things like business pitches and presentations.
Debate builds communities and support systems of people who enjoy the sport. Especially with the risearisal of online debating, many people have created both domestic and international groups of debater friends who congratulate each other and practice together.
Arguably one of the best thing i’ve gotten out of debate are friends, seniors, and mentors I can look up to. It’s like any other sport, where because your interest is niche, it’s really easy to get close to people.
However, these groups (like any other social circle) can be quite exclusionary in nature. For example, spar chats on facebook or invite only discord servers, are exclusionary groups that only those with connections can access. Or friendships often only form between debaters who see each other at tournaments alot or have the financial capacity to fly to other. nations for irl competitions. This makes it difficult for less reputed debaters, or ones with less connections, to get the same level of high quality practice in which the people who are more well known and get to know each other. This can also often create heavy bias when judging or speaking against each other in rounds as confirmation bias kicks in (ie. you think you’re friend is better/worse than they really are)
Lastly, as a medium, debate allows people to learn and see issues from various perspectives.
Many of us grow up in small bubbles, understanding opinions and facts as what our parents and those in close proximity tell us. This results in increased levels of polarization, meaning people further become entrenched in their own views, a lack of knowledge of people who are of different societal status, and ignorance due to physical division. People become very stubborn inon their preconceived biases and the way they have been conditioned to view the world. For example, because I live in Japan, pharmaceutical companies being nationalized and accessible was always normal, but debating made me recognize this isn’t the case.
Downfalls
Communication, reasoning with an agenda
However, specifically regarding communication, and how competitive debate differs from the usual way we communicate with each other - the main difference is that debate determines a winner and a loser, they give rankings and scores for each speech. Rather than other activities like moot trials, model united nations, debaters argue on the extreme ends of things, and do everything in their power to prove everything the opponent says is wrong. Thus, the goal of competitive debating is never to come to a good balance or have a fair-minded approach, but rather to defend the claim at all costs. It’s not healthy discussion, it is reasoning with an agenda. And people will often go to extreme ends to meet this goal such as lying, bringing up fake examples, copying arguments from top debaters etc. (Needless to say i’ve definitely done this a few times myself) Philosopher and logician Willard Van Orman Quine criticizes this, by saying debate prioritizes “the goal of persuasion above the goal of truth” and that healthy debate “lies not in intellectual curiosity nor in amenability to rational persuasion by others, but in his skill in defending a preconception come what may”. This type of absolute defense is useful in areas such as legal advocacy but its more common manifestation is in today's political world where politicians and pundits heavily emphasize their view, ignore every opposition claim, and hunt for problems in opposition's case. Thus, it can be argued that competitive debating discourages the listening and acknowledgement that is required in a healthy democracy.
Debaters aren’t open to criticism or changing their minds and find being wrong uncomfortable and threatening, which creates attitudes of certainty and aggressiveness. And because they often get carried away with wanting to win, as disagreement deepens and tensions rise during rounds, debaters tend to intentionally misinterpret what the opponent says, and mislead the judge. This makes the other party consider their opponents as partisan and annoying, which also often increases aggression and misrepresentation back. This means that both sides are no longer truly listening to each other, but are now just thinking of smart ways to misrepresent opponents’ arguments, and make them seem stupid.
In addition, this is also likely to increase polarization, and echo chamber of people who all believe in very similar things, rather than people who are able to communicate their own, real opinion. Even though people argue for sides they do not decide, the type of analysis they use is often repetitive to themselves and other debaters, often creating a very “lefitist” bubble and trend within debaters. The issue is that habits of misdirecting and misinformation continue into the political realm or other aspects of discourse in their life and well, and debaters become overly competitive in wanting to be right. This often deters discourse from being productive, and makes it an emotional yelling session that no one gets anything out of.
Biases and stereotypes
Communication in debate requires you to sound smart or convincing. The issue is that what people consider smart is heavily determined by eurocentric standards (ie. how white someone sounds) and speakers who are ESL/EFL have a disadvantage if they have accents or speak less fluently. And it is double the good intuitive bias if they are a male, because historically we have considered males as being smarter, more logical. This is why there have been proven to be unfair gaps in the speaker scores for women and people have argued about the subjectivity of speaker scores, and how disadvantageous it is towards minorities. This means that this mode of communication is inherently flawed, because people do not have the capacity to truly advocate for what they believe in, and get judged fairly for the content. Rather inevitable factors like how much reputation they have, age and gender, how white they sound and money tend to come into play far too often.
My end thoughts
However, it’s important to acknowledge that this form of bias - though unjustified - exists in almost every aspect on our lives. But does that really take away from this advantages, and its benefits as a medium is the question that remains.
Competitive debate has advocated for increased democratization and has become a useful medium of communication. Post World War II, which people previously referred to as the technical era, troops were sent to higher education and more sought out leisure activities like forensics, athletics and other student organizations. This increase in demand for education, activities and an emphasis on individualistic values of achieving a college degree, coexisted and grew with the growth of the popularity of debate. This allowed people who were previously restricted to more autonomy and freedom of speech to express their opinions and speak in unique ways, presenting their outlook. And in the 20th century, it further progressed to a medium that made it easier for all people (including minorities, or socially disadvantaged people) who were previously denied this, by “using their forensic training to advance their personal and economic social good, and that competitive speech and debate served as an exemplar of game theory”. This has contributed to massive social progression and constitutional reforms which decreased power from large institutions and business interests that often manipulated consumers into thinking everything was ok. This is important, because according to socialization theory, critical mass and support from the people on the ground is the prerequisite, and only way to pressure people at the top to get social change. This is similar to how in order for democracy to survive, people need to have the capacity to make rational, informed decisions (votes) as well as directly cowling and confronting the problems minorities face in society. Debate training often provided the grounds for progressives to effectively get their point across to politicians and other people to encourage them to rise up. For example, through debating policies on whether the state should censor wikileaks, debaters are able to face the harsh reality of the abuse and control giving away our data does. And by debating on whether democracy is inherently good, or whether weak democracies are better than benevolent dictatorships, debaters are able to challenge the glorification of democracy in itself. Thus, the public speaking skills mentioned above are crucial to getting less privileged individuals a voice in democracy and allowing them to participate, and rally for change.
At the end of the day, there is still a lot of research that needs to be done to look at competitive debate as a platform of communication, and the impacts that it has. Competitive debate is principally and intuitively well intentioned, but the message is confused, and has become muttered. It requires the people to introspect and contemplate the many realities and ideas in the world, and discuss them, but many fail to recognize the norms and biases that shape these introspections. People's ideas, in its rawest form, are often inaccessible or impermissible but debate attempts to break this boundary. Although competitive debate has its own failings and missteps, it never fails to invite conversation and dialogue, not just on the specific topics, but rather on the purpose and importance of free speech and perhaps this is the only idea that never gets lost in the sea of confusion.
Will any of this stop you from debating? I don’t know. But maybe keep it in mind next time you’re tempted to lie about an argument, or about your opponents, the implications may be larger than we think!