The New York Sophist

In the last post I suggested work on pedagogical methods that would help distinguish the classical categories of episteme and doxa. After thinking about it for a day or so, I think this is not the issue at all – these forms of knowing could not be more separated. Episteme is considered to be knowledge, and doxa is considered to be opinion. What we need is a way to bring doxa back into the rubric of knowledge. 

There are many topoi here that we can work with – the idea that “everyone knows” certain things about what you need to do to get a form filed with the government, or access some benefit in your taxes, etc. We also have the rise of protest politics where the wisdom of the crowd is not only right but good, so we put it on display in large marches around the sites of power in our cities. We have TV shows such as the one I see advertised on the subway, The Wisdom of the Crowd, where crowdsourcing is meant to solve crimes or something. And then there’s the endless commodification of voting, for everything from new candy and chip flavors to which commercials we will be forced to watch during sporting events. 

But these are not really good topoi, are they? They all have something in common that I am having trouble putting my finger on. I believe they all seem to hint or demonstrate the idea that crowd-knowledge is good or celebratory knowledge, but there might be something wrong with it still. I think it might be mechanistic: These crowd knowledge claims are about access of knowledge and distribution, not creation of knowledge. 

Consider the website Kickstarter, something I love and have spent a lot of time browsing. Kickstarter appears at first look to be doxa but it is missing the same element – it is a place where the crowd confirms the value or wisdom of these products that come from experts who designed these things to address particular problems. 

This might be the trouble with all the examples – they are moments where the crowd is used to confirm the esoteric or universal rightness of the answer that was provided via episteme. In most cases where the crowd has a different knowledge from the official knowledge (or could we say the confirmed, or confirmable knowledge?) it is often the crowd knowledge that is frozen out. Doxa doesn’t usually win versus episteme. The crowd’s wisdom is in helping others in the crowd find via popularity what cannot be realized alone through the proper standards of evaluating knowledge.

In thinking about non episteme knowledge that is doxa, it’s hard to think of good examples. The only one that comes to mind is interpersonal knowledge, such as when a family knows what sort of food, drink, TV program, or movie another member of the family will certainly like. There’s also the democratic sense of “rightness” that is often associated with doxa. But it’s hard to think of some that would appeal in a debate about the issues we debate about.

Perhaps the best example I have for now falls within Perelman and Olbrects-Tyteca’s theory of argument pairs. Often this is a comparison meant to generate an argument or a meaning – “this looks like this, but really it is this.” Such arguments are so common it’s quite funny to think that at some point they didn’t really have a name or a category until the 1950s. 

The argument pair can serve doxa in cases that work like this: “They tell us that this is X, but we won’t be fooled; we all know what is really going on.” This is a doxastic appeal that is often found in conspiracy theory rhetoric as well as the water-cooler rhetoric between employees in regards to management policies. We also talk this way about politics. But I wonder if this is an appeal to episteme via doxa, like the earlier examples were.

Another read on it is that rhetorically one constitutes the relationship and partnership between episteme and doxa by how one establishes the claims in a speech. It’s good to keep the relationship rhetorical so you can move between and around the terms in order to make your case persuasive. “Real knowledge” can have a home anywhere, as long as the audience recognizes that location as a home, recognizable as the comfortable and cozy place that knowledge lives. 

I am slowly figuring out how to get a pretty good sound quality out of these recordings. This one might be the best one yet. This debate was also pretty good, here are some thoughts about it in general. 

At the start of the debate I spoke for a little bit about the idea of how to approach coming up with things to say. The Ancients called this inventio or “invention” – the creative act of coming up with arguments. It’s a great place to start in debate instruction as it reminds us that for thousands of years people thought of debating and arguing as a creative act, as opposed to a truth-seeking act, an act of transmission of fact, an act that distinguishes lies from reality, or any other such metaphor we have given to it in the Enlightenment hangover. 

This debate started strong with a dynamic speaker who chose to deliver his remarks extemporaneously. He spent a few key moments on framing, a very important move to make in any debate, where you establish the limits of the debate. Framing is often phrased toward the audience as their charge or their role – what is it that they are meant to decide? 

