Storefront Debate

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Watched a documentary about the life of Bruce Lee last week, it still haunts me. Not for any of the clear reasons it should – a man mysteriously dies at the height of his life’s work without foul play – but for one little section.

When Bruce Lee moved, wherever he went, he always opened up a school somewhere to teach others his particular style of martial arts. The school was always in a storefront, somewhere we might call a strip mall today, and it was unlabeled and unnoticeable unless you were seeking it.

Lee would teach a few hand-picked students, and the only way to get into the training was if you were recommended by a current student. This way he kept his school small so he could spend ample time with each student and be assured they were understanding the art correctly (read: by his philosophy of what it should be, do, and accomplish).

This struck me as an amazing parallel to the Ancient Athenian Sophists, teachers of debate, argument, and rhetoric  but also hired guns who would write your speech for you if you paid. They took students on a purely for profit basis – well, that’s what we teach anyway – but the documentary made me think of them and their methods. They were always teaching rhetoric and argumentation, and probably had good reasons outside the paycheck for doing so.

For me, I would love a halfway point between the two. There’s a lot to be said for being outside of the University setting, about as much as can be said for being in it. The advantages and disadvantages to it are a pretty equal stasis point, in my mind. But the more compelling part is the storefront. Imagine debate schools like storefront martial arts studios where people pay to learn the art of verbal self defense. Imagine an internal ranking system – something like a cross between the martial arts belt system, and the Toastmaster’s ranking system. Imagine students referring other serious students for debate training. And the tournaments would be something very different, very strange to our eyes.

Is there a demand among people to learn how to defend themselves from words? Words are quite sharp; sharper than many think. Even the most ardent handgun enthusiasts think requiring safety courses before purchase is the right thing to do. At least with guns, you either survive or you don’t – with words you just slowly rend, day in and out, for an interminable amount of time (assuming something said really hit you like an assassin would). With the violence of words, it’s unclear whether you survived, or you didn’t. You’re different, and you’re here. Maybe.

I think I was born in the wrong era – at least that’s what someone said to me when I proposed my storefront debate idea. Maybe so; I do consider myself a Sophist, however you wish to define it. I teach it to pretty much anyone who comes along, and it’s not just profit driven. But why is it only in the University? Why only in the schools? Perhaps debate masters and practitioners should reflect on why outside of Japan, it’s only a small number of people who have access to martial arts courses in the University setting. Maybe they figured out something we haven’t realized yet.

How Do You Do That?

Summer goes slow around here, but what goes slow runs deep.

2 AM. I’m waiting on a bus to take me from the humid sidewalk to my nice, cool apartment.

“Hey, Steve? Is that you?”

I recognize him, but not in the suit he’s wearing. He’s recently graduated and explains to me he’s headed home after a day of work and a nice night of fun. He debated at 2 meetings, and attended many more, giving comments and asking questions of the speakers after the debate.

Now he works in the financial industry. He hands me a free copy of the Wall Street Journal. “I know these guys, I talk to them. It’s important to try to stay on top of this stuff.” He’s not an analyst or anything like that, someone who works in the media around the finance field. He likes his job, but is looking for advancement.

“How often do you read?” he asks. We are on the bus now. At this time of day, the WSJ headlines can’t help but take on the stink of leftovers. What has been important.

“Everyday. I love it. I read a lot” I say

“How do you do that?”

If you laughed, don’t worry I did too at first. But it’s a better question than it first appears to be. For reading, and reading every day, and reading well is a very complicated skill worth practicing.

I suggested to my former (?) student that it was like getting better at being healthy. “Control your diet and take up some exercise.” By this I suggested watching one less TV show a day, and trying to read something instead. Of course, this is tough because it’s not a question of ignorance or natural ability, but a question of culture and tradition, or perhaps even ideology.

