Debating Meaning
In true St Paul style, I have to show a few bona fides so that it looks as if I know something about debate. I think I've had more debate training, both formal and informal than most; my parents were both high school debaters (from the College of Wyverns), and they brought that into their marriage, and then into their later family life.
I dabbled in debate when young, and was even a debate adjudicator in the early days of the modern three-man debates which are now favoured over the much more entertaining parliamentary free-for-alls and others. To my everlasting shock, I was once Best Speaker at some university debate. And so on.
It strikes me that debate training is singularly bad prep for life.
In debate, you define your terms, you set your case, you develop lines of argument, you learn to root out fallacies (or at least convince the adjudicators that you have exposed the other side's fallacies whether or not such exist), and so on. In life, it doesn't happen. The morons with the fallacies are often winners.
I've learnt to be schizophrenic about it. In my head, one of me tots up the score, adjudicating the event in debate terms. In my head, one other of me smiles a lot. And a third of me (at least) delivers canned responses, noting that despite the stupidity of the situation (or the absurdity of it), nobody else notices or affects to notice.
I remember being called up by the Inquisition. They were being laughably inept interrogators. (Example: "Your post was made at 1100, which is during office hours." "Err, my posts are in EST, which means that was actually 2300, which is not office hours.")
Finally, they triumphed over me. "You may be right, but if you were right, it is obvious that you were confusing. How else could we have been wrong if you were not being ambiguous and confusing? You should apologise!"
I almost burst out laughing. But that's not good form in debate or in life. I almost said, "Maybe because you weren't thinking properly?" But that's not good form in debate or in life either.
Debate, debate. It is a silly fish that goes for debate. Debate is horrible prep for life. It's like mucking around instead of really trying to find something.
I dabbled in debate when young, and was even a debate adjudicator in the early days of the modern three-man debates which are now favoured over the much more entertaining parliamentary free-for-alls and others. To my everlasting shock, I was once Best Speaker at some university debate. And so on.
It strikes me that debate training is singularly bad prep for life.
In debate, you define your terms, you set your case, you develop lines of argument, you learn to root out fallacies (or at least convince the adjudicators that you have exposed the other side's fallacies whether or not such exist), and so on. In life, it doesn't happen. The morons with the fallacies are often winners.
I've learnt to be schizophrenic about it. In my head, one of me tots up the score, adjudicating the event in debate terms. In my head, one other of me smiles a lot. And a third of me (at least) delivers canned responses, noting that despite the stupidity of the situation (or the absurdity of it), nobody else notices or affects to notice.
I remember being called up by the Inquisition. They were being laughably inept interrogators. (Example: "Your post was made at 1100, which is during office hours." "Err, my posts are in EST, which means that was actually 2300, which is not office hours.")
Finally, they triumphed over me. "You may be right, but if you were right, it is obvious that you were confusing. How else could we have been wrong if you were not being ambiguous and confusing? You should apologise!"
I almost burst out laughing. But that's not good form in debate or in life. I almost said, "Maybe because you weren't thinking properly?" But that's not good form in debate or in life either.
Debate, debate. It is a silly fish that goes for debate. Debate is horrible prep for life. It's like mucking around instead of really trying to find something.
etched with acid at 2:46:00 am
2 Comments:
Only the early fish gets debate. =P Someone used to tell me that parliamentary debates were more of shouting matches than anything else. The team with the loudest volume wins. We play by the rules now, just like anything else.. heh.
Haha, parliamentary debate is a higher-level skill; you can't just POI people, you need to be able to insert your point deftly and dangerously, like with a stiletto.
The best parliamentary debaters can sense the overall shape of the sound and make a single clear comment that cuts through the noise without raising their voices. It's like school; you can't outshout the class, but you can certainly dominate them.
Of course, by parliamentary, I don't mean mock-parliamentary as in 'THBT...' — I mean watching real live parliamentary debates (live as in UK, not S'pore). :D
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