The New York Sophist

There was an interesting piece by Roger Ebert today in the Sun-Times comparing Bill O`Reilly to Charles Coughlin, and using some scholarly research as support. Ebert, I didn’t think, had much of a mind at all since all he usually does is say rather obvious things about rather obviously bad films. But this piece changed my mind about him.

It was reminicent of Deborah Tannen’s book The Argument Culture where she dismisses switch-side argumentation as fairly worthless for real problem solving or for access to truths about issues or problems we face in society. Her research is seriously lacking, as she does not cite any contemporary argumentation work from scholars who research this issue all over the globe.

Ebert, on the other hand, felt that to prove O’Reilly was a propagandist he had to cite some formal research study on propaganda. Not bad, although unfortunately, he falls into the same trap as Tannen, the trap of thinking of argument and debate as something that has a right and wrong way of doing it – that once a fallacy is identified, the use of it will be exposed and the bad results of propaganda will cease.

Arguing is like smoking in this way – people who smoke are not just unaware of the health risks. It’s not like you can go up to a smoker, tell them it’s unhealthy, and expect them to be surprised, thanking you while putting out their cigarette and promising to quit right away. They are fully aware that it is bad, they are doing it because they are addicted, or perhaps they feel like the enjoyment is worth more than the health risk.

And in argument it is the same way – I don’t think identifying a bunch of fallacies or propaganda techniques are going to get much argument improvement. I think instead you will get the smoker’s response – yea, yea, yea, I know, I just don’t care. This is a pleasurable act. And when smoking bans appear, the rights discourse rises along side it. Smoking (like free speech) is a right that cannot be infringed, it is a personal liberty – just like Bill O’Reilly does according to Ebert. However, just telling us that these propaganda techniques are there won’t do much against the pleasure of the act. This is the weak point of argument theory built on rationality. Perhaps we can try an experiment: Argument theory built on romanticism, myth, or aesthetics. Can it be done? I think perhaps there are clues that it has – the vast collections of aphoristic writing of the 18th and 19th centuries, koans from Buddhism, and mixed media art perhaps. Maybe television? Propaganda and fallacies are only bad if you accept rationalism and Reason as the starting point.

If we want to stop the public health problem of bad argumentation we need a better model than simple conciousness raising. “That is a fallacy!” says the argument student. “yea, yea I know,” says the layperson, “I know they are bad for me, but I really just don’t want to quit.”

This is a fantastic city. Perfect size, very livable, and the temperature is just cool enough that you might want a sweatshirt in the evening. But if that doesn’t convince you that Sapporo is an amazing town, check out the picture. Isn’t that the most beautiful tuna you have ever seen? The seafood here is what they said it was in Tokyo – outstanding. We just had an amazing late lunch where I think we did a pretty good job trying to close down the sushi bar.

But we don’t just sit around and eat sushi. We debate and work as well. Today’s debate was again the national high school topic on worker dispatching, and in the 4 person Japanese high school format. It takes some getting used to, but the whole debate is about comparing impacts versus advantages. In fact, the ballot indicates that this is the only way to make a decision in the debate. You have to fill out a formula of sorts that explains how you weighed the advantages and disadvantages in equation form. More on this in a seprate post to come after I reflect on the format a bit more. Suffice it to say for now that the format is a mix between standard debate in the U.S. and a dash of World School’s format. I think it works for Japanese high school students who might not have the will to jump into something like parliamentary or CX debating where there doesn’t appear to be a bottom to the form. Here the boundaries are set and wherever you go in the pool you feel like you can touch the bottom. Very good for beginners.

Here are today’s teams – the teacher Mr. Kimura (who is a very enthusiastic and dedicated high school coach) split up the Americans so they would face each other in today’s debate.

They were told by the photographer to make a stern debating pose. I think you can see their interpretations of what that might mean from these pictures.

The debate was observed by many people who were teachers and students. I think over 180 students came to the debate, and from my count there were perhaps about 10 or 15 teachers. The debate caused such a stir that many teachers from other schools in Hokkaido came to observe the match and to see if debate is something they would like to have at their school. There was a lot of interest in the room and some fascination with debate – and it seems to me this region of Japan is a sleeping giant in the JDA world. Once debate becomes more regular in Hokkaido, the rest of the Japanese high school scene should watch out. These students are sharp and eager to learn all the subtlety of good argumentation. And they have a very sharp, witty and well respected coach in Mr. Kimura.

Thanks to everyone who helped us out here in Sapporo. It seems we just arrived, but tomorrow morning it is back to the airport to fly to Tokyo for the last time on the tour.

We returned to Tokyo energized from our encounters and debates, but physically exhausted. A day off was in order, and we spent it shopping in Akihabara district for souveniers. Of course, it wasn’t my crazy love of anime and japanese pop culture that helped select that particular location for our day of tourist activities, no way.

The next evening we were to visit a Toastmaster’s club to give a demonstration debate in parliamentary style. The club is considering starting a debate portion of their activities, and wanted some introductory training. Professor Ayabe conducted the demonstration debate, then split the group up into 3 rooms to have practices on the same motion judged by the Americans. My group was fantastic, and made many good arguments. They also all ended perfectly on time even without the use of a timer. Toastmaster’s is good for training in time management as well as introductions and conclusions to speeches. The only element that needed more work was refutation, as well as argument and impact development. Many of them ended arguments with an open question rather than a concrete impact.

Overall it was a great session, and I think that the Toastmaster’s club will have a lot of future debates where they can quickly learn how to make well developed arguments.

Another fantastic stop! The city was amazing and I took many pictures. We were met by a most enthusiastic group of University students from the English Speaking Society. They took us to the hotel, then it was off to lunch!

Looks delicious no? I forget what it is called but it translates to “fried favorite.” This dish is prepared on a grill, and consists of noodles and some egg I think, with your favorite items inside of it. It’s like a Japanese noodle-fried pizza. I chose garlic and squid for mine, but there were many options. You can get whatever you wish.

After this, it was time for sightseeing where I nearly died, but I did get some great photos of an ancient Japanese castle.

Here’s my video showing the danger we were in:

And here is my nice video of the great city view you get from the chair lift. It does seem to be a postmodern art project though with the weird people floating by in the chairs going the other way. I wasn’t able to record the other direction since we left so late the chair lift had shut down. We took the gondola back, which you can see near the end of this video:

The debate was fantastic, and the most American style debate so far. There was a Topicality debate and some off-case theory debate that was pretty good. I have a tape of it that will be processed after I return to the U.S. I wish I had that macbook up and running at full capacity. I could process videos while I sleep!

After the debate, the students were kind enough to take us out for more sightseeing. This time it was to a hot-spring bath house, one of the oldest (if not the oldest) in Japan. This bathhouse was the inspiration for the one in the film “Spirited Away,” a famous animated film in both America and Japan.

After trying some salt-flavored ice cream, it was time to head all too soon to the airport and back to Tokyo. It was a very fast, but very fun time here!

Thanks to the students of Ehime University for a fantastic time!

Well, it might be more than the halfway point, but here are some reflections from the participants in the 2009 Japan-U.S. debate exchange so far. More to come!