The short speech times mean that debaters cannot spend a lot of time on things other than developing their major arguments. This is not a disadvantage to the form at all; in fact, debates are always extremely time-constrained. Speakers must learn surgical precision in any persuasive situation as time is considered to be of ultimate value. 

The debate focused a lot around the economics and pay off of a college degree. I wondered about this approach – of course, it’s the easiest way to make sense to the audience, but there are a number of other approaches that the debaters could have taken on the question of the opposite “how can you not afford it?” – as well as university as the driving force for research, innovation, and things like that. Centering the debate here would also be pretty interesting as there’s a lot to consider. 

The first two speakers spoke about economics more than the second two, but I would suggest that perhaps the second speakers should dismiss the economic concerns (“That has been covered, let’s dive deeper”) and engage a lot more with their arguments about the nature of learning, the type of learning that is valuable, and the price we pay when we misconstrue a sticker price for a personal value. Both speakers had a lot of great things to say, and a very attractive and personal style. 

What I really liked about this debate was the extensive use of narrative, or storytelling, to frame and advance arguments. This is very difficult to do. It requires a lot of confidence, but more importantly, familiarity with your information to a point where you can weave it into a story. 

There’s a big difference between telling an audience “34% of graduates never use their degree skills” and “What happens when you attend a university? First, you pay a massive amount of money, then you interact only with people who are not innovators or they just don’t know much, you delay your working life, and at the end of it you decide to do something else with your life.” This is much tougher than it appears, and I’m sort of inspired after the debate last night to write up some lessons that might help students reach this level of speaking. People at the start of a persuasive speaking practice seem to want to make lists and read off data as if the audience was a machine meant to process it. I call this “jukebox” or “vending machine” audience theory after Ralph Ellison’s brilliant essay on how to interact with American audiences. No chance of that in last night’s debate. Everyone was quite good at framing and narrating their arguments.

It was also a pretty relaxed performance as well, which communicated to the audience that the stakes were important, but there was no fever-pitch, “all or nothing” rhetoric from either side. Firm positions were established, and questioned. And that’s a pretty good debate. Of course, like any debate, the clash – those points of disagreement that the audience needs as a guide for a decision – were not as well formed as the debaters could have done – but in the end it didn’t matter much. Audience questions were good – the one audience member asking about the stakeholder of the American society comes to mind. I think the audience was eager to hear more than arguments about cost and return in one’s career. 

If the debate were approached with the assumption that career is a 20th century conception and that most people learn job skills while working with and among other professionals, what is university then? The debate could take the turn of imagining another university, one that puts its obligation toward thought and social interaction with those you wouldn’t choose to socialize with first and provides you some job help but doesn’t make it the centerpiece of your time there. 

The debate was quite good – have a listen. Every speaker did well in making the point they were trying to advance. Great distinction in style as well – things like word choice and sentence construction were effective and engaging. 

Clash is a difficult thing to master in debate. I think it has to be the hardest thing and the thing that makes debating unique when compared with other modes of communicative decision-making such as discussion, argument, or persuasive monologue. The importance of clash is the importance of a GPS in a strange city: Where do you want to go? Turn here, exit here. You’ve arrived at your destination. But perhaps it’s more than this – perhaps it’s like a concierge service along with a GPS: Ready for dinner? You simply must eat here. It’s the best in town. Now, turn here, exit here. Bon Appetit! 

There’s not a lot written on clash – which is strange to think about given its importance in helping audiences decide. But the history of debate education in the US really hasn’t been about helping audiences decide. It has been more about how to configure the audience into a perfect sounding board for the good arguments we make elsewhere. Interactivity as a source of good argumentation between speaker and audience has never been a focus. Look to the guidelines for the World Championship for a stunning example of how removed it is. Perhaps this growing debate education movement in New York could be about re-discovering audience via Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, and others, and making more than a picture frame from the crowd. How about a co-conspirator? That’s my goal. This requires trusting your audience, which everything in our society tells us is a bad idea. We have to distinguish doxa from episteme. Not to say one is better, but to say one is different. How we do that remains to be seen.

