Posts Tagged ‘debate’
A slave to fickle interests
Despite my continued sporting of a lab coat, I am not a scientist and am not a huge adherent to the scientific method (theory, experience, counter-theory etc.). At present I am incredibly into philosophy, and I continue to appreciate maths and abstract similar practices such as logic puzzles, if not formal logic of which I have very little experience. Why am I into philosophy so much? Some would say I simply do it because it makes me the happiest as compared to others, I would try to defend the view that I do it because it is fundamental and deals with the assumptions other subjects take for granted. Yet a few short years ago I saw no value in the even vaguely artistic subjects and thought that maths and science were the only worthwhile practices. Until work experience I even wanted to be a computer programmer. The fact that such things seem to change so frequently concerns me when I am making decisions about the rest of my life.
My maths teacher pointed out to me the other day that I was basing career choices one one year of A level philosophy which barely represents the subject at degree level anyway. I’m a great critic of the assumption that decisions made at an older stage of life (e.g. senior citizenship vs. middle age vs. adulthood) are automatically or even generally superior to previous stages based on this alone: they might well be better due to having had more time to consider, of course. I much prefer to rationally look at the strength of arguments. So I can try and rectify this situation by arguing that I’ve argued for longer and talked to more people and read more books. But then, surely I’m likely to do that again in future years? Right now of course it feels like I’ve reached a fundamental point with a choice of philosophy. But I can see that could change.
It’s worth considering here the issue of future vocational career options. I’ve been aiming for a good while to do a law conversion course after university, and then become at some point a barrister. But while I could definately see myself doing that, I no longer think I could be competative or driven enough to be a successful lawyer. I haven’t done work experience or shadowed to the degree those who will be successful have. I merely see it as a way of using my skills of public speaking and argument to help others. But could I avoid corruption into the traditional painting of the law profession? I’m not sure. So one can see here how my interest has changed so dramatically.
On the other hand, I am still very enthusiastic about maths and philosophy when I can clearly see others are not to the same degree or at all. When someone says ‘let’s try and prove that god exists [or not]‘ I leap into the fray. But then, I used to do this with regard to interesting parts of physics, a subject which while interesting is merely a sideshow A-level now. However, I’m proud of the fact that I love to learn, and had so many A level subjects I would have taken if I wasn’t of course constrained by good old time or simple space in my head, and this seems to suggest that I’m not going to find myself seriously unhappy with degree choice. I can only hope that my judgements about present interests will hold for the next five years (Y13 plus four years at University minimum).
But then, I love a subject when I am being reasonably successful in it, and find that (in many ways like most, but perhaps more so) I can be put off suddenly and devastatingly by not understanding something pretty quickly. I have tendencies towards lazyness and lack of perseverance and *at times* I can find it very difficult to apply myself to a real challenge, even though I would like to say I relish such opportunities. And of course as usual I am either very uncompetative (when I am like that I am happiest) or very so, and since I’m not generally top in ability at things, this sets me down into losing interest. But then, what choice do I have but to go for what I seem to be cut out for (philosophy, and to a lesser extent maths)? I’ll just have to hope I haven’t made a mistake.
As I said to someone recently, I am most alive, happy, content or whatever you want to say, when thinking successfully and not in circles and debating this with others. What else have we humans got to aspire to?
The most worrying thing here is that I have a requirement of interest to do something that is worthwhile. Worrying, but not surprising.
British Parliamentary debating
Last Friday I was drafted in for another debating competition at the last minute, in fact the one that we tried to get involved in back when the formal debating community was about six of us, a few years ago – the Oxford Union Schools Debating Competition, open to any age in schooling. This competition is an old, very formal style that involves two teams of two on the proposition and then another two on the opposition duking it out – this makes it noticeably different from what we are used to. The other big difference is that there is no fortnight of research and preparation – you get fifteen minutes to get your case together before the debate begins. Personally, I think this results in a lower-quality debate and is thus not as involving for the audience as other formats as it can be vague. On the other hand, it can produce some good material and avoids a focus on reeling off statistics – but only the poorer teams do this anyway. The more formal air was seen when we were criticised by a judge for not addressing the chair and instead talking more to the other side; this would not be a problem in other competitions.
I was in general dissapointed with my performance as it was below my usual standard, but as usual at the moment it was because I seem to have lost my ability to be awake and mentally able as solidly as I used to. Mr Moore-Bridger remarked that I was ‘not quite in touch’ owtte with what was going on, and that pretty much summer it up – I was not on the ball in the way I usually am. This led to me not getting as much out of the session as I had hoped, but as always it is always worth practicing one’s skills. I am far more looking forward to the next round of the English Speaking Union’s Mace competition, which does include points for style which to me is pretty important. One thing that was very positive about this heat was that we got some real enthusiasm out of our budding year ten team. Debating has really taken off now that we are involving lots of different people; I am proud and glad that I started it off. Mixed teams are a most successful idea – as it has been noted, by the time they get up to the sixth form competitions they will be incredible. In the second debate we participated in we were drawn directly opposed to the other Silverdale team and this showed their skill.
One thing that was highlighted in the feedback from the judges is that structure and in some cases actual argument content was something that we all generally struggle with. However much we tell each other to signpost, it is in fact really hard to actually remember to do it in the middle of a debate. It is all too easy to forget your careful self-training and end up rambling on about some train of thought, only to then lose your audience. Keeping yourself on track when you are also having points of information hurled at you is difficult: we need to get better at it. The basic principle is to carefully lead your audience through an argument, avoiding leaps that make it in any way hard to follow and ensuring that they do not have to think to hard. Judges, apparently, look for three clear points and clear introductions and endings to each one: it must be obvious. So that was the most important thing for me about this competition; a solid target to aim for in improving the squad’s skills.
