"Speed Debating" - Spewing Assertions / Facts Trumps Arguments

[shnugwa]

The Introduction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=murvOaHB66A

 

The Result:

 

 

What the Hell IS This?

 

There are two common trends within each video: a near-unintelligible speed of speech delivery, and a distinct absence in the presence of arguments.

 

It's being called Policy Debate. And it’ll be impacting the American political landscape for years to come. From the Ivy League schools to rural high school classrooms, youths from around America of every color, class, creed, and religion are participating in a rational and coordinated debate feverishly incoherent mindslaughter of baseless assertions, indecipherable gibberish, and frantic hyperventilation in order to further the discussion with their original contributions towards important societal matters such as the impending fiscal cliff, prospects of nuclear war, and sociocultural / gender issues.

 

I encourage you reader, to watch the first video through and through to become acquainted with the most benign and orthodox manifestation of debate strategy in the this strange paradigm of speed debating format. Professional organizations invoke the participation of thousands of teens in this hysterical conversation of political scope every year, with recognizable and reputable institutions such as Harvard University and the U.S. Military Academy sending their best and brightest to participate. You can watch another debate tactic in Oklahoma State University’s heated match against Harvard: RAPPING.

 

If your time is short, I’ll do you a petty favor and transcribe one of the gentleman’s arguments:

“I’m gonna speak these words, I’m gonna tell a blind man what he missin’

So all my brothas up in time at the prison, thought what they had was the crown,

FUCK the system”

 

Oklahoma vs. Harvard, 2013

 

 

This debate was orchestrated by CEDA (Cross Examination Debate Association). I have ascertained through YouTube video evidence, that stretching AT LEAST as far back as 2004, national championship winners without exception has utilized “speed debate” tactics. It’s colloquially being referred to as “spreading”, or speed-reading. Contestants conduct research on their position for the topic assigned by the moderators with a healthy allotment of time ahead of the debate to prepare. Once called to the stand, a sentimental pre-speech of thank-you’s and praise to the organizers is given by the contender to warm the audience (and judges’) hearts.

 

The debater then proceeds to place a stack of papers or laptop upon a table, physically braces his or herself for competition, often hunching low, as if instinctively, and the debate begins. An unrelenting and unintelligible spewing of related and unrelated facts, fiction, ad-hominem, logical fallacy, baseless assertions, unsubstantiated claims, references to undefined and ambiguous terms, fowl language, intermittent gasps for breath, and repetitive “UH-UH-UH” onomatopoeia all fired at a steady rapid pace ensue, with the occasional intervention of rap ethos now and then. At the opening team’s closure, a brief period of questioning follows from the opposition.

 

Questioning includes: calling the other side racist, and asking them to defend it, making up things the other side didn’t say, and asking them to refute that, using the words “White Privilege”, and also rapping.

 

The Problem:

 

These are not debates. Debates are characterized by the use of logical arguments, based upon both reason and evidence to support their foundations. Contenders have their minds put to the test based upon how they can think on their feet, and at best are permitted notecards or single sheets from which they may record beforehand the general points which they wish to cover. Speed reading an infinite number of little factoids which lend credence to a particular position is not debating. The implications of this phenomenon propagating are unmeasurable:

 

There is literally a massive and ever-growing cabal of politically-interested individuals around my age, +/- 5 years who genuinely believe that this practice is what ought to dictate government and social policy. They erroneously believe that the most effective strategy to win a debate is to spew ideology, weave a web of facts, and rap. I know not what to make of this. I will be conducting research into the organization responsible for this; I suspect a dark agenda is afoot behind the existence of “Policy Speed-Debating”, the chief aim of which is to eradicate rational discourse and supplant it with…. Idiocracy.

[Donnadogsoth]

It won't be idiocracy.  It'll be idocracy, rule by the Freudian id.

[fishything]

My jaw dropped to the floor during that fox news footage when the videomaker revealed the actual footage from the debate. Not what I expected at all, especially the use of the n word every 5 seconds, of course this is not debating! 

[geethree]

The so-called "debates" in each video are utter nonsense. My concern is that the kids in the videos have been taught that what they are doing actually has substance. It's a sadly unsurprising trend in modern education that they are being taught that baseless assertions are arguments. The girl in the second video kept referring to what she and her cohort, as well as those she was supposedly facing, were saying was an "argument" when it was just a string of barely coherent words that could only qualify as non-sequitur on a charitable day. I suspect that if any of these people were to be in an actual debate they would flounder and perish quite quickly.

[AncapFTW]

I think the only jobs this helps them get is "side effect guy" from medicine ads and auctioneer.  They don't even have enough time to breath properly, much less actually think about the issues.  If anything, it's teching them to just say whatever they can about an issue as fast as possible and NOT think about it.