The Blog of a High School Parliamentary Debater

I was a high school and college debater.  Lincoln-Douglas, parli, humorous interpretation, extemp.  I was on one of the top teams in the country.  (I was not one of the top debaters personally, I was just okay, but just-okay at a high level.  If you get me.)  I’ve got trophies in being an “um, actually” dude.

And this is why I don’t believe in the power of debate for settling serious issues.  Because teams alternate positions over the course of a tournament, but teams with better preparation and training tend to win no matter which position they take.  The whole sport wouldn’t work if the morally right side of an issue was always the one with the strongest arguments.

(In fact, being personally invested in the rightness of your argument is sometimes a detriment, because you can get flustered and emotional while the other guy is projecting nothing but calm confidence.)

I learned to speak passionately about why the US needs to retain nuclear supremacy for world peace, and also to speak passionately about why the US needs to lead the world in nuclear disarmament.  I can’t say “I can convince you of both,” because your own preconceptions are such a huge factor, but if you agree to be an impartial judge, I can absolutely convince you of both.  The “but in the end the truth wins out” factor is so much smaller than you’d like to think.

 This isn’t to say you shouldn’t ever engage in debate.  If you think you can win, go in and kick some ass.  It’s a valid way to present and defend your beliefs.  But don’t trust debate as a truth-finding process.  Don’t leave human welfare up to “whoever wins the debate.”  Don’t get sucked into believing debate is somehow a morally superior tactic to deplatforming or protest.  There’s so much style and technique involved in debate, it’s little better than saying “we’ll agree the truth is on the side of whoever wins this arm-wrestling match.”