My former (that word really doesn’t apply does it? How long should this relationship go on? The bus approaches my stop) student told me he never used to read, but now sees the utility of reading popular, best-selling fiction and non-fiction. The reason is career advancement. He can use his reading as an icebreaker, or a continue-er, in conversations. It also helps, he tells me, in conducting the kind of conversations he wants to have in social situations with people in his field.

Yes, yes, all this is good. Go to the gym (library). Read some different stuff, read broadly, learn to take notes this is my stop good talking to you!

As I walk home, I realize I haven’t answered the question.
As I walk home, I realize this is my question too.

How Do You Do That?

Summer goes slow around here, but what goes slow runs deep.

2 AM. I’m waiting on a bus to take me from the humid sidewalk to my nice, cool apartment.

“Hey, Steve? Is that you?”

I recognize him, but not in the suit he’s wearing. He’s recently graduated and explains to me he’s headed home after a day of work and a nice night of fun. He debated at 2 meetings, and attended many more, giving comments and asking questions of the speakers after the debate.

Now he works in the financial industry. He hands me a free copy of the Wall Street Journal. “I know these guys, I talk to them. It’s important to try to stay on top of this stuff.” He’s not an analyst or anything like that, someone who works in the media around the finance field. He likes his job, but is looking for advancement.

“How often do you read?” he asks. We are on the bus now. At this time of day, the WSJ headlines can’t help but take on the stink of leftovers. What has been important.

“Everyday. I love it. I read a lot” I say

“How do you do that?”

If you laughed, don’t worry I did too at first. But it’s a better question than it first appears to be. For reading, and reading every day, and reading well is a very complicated skill worth practicing.

I suggested to my former (?) student that it was like getting better at being healthy. “Control your diet and take up some exercise.” By this I suggested watching one less TV show a day, and trying to read something instead. Of course, this is tough because it’s not a question of ignorance or natural ability, but a question of culture and tradition, or perhaps even ideology.

My former (that word really doesn’t apply does it? How long should this relationship go on? The bus approaches my stop) student told me he never used to read, but now sees the utility of reading popular, best-selling fiction and non-fiction. The reason is career advancement. He can use his reading as an icebreaker, or a continue-er, in conversations. It also helps, he tells me, in conducting the kind of conversations he wants to have in social situations with people in his field.

Yes, yes, all this is good. Go to the gym (library). Read some different stuff, read broadly, learn to take notes this is my stop good talking to you!

As I walk home, I realize I haven’t answered the question.
As I walk home, I realize this is my question too.

The _______ Society

Not exactly the time for goodbyes and thank yous, but I got one today from a student unexpectedly as I sat on the campus enjoying the evening.

He thanked me for opportunities and for the experience, but mostly for something he couldn’t quite articulate. Something that went like this – “Although I didn’t really win a lot of trophies or help the reputation of the team much, I feel changed and better off for it.” As if a lack of competitive success and positive feelings were incommensurable.

I’ve said it before – here in New York I think we are up to something different. But when pressed to give details, it’s hard to articulate. It’s something about being trapped in a word, or around a word. What does it mean to be a debating society?

What are we up to? We are up to debating, but that’s a pretense. That’s what gets you in the door, so to speak. I wonder if we should call it a Debating Society at all. Today I got a call from the development office of my University asking me what to name the fund that people contribute to for the debate society. “Should we call it Debate Society General Fund?” Oh development officers, your creative sexy naming is second to, well, all. But I went with it because I couldn’t think of anything better.

Perhaps it should be called the languaging society. Doesn’t much seem like debate’s the thing we remember. We recall amazing speeches in equally amazing rounds, but the debate is really a scene. Nobody praises the stage in a good theater performance, we praise what the actor did on that stage, in that role – or the director in hers, on down the line.

Debating is what we do not what we are or what we get from our involvement. We get a chance to connect to something a bit beyond debate, as such, to something a bit more central to out human existence. We get a chance to practice our relationship to language and to each other. We get to inductively create a theory of how to persuasively and invitingly share ideas with one another from practice, trial, and re-trial.

