My Debate Philosophy

Instead of reviewing Africa's Art of Argumentation and Debate, an old book that did not teach anything new, let me post excerpts of an email I wrote to the my college debate society.

People could not be further from the truth when they accuse
me of not caring enough. My debate philosophy is not an
argument for irresponsibility or a carefree hakunah matatah
attitude. It might be surprising to some, but I
passionately care about debate. I consider debate a craft,
an art form. I am in genuine awe of the raw and spontaneous
intellectual clash, of the eloquent power of the spoken
word. I consider myself the unworthy but aspiring
descendant of the likes of Socrates, Lincoln and Churchill.
Debate is so much bigger than an individual debater, the
organization or the debate community. In debate, I hear the
echo of conflicting ideas ringing through the ages. I
debate because I consider it my art, my creative outlet. I
am not a writer, a musician, nor a painter, but I am a
proud debater.

It is true that some people perceive me as carefree because
I debate the least before tryouts; I do not bring matter at
all during tournaments; I do not react strongly to either
victory or defeat. But I will throw modesty out of the
window for it is nothing but the refuge of the fool. I top
the tryouts, I win championships and I get best speaker
citations. I have achieved as much or even more than those
who accuse my team of not caring about winning.

I do care about winning. It feels good to win. I care about
winning but it is always tempered by the realization that
winning is not everything. I will always do my best in a
debate. For seven minutes, I will exhaust all my
argumentative skills, all stored up knowledge, and all
flair and humor to deliver the best speech I can. But after
the debate, I will forget about it. I will forge
friendships with my opponents who, I never forget, are
thinking and feeling humans too. I will look at the sunset,
I will take a dip in the pool, I will have a drink or two.
I will watch the fireworks instead of ruminate on a bad
speech. I will listen to the crashing waves instead of
planning how to get back at a stupid adjudicator.

I address this especially to the new members because they
say that you can’t teach old dogs new tricks. What is the
use of measuring your life on the basis of debate
achievements as some of the old people do? What is the use
of attaching so much importance to the subjective decisions
of fallible adjudicators who will always have biases and
prejudices despite their best efforts at objectivity?

The desire to win must always be tempered by the
realization that a decision is nothing but a consensus by
flawed humans that a team was the one that adhered the most
to the dominant but fleeting and changing standards of what
it means to be a good debater. That is putting it at its
best. At worst, a decision can be reduced to a question of
who offended the adjudicators’ sense of taste the least.
This is why I do not despair when I lose, because I know
that I am still smarter than someone who adheres to
the dominant paradigm better. This is why I do not praise
the high heavens when I win, because it says less about my
worth as a debater than it does about my ability to please
the adjudicators.

Some assume that there is one true road to debate success, as though the
only way to win is to debate in a particular way, to keep
on repeating the same thing over and over again, and to
have the decorum of one attending a funeral. I am not
against hard work. I respect people who achieve things
because of hard work. But that is no reason to discount
people who achieve things out of brilliance and know how to
have fun at the same time. Dogma is anathema to debate and it is
dogmatic to pontificate about the one true road to debate
glory.

Training is indispensable to the new debater who has to get
used to doing something he does not normally do. But
mindless and repetitive debating leads to diminishing
returns. It may even lead to calcified patterns of thought
and formulaic speaking styles. Assuming basic competence,
the key is no longer how many times you debate, but how
hard you think about how you debate. Based on my
experience, there is no direct relation between the number
of times you debate and your chances of winning a
tournament. Hearing trite adjudication (lacks
substantiation, lacks dynamism, weak responsiveness) helped
me less than reading and analyzing the thought of
provocative philosophers.

We always say that we want to have class. Acting like sore
losers out to avenge the past several years’ losses will
not breed class. Wanting that piece of shiny metal so badly
that we start debating like noisy fish vendors will not
breed class. Thinking that winning is everything will not
breed class. Behaving according to some presumptuous
standard of behavior will not breed class. One has class
not because of how one acts but by how one is treated. To
have class is to be treated with respect because of the
apparent lack of effort, the perception that there is
nothing more natural in the world than to debate. We will
never have class if we are too uptight and serious; if we
don’t have a sense of humor; if treat winning as all there
is to life. I sincerely believe that if we debated because
we genuinely enjoyed doing it, then we will have class and
start winning those trophies.

I have talked about how I view debate at length because I
disagree that the way to keep the new members debating is
by filling them with angst or issues. Younger debaters do
not need to be told they ought to be ashamed of their
performance after they lose. They already feel shame. They
do not need put-downs masquerading as pep talks. They need
to be inspired. They need to realize a new debate is a new
battle even as lessons ought to be learned from a prior
defeat. They need to be shown that they can enjoy debate.
The seven-minute rush can come from the fear of not
winning; but it can also come from the sheer pleasure of
arguing.

They cannot stop us from debating for we debate
out of passion. We shall debate with our future students,
with the taxi driver, with our friends or against each
other. Debate is our life, not in the petty sense of not
being able to let go of a lost championship, but in the
grand sense of devoting oneself to the life of the mind.
The same can be said of the true writer who writes because
it is his passion. It runs through his veins and suffuses
his spirit. To stop writing is to stop living. A writer
writes not because he wants the Nobel Prize, but because he
cannot do otherwise. A writer is not any less of a writer
if he fails to win the nod of the establishment critics. In
fact, I would dare say that a writer ceases to be a writer
if writes to get accolades. For then, he ceases to be an
artist and becomes no different from the beauty pageant or
pera o bayong contestant.

I will always think that debating is its own reward. I will
always think that debating is fun. I will always think of
myself as a debater, first and foremost, and only secondly
as a champion.