Debating was again the winner
On Tuesday morning I received, as part of another conversation, an e-mail from Mr M-B saying “think about why you think fairtrade is a bad thing”. Later on that day I was furnished with the reason for this: our entry into the Mace debating competition, a formal, rigorous competition in which the final prize is a mace, was falling apart. Out of three people involved two had pulled out, leaving a blank space in the team. I was asked to step in with forty-eight hours notice and so tonight the battle commenced. And again the real intellectual atmosphere was what I took away most, the whole idea of meeting to competitively discuss issues that are so important. Additionally, working with the ‘squad’ rather than the team the night before preparing at school and on the journey, the the teachers: I don’t get the intellectual atmosphere at home where debate is boring and unimportant. Our motion was ‘[t]his house believes we should all buy faritrade [sic] products where we can’ which was a facinating topic to oppose – I learnt an awful lot about fair trade and am now sitting on the fence very much if it is a good idea or not.
For this debate I was working with Conor, someone who I have not really worked with before but am glad I did – we seem to do well together. Conor won a public speaking competition recently and really can deliver the information. The big differnece that we had to cope with for this competition was interruptions during speeches in the form of points of information which is something we have not really had the chance to practice for, meaning that we probably didn’t handle these as well as we should have done. Really though this style of debate is so much better than the others we have encountered. The cut and thrust of real debate are there and this is not experienced in other settings. The debate is interactive and real. After watching the first debate on compulsory national service it was our turn, and we were stepping into a strange situation. We had little preparation due to being informed late of the details and we had been put off a little by the exceptional work of the home school in the first debate. But it was pointed out by our teachers that once we got into the style things were very fluid and debating did become theatre. Rebuttal is vitally important: I turned the proposition’s drop in a bucket argument on its head which I was quite pleased with.
We split our opposition into two areas: Conor took the economic issues around why fair trade is not a good thing, and I attacked the moral and human aspects, and then proposed a solution. We uncovered a lot of information and analysis. Firstly, Conor explained how fair trade does not address the reason that third world producers are paid so low for their produce and that is a saturated market – fair trade encourages more production and thus makes the situation a lot worse (worse not just not helping was a fundamental point of our side). He also explained how fair trade suffers from subsidy and import restrictions in first world countries and this led on to the proposition that cutting out the middleman of sending cocoa beans to the first world to be made into chocolate bars to be sold back to the third world would really help the situation in developing countries. I went on to talk about branding and how there is a real psychological element to the debate: fair trade is a fashionable brand at the moment and there is always the concern of complacency. We used the analogy of a sticking plaster for a much larger wound. The next point was the patronising of the African farmers that occurs. I used the illustration of a business meeting praising the African coffee and how this patronises those who have produced it: the pride in their produce is lost. So the solution came about from this argument. Take the extra fifty pence spend on fair trade and put this into developing the infrastructure in the developing countries to produce their own goods from the raw materials in order to allow them to compete. Remove this feudal situation between the first and third worlds where the subservant serfs are producing our raw materials, and if we must work within this capitalist system then we must allow the third world countries to compete rather than be below us if they are to lift themselves out of poverty.
After the debate the judges retired to consider the winning team to go through to the next round and a runner up in case illness or other misfortune should stop the winners attending. Firstly they did the most valuable part of the evening for the longer term: feedback on each individual debater and combined team. This information is absolutely invaluable in improving as the judges can compare teams and bring in their experience. According to the judges I have a voice that must be listened to without any shouting and I used my facial expressions well to emote my points. They particularly liked my point on why dependence on fair trade is particularly dangerous when I said that instant coffee could become instant poverty given an economic slump. We had a strong and coherent argument between us and Conor was praised for his solidity of economic research. Then the judgement came, and I was actually not too concerned for we had had a good time and had improved our skills. And then it came: we won – apparently the choice of winner for the judges was easy, and the runner up took more thought. On to the next round!
An intellectual evening
On Thursday evening the Sheffield round of the Institute of Ideas’ (formed from the remnants of the British Communist Party, wahey) Debating Matters competition was held at Silverdale. Despite not being part of the debating teams for Silverdale, I went and took part from the floor. The whole atmosphere of an evening of debating in that way means a lot to me: the challenging of assumptions, the examination of arguments. The cut and thrust of arguments and attacks and defences. There should be so much more of it in our society. Unfortunately the format of this particular debating competition doesn’t allow so much for the cut and thrust and in many ways was not as competitive as the sort of style we have been practising with. In terms of style, most of the other teams were a complete walk over for Silverdale’s teams – many were reading straight off a sheet and none of them stood up! In our debates people are shot down in flames if they remain seated and are shouted at until they stand. Silverdale did not however do well in all areas. There were times when arguments had holes in and speeches did not go entirely to plan. Some of the other teams were also skilled and managed to blow apart aspects of Silverdale’s arguments. But they did well overall. In the end Silverdale did win and we are through the next round in Birmingham (regional).
This particular format places great emphasis on questioning and speeches are relatively short and so the audience play a pivotal role – in some debates they really can dominate. So much is this considered vital that an award is given to the audience member who makes the best contributions from the floor – I received this in conjunction with another, which I was congratulated for. However, the issue with all this is that questions are ‘collected’ for the team to answer together. I really don’t like this because what ends up happening is that it breaks down and a two-way conversations at least partially ensues. I think the reasoning behind it is to give people a chance to think up a response but they are too busy scribbling down questions to be able to do this. In any case, the event was a success and I am pleased that I was there.