This is a rare thing, and should be handled well. In my office we have trophies going back to the early 1950s. The University was going to throw them away, but I kept them. But they are not that useful. They don’t explain themselves, or why they are around. There’s no way to determine who won them, how they were won – nothing valuable remains of them except the circular: “They are trophies, so they are valuable.” They are in need of cleaning, but the narrative around them, their whole existence has been lost and cannot be recovered.

Trophies are important because of the “languaging”- best term we could come up with in the dusk on campus – for what it is that we appreciate about debating. The victories and other honors are nice, but the value comes from the stories, more specifically, the telling and retelling of the stories. If we can’t tell stories well, or appreciate them when told well, then we live pretty impoverished lives. Debate connects us over and over again, in very challenging ways, to the necessity of language and the incredible insufficiency of language to meet up to our rather idealized demands.

Debate teaches many things, and I think those traditional skills are good. It’s good to win. But it’s better to be able to ‘language’ – for without that, hope for understanding the importance of those skills, or the personalities involved in those victories vanishes.

If there’s one thing certain about debate it is that you will lose. Why did you lose? What will it mean? These questions in many ways are more important to answer, and a bit more challenging to answer, than any motion you face.

The _______ Society

Not exactly the time for goodbyes and thank yous, but I got one today from a student unexpectedly as I sat on the campus enjoying the evening.

He thanked me for opportunities and for the experience, but mostly for something he couldn’t quite articulate. Something that went like this – “Although I didn’t really win a lot of trophies or help the reputation of the team much, I feel changed and better off for it.” As if a lack of competitive success and positive feelings were incommensurable.

I’ve said it before – here in New York I think we are up to something different. But when pressed to give details, it’s hard to articulate. It’s something about being trapped in a word, or around a word. What does it mean to be a debating society?

What are we up to? We are up to debating, but that’s a pretense. That’s what gets you in the door, so to speak. I wonder if we should call it a Debating Society at all. Today I got a call from the development office of my University asking me what to name the fund that people contribute to for the debate society. “Should we call it Debate Society General Fund?” Oh development officers, your creative sexy naming is second to, well, all. But I went with it because I couldn’t think of anything better.

Perhaps it should be called the languaging society. Doesn’t much seem like debate’s the thing we remember. We recall amazing speeches in equally amazing rounds, but the debate is really a scene. Nobody praises the stage in a good theater performance, we praise what the actor did on that stage, in that role – or the director in hers, on down the line.

Debating is what we do not what we are or what we get from our involvement. We get a chance to connect to something a bit beyond debate, as such, to something a bit more central to out human existence. We get a chance to practice our relationship to language and to each other. We get to inductively create a theory of how to persuasively and invitingly share ideas with one another from practice, trial, and re-trial.

This is a rare thing, and should be handled well. In my office we have trophies going back to the early 1950s. The University was going to throw them away, but I kept them. But they are not that useful. They don’t explain themselves, or why they are around. There’s no way to determine who won them, how they were won – nothing valuable remains of them except the circular: “They are trophies, so they are valuable.” They are in need of cleaning, but the narrative around them, their whole existence has been lost and cannot be recovered.

Trophies are important because of the “languaging”- best term we could come up with in the dusk on campus – for what it is that we appreciate about debating. The victories and other honors are nice, but the value comes from the stories, more specifically, the telling and retelling of the stories. If we can’t tell stories well, or appreciate them when told well, then we live pretty impoverished lives. Debate connects us over and over again, in very challenging ways, to the necessity of language and the incredible insufficiency of language to meet up to our rather idealized demands.

Debate teaches many things, and I think those traditional skills are good. It’s good to win. But it’s better to be able to ‘language’ – for without that, hope for understanding the importance of those skills, or the personalities involved in those victories vanishes.

If there’s one thing certain about debate it is that you will lose. Why did you lose? What will it mean? These questions in many ways are more important to answer, and a bit more challenging to answer, than any motion you face.