The New York Sophist

A formally instituted external organization run by an executive director and a staff for WUDC could do a lot more than just allow council to be the visionaries and take the organization in new and exciting directions. It could also allow council to discuss deeply rules, regulations, and norms of competition.

But what else could a formal organization do for WUDC competition?

Provide Qualification Standards for the WUDC tournament

There should be some debate about whether Worlds is best as an open competition where anyone from the world can show up and compete, or if it is meant to be the capstone of the year, an event everyone agrees to attend in order to see who the best debate team is for that year. There are of course a number of combinations – it’s not an either/or – but for the purposes of this writing I’ll defend a very limited model of what this might look like.

Worlds is at maximum capacity with about 400 teams. Perhaps reducing the size of the tournament to a more manageable 200 teams would make the competition a bit more manageable. It would certainly open up the possibility of finding more potential hosts. These 200 teams would be selected by distributing the slots as bids to international debate organizations – the ones that Council already recognizes as the national representative body for that country. If there’s not an organization, this would be great motive for forming one. Alternatively, the slots could be distributed to the teams that break at competitions that are determined to be the most competitive in the world – Council could easily create a list of tournaments that regularly have correlation between teams that do well there and at Worlds.

It doesn’t have to be 200 teams either. Perhaps a more limited number are chosen that way, and other teams that want a chance to compete – and prove their competitiveness – through an application process. Some of the more unsavory elements of Worlds, such as the moments of drunken anarchy and teams not taking later rounds seriously or abandoning the tournament entirely – would be eliminated.

Institutionalize the run-up to Worlds

As the reason for WUDC to exist in any form, the annual tournament planning could punt a lot of responsibilities to debate clubs and organizations earlier in the year. With an office and a dedicated staff, things like ESL/EFL certification and judge ranking. There could even be a judge certification process done online that involved more than just taking a test, but participating in seminars and trainings throughout the year in order to keep up certification.

The motive for all of this normalization is because a formal organization of WUDC would encourage people to comply if they wanted to attend the tournament. Currently, quick fingers and an on-time payment are all that are required to attend – a low bar for a competition that ought to advertise itself as the premiere debating event in the world.

Normalizing Competitions

WUDC could set the norms for speech length, motion wordings, information/context slide length and content, POI number and length, extensions, counter-proposals – all that. It would be motivated because of the desire to prepare for WUDC, to have a strong application, or to break at the tournaments considered by the membership to be the most competitive. Events that do not normalize due to special considerations would be well attended as special events – variations on the new normal.

There would be other normalization considerations as well that are far more important: Tiebreakers, what a good CA does, what good tabbing looks like, verification of proof of eligibility, motion writing, and judging norms all become things that, by virtue of a limited and clear qualification system for WUDC, become things that can be better controlled.

There are some side benefits too. WUDC norms on the publicity of debates could be established: When and where should competitors expect to be recorded, livestreamed, broadcast? Could there be particular debates that are of interest to WUDC for promoting the annual tournament? Perhaps some could be used for training materials, accessible to the debate clubs that pay the annual membership fee. Perhaps they could be given to everyone who qualifies for the competition. They could be archived, added to a history of WUDC that could be examined by those interested in finding hard evidence of how an argument style came to life, went viral, and infected the entire community. Oral histories from all the winners of the WUDC, finalists, and significant chairs and judges could be recorded and made available. Such a collection could only be possible and fairly accessed through such an organization, one that has the influence of the most desirable annual debate event under its control.

All of this though is contingent on the idea that the Worlds is meant to find the best debate team of the year in BP. Other goals and objectives disrupt this narrative quite a bit – and for good reason. There’s no reason to support a diversity of debating styles or approaches if the point of Worlds is to see who is best at debating under the restrictions of the BP format. Normalizing that format, and limiting the qualifications for teams to participate seem like a great way to improve things. But whether we want the improved thing is also debatable.

 What is the end of Worlds? This immense event, enjoyed by many is reaching a point of immense difficulty to carry out. Last week two bids for WUDC 2019 were announced – a relief to many – but there still seems to be little long-term development of hosts for the far future. The end of worlds is not a terminus, but a start. What is World’s telos? What is its aim? What is the point of WUDC?

            WUDC leadership is starting to recognize that they are sitting on an international event that is both highly desirable and has incredible potential. But WUDC is also a volunteer organization. What WUDC needs to focus on for the near term is the generation of resources to create a front office, a permanent staff of people to administer WUDC’s day-to-day operations. This would radically democratice WUDC in a way that would benefit everyone involved with the organization. At the same time, it would not be expensive at all, no more expensive to members than paying to bring a team to the annual tournament would be anyway.

            This would not be a change at all in the way that WUDC governance occurs. Many organizations have a front office, a staff that handles the daily operations, and the membership meets once a year to set policy, provide guidance, and debate the values and goals that the organization should uphold. Council is quite good at this – the people who serve there and serve as representatives on the Council are indeed people who both love WUDC and have a vision for it. And there are differences in that vision. Unfortunately, most of Council’s work is bureaucratic. Pre-council, a document I just read, appears to be a lot of decision making about verification of teams and institutions, something that can be set as a policy, and executed by office staff.  The democratic aspirations of WUDC and World’s Council need not be bogged down with administrative tasks that foreclose the possibility of new ideas being offered, discussed, and debated during Worlds, the one time a year where we have a near guarantee that everyone will be available and have time reserved for such discussions.

            The larger concern to this idea will be funding. I think that it’s time for WUDC to incorporate, and establish itself as an NGO, one that can take contributions and donations. This would be enough to provide stipends to those who have the time and the will to conduct daily tasks of WUDC. No office will be needed, at first – that is a long-term goal – but for now I think moderate stipends will be enough. The front office staff will handle the execution of policy decided by council – from team and institution verification to the ESL and EFL procedures and tests (some of course will have to take place at the tournament, by why all?) and the judging testing and initial sorting of the judges. Helping the on-