I am slowly figuring out how to get a pretty good sound quality out of these recordings. This one might be the best one yet. This debate was also pretty good, here are some thoughts about it in general. 

At the start of the debate I spoke for a little bit about the idea of how to approach coming up with things to say. The Ancients called this inventio or “invention” – the creative act of coming up with arguments. It’s a great place to start in debate instruction as it reminds us that for thousands of years people thought of debating and arguing as a creative act, as opposed to a truth-seeking act, an act of transmission of fact, an act that distinguishes lies from reality, or any other such metaphor we have given to it in the Enlightenment hangover. 

This debate started strong with a dynamic speaker who chose to deliver his remarks extemporaneously. He spent a few key moments on framing, a very important move to make in any debate, where you establish the limits of the debate. Framing is often phrased toward the audience as their charge or their role – what is it that they are meant to decide? 

The short speech times mean that debaters cannot spend a lot of time on things other than developing their major arguments. This is not a disadvantage to the form at all; in fact, debates are always extremely time-constrained. Speakers must learn surgical precision in any persuasive situation as time is considered to be of ultimate value. 

The debate focused a lot around the economics and pay off of a college degree. I wondered about this approach – of course, it’s the easiest way to make sense to the audience, but there are a number of other approaches that the debaters could have taken on the question of the opposite “how can you not afford it?” – as well as university as the driving force for research, innovation, and things like that. Centering the debate here would also be pretty interesting as there’s a lot to consider. 

The first two speakers spoke about economics more than the second two, but I would suggest that perhaps the second speakers should dismiss the economic concerns (“That has been covered, let’s dive deeper”) and engage a lot more with their arguments about the nature of learning, the type of learning that is valuable, and the price we pay when we misconstrue a sticker price for a personal value. Both speakers had a lot of great things to say, and a very attractive and personal style. 

What I really liked about this debate was the extensive use of narrative, or storytelling, to frame and advance arguments. This is very difficult to do. It requires a lot of confidence, but more importantly, familiarity with your information to a point where you can weave it into a story. 

There’s a big difference between telling an audience “34% of graduates never use their degree skills” and “What happens when you attend a university? First, you pay a massive amount of money, then you interact only with people who are not innovators or they just don’t know much, you delay your working life, and at the end of it you decide to do something else with your life.” This is much tougher than it appears, and I’m sort of inspired after the debate last night to write up some lessons that might help students reach this level of speaking. People at the start of a persuasive speaking practice seem to want to make lists and read off data as if the audience was a machine meant to process it. I call this “jukebox” or “vending machine” audience theory after Ralph Ellison’s brilliant essay on how to interact with American audiences. No chance of that in last night’s debate. Everyone was quite good at framing and narrating their arguments.

It was also a pretty relaxed performance as well, which communicated to the audience that the stakes were important, but there was no fever-pitch, “all or nothing” rhetoric from either side. Firm positions were established, and questioned. And that’s a pretty good debate. Of course, like any debate, the clash – those points of disagreement that the audience needs as a guide for a decision – were not as well formed as the debaters could have done – but in the end it didn’t matter much. Audience questions were good – the one audience member asking about the stakeholder of the American society comes to mind. I think the audience was eager to hear more than arguments about cost and return in one’s career. 

If the debate were approached with the assumption that career is a 20th century conception and that most people learn job skills while working with and among other professionals, what is university then? The debate could take the turn of imagining another university, one that puts its obligation toward thought and social interaction with those you wouldn’t choose to socialize with first and provides you some job help but doesn’t make it the centerpiece of your time there. 

The debate was quite good – have a listen. Every speaker did well in making the point they were trying to advance. Great distinction in style as well – things like word choice and sentence construction were effective and engaging. 

