Debate has the wonderful quality of turning nice people into tyrants, and parading them up and down hallways in their terrible glory. In one of our tournaments, my CX partner, Lindsay, and I were set against an archetypal condescending, tyrannical, and extremely frightening team, composed of an annoying lackey and a mother—figure who came in to patch up her partner's faults. This post is more about her than anyone; how I can't understand her — or maybe I can, and I'm just not.
First, let me explain CX debates: each debate team is composed of two people. Before the round, you find out if you're going to be affirming a resolution (this one was "The United States Federal Government should establish a policy substantially increasing the number of persons serving in one or more of the following national service program(s): Americorps, Citizen Corps, Learn And Serve America, Peace Corps, Senior Corps, or the Armed Forces) or negating it. If you're affirming, you need to have a case ready that proves why you're affirming, what you're accomplishing/fixing, and most importantly — HOW you manage to do it. If your case has one contradiction (for example, passing a bill through the legislature when Congress has already voted down this same thing earlier), it may debase the rest of your case, so you have to be careful. If you're negating, however, you come prepared with bins of cards that do just that to your opponent. For example, using the above, if your opponent says they will be passing a bill through Congress, you will pick cards that say that Congress has already voted against that bill, or perhaps, that the bill isn't necessary. If the negative takes out one stock issue of the affirmative case, they already have a basis to win.
The format of a CX debate is this: first, one member of the affirmative team reads their case. During this, one negative team member will be pulling cards; another will be writing questions. The one who is pulling cards is preparing their speech — the one who is writing questions is trying to establish a platform for their partner's case, as well as buying them time and weaseling answers out of their opponents so the negative can construct their case. The negative team will ask the affirmative questions, and then they switch: Neg speaks, Aff asks questions, and so on until the debate is over. With that, let me begin my story.
We were in the semi-finals at last. After two easy wins, and one grueling loss in which we were called racists (without reason), spreaders of AIDS (even though we found their evidence inconclusive), and a variety of other things should we win, we were ready to finish our match. We were put up against a team of players who, from the beginning, came off as snobs. One of them upheld the definition for the entirety of the match. She showed a decided amount of disdain for us, confident that her partner would show us up. They were affirming, and so, we went through and asked them questions, I pulled cards, and Lindsay began preparing her speech. I'm not sure what we ran against them, but eventually, it came down to the issue of pork-barreling — using funds in a wasteful manner. There's no proper way to decide what can be pork-barrel money or not, because it's completely opinionated (ironically, this came up in our Finals round debate as well, but we lost that).
The snob handed me a card on the subject when I requested it and I read it over and formulated my opinion that it was just ONE GROUP arguing a certain project was a waste of money. The group was aptly named Citizens Of Government Waste, and it wasn't conclusive because I know I'm not a member — therefore, it isn't representative of everyone. Eventually, she was asking me if I had read it — obviously I had, she just handed it to me and it was in front of me — and then she concluded, within a second, that I hadn't because I got the definition wrong. I said, "No" and read the card in front of her to conclude the exact same thing I had said a moment later.
Even though we won, I can't help but dislike that debate team. I can't stand the absurdity of some people, the absolute arrogance. It's not debate on a whole...just that one team. When they came to the award ceremony we hosted, perhaps I took my anger out on the wrong one — the talented one — because I couldn't help but eye her with a little contempt. I saw it wrong, and I feel terrible about it. She was the mothering one, the gentle one, the skilled one, the one who brought home what she rightly deserved. The other seemed like a leech — she won no awards on her own, and since she was so often the 1AC (the speaker who only has to read material and present the case initially, and then rehash her partner's arguments), didn't have any significant talent at the role. My hatred was a bit misdirected, and my conscience is desperately bludgeoning me while I write this because of that terrible oversight. Those are the impressions Debate leaves you with. You can't get away from that, because the spirit of competition overrides any views you might have had beforehand. It eradicates everything, and leaves in its wake this disgusting grudge and guilt that you have to try so hard to overcome.
Read 2 comments (Leave a comment?)
Yvonne said:
I hate politics and will strive to avoid it. Cheers to you for being able to stand it. =)
Posted on November 15, 2006 1:30 AM; Permalink
Ranjani said:
Oh, politics make me cry pretty much all the time, but think of it this way. If normal politicians debated this way, you could actually know their plan before they went into office, etc. Debate is tooooo confrontational for me most of the time, but it’s not too bad when you’re in the middle of a round.
Posted on November 15, 2006 4:24 PM; Permalink