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Decline of Debate: The Sequel
Collegiate debate—the organized, full-contact version, not the dorm-room bull session—has long been the domain of earnest apple-polishers. The kind of strait-laced students who color inside the lines, do all their homework, and look down on the unwashed masses with their A-minus averages. But in recent years, this white-bread subculture has been embracing “diversity,” with predictable results.
At the Cross Examination Debate Association Championships in March, the final match featured two pairs of African-American debaters. Progress! The debate centered around a resolution asking whether or not the president’s war powers should be restricted. The contest was won by the duo from Towson State University, Ameena Ruffin and Korey Johnson, who chose to argue the side of . . . well . . . it’s hard to say. Here’s the Atlantic’s formulation: “Rather than address the resolution straight on, Ruffin and Johnson, along with other teams of African-Americans, attacked its premise. The more pressing issue, they argued, is how the U.S. government is at war with poor black communities.”
What is new, however, is the attempted pushback from the more traditional debate powers. The debate coach at Northwestern, Aaron Hardy, dared to suggest that this Newspeak debate tactic might be problematic and that there ought to be a place in college debate for teams which, for instance, engaged the resolution, argued facts and data, and abided by rules on time and format. His suggestion was to carve out a little area for what he called “policy only” debates.
Hardy’s suggestion was not well received. According to the Atlantic, 14 teams signed up for the “policy only” tournament. But those teams had the misfortune to come from elite schools and were predominately white students. The “policy only” debate was deemed racist and canceled.
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hat's right folks; demanding actual substance and fact finding in our debates is racist and intolerant. We must embrace the diversity, no matter how much it dumbs down the next generation. I'd hate to see what debates in congress or the UN will look like when this generation comes into power
It sounds to me like they're spouting pure nonsense but, I guess I'm just not open enough to diversity and too closed minded to fully appreciate their debating style. - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...
originally posted by: FortAnthem
What gets me is how articulate and well spoken they are in the Fox News interview compared to their hyperventilating rant at the tournament. They even make the claim that they had two weeks to research their subject prior to the debates but, still couldn't manage to stay on subject once the thing got started.
Also, for the record; I think they only won because they were the all female team. The other team sounded much better (they rapped their whole debate Jessee Jackson style), some of their arguments almost made sense and they managed to get through a few sentences without resorting to the "N-word".
Them guys got robbed IMHO.
Wow.... Can I just deviate out to debate whatever side issue strikes my fancy in a formal debate, irregardless of what is actually being debated by others?
Kritiks: The negative can claim that the affirmative is guilty of a certain mindset or assumption that should be grounds for rejection. Kritiks are sometimes a reason to reject the entire affirmative advocacy without evaluating its policy; other times, kritiks can be evaluated within the same framework for evaluation as the affirmative case. Examples of some kritiks include ones against biopower, racism, centralized government or anthropocentric viewpoints.