Clash is a difficult thing to master in debate. I think it has to be the hardest thing and the thing that makes debating unique when compared with other modes of communicative decision-making such as discussion, argument, or persuasive monologue. The importance of clash is the importance of a GPS in a strange city: Where do you want to go? Turn here, exit here. You’ve arrived at your destination. But perhaps it’s more than this – perhaps it’s like a concierge service along with a GPS: Ready for dinner? You simply must eat here. It’s the best in town. Now, turn here, exit here. Bon Appetit! 

There’s not a lot written on clash – which is strange to think about given its importance in helping audiences decide. But the history of debate education in the US really hasn’t been about helping audiences decide. It has been more about how to configure the audience into a perfect sounding board for the good arguments we make elsewhere. Interactivity as a source of good argumentation between speaker and audience has never been a focus. Look to the guidelines for the World Championship for a stunning example of how removed it is. Perhaps this growing debate education movement in New York could be about re-discovering audience via Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, and others, and making more than a picture frame from the crowd. How about a co-conspirator? That’s my goal. This requires trusting your audience, which everything in our society tells us is a bad idea. We have to distinguish doxa from episteme. Not to say one is better, but to say one is different. How we do that remains to be seen.

In lieu of a long, wordy narrative, here’s my Thursday – which was super busy- through my Snapchat Spectacles.

I have a long notebook page full of good posts so don’t worry, this isn’t turning into some sort of vlog depository. There will still be a ton of writing here. 

It was just one of those days where I went full speed through the whole thing, accomplished everything I needed to do, and somehow have too much energy from the long day to really crash out in bed right away. That’s why there’s this post. 

See you in the (later) morning!

St. John’s University Debaters and the 2017 British Tour Debaters pose after the first debate of the 2017 tour.

For all of my criticism of BP the event we had on Monday night in Manhattan had me double checking the old inventory of what BP has that gives it advantage in reaching public audiences. 

First, BP encourages speakers to return to their own arguments above responding to the arguments of their opponents. This seems like a more “natural” way to argue, or at least more mimetic to Natural Language Argumentation than other formats of debate.

The involvement of so many speakers is also an advantage as you get a more nuanced and more spectrum-like approach to a topic as speakers want to differentiate themselves from every other speaker in some way. You can’t do that by simple response and you can’t do that by backing someone’s arguments up with more support. You have to offer a perspective that is different – which seems to be more mimetic of the way debates proceed in everyday life.

A silly, sportified element of debating is of course overcommitted certainty, but in BP this performance of certainty allows for a comfortable dance with uncertainty (our ally in debate education) for the audience. It might be that most audiences find it a bit easier to patch a position together between the speeches that suits their point of view. Or it makes them see how easy it is to move around between positions as they hear pretty compelling speeches from a number of presenters. 

This is of course, all very positive and is pretty dismissive of the real threat of sportification on the abilities of debate to improve people – in the post-debate discussion the tactic of “making up African ruler names” was mentioned – something only a very cynical and unreflexive debater would do (list the thousand or so you know here). I’m pretty sure I know what slimeball fake debate teacher was being discussed and was just very happy that my chances of interacting with that person are now next to nothing. But on a larger note, the threat cannot be underplayed. Competitive, tournament-victory oriented debate programs are a very real threat to the power of well-thought out debate programs in the service of students. Our colleges and universities are so job-centric these days that debate might be the only intellectual practice that students get. We can’t let it be absorbed by the neoliberal consequentialism of “job skills” nor by the frivolous fun trickery of an athletic team model.

We cannot forget that debate is a university activity supported by universities involving university students. Anything that hits below this mark needs to be opposed. 

Here’s a video of the event, see if you think I’m right about the nature of the speeches. I hate giving a format credit for something, but it does seem to beg the question – if we did a NPDA or policy format, would the debate sound the same? Would it appeal to the audience in the same manner? 

I didn’t mean it to happen, but the debate features a wide range of experience levels, and I think it worked out well to show the different levels of debate approach. You can see beginner, intermediate, and advanced modes of debate engagement all here in the same video. It is accidentally a pretty good teach-the-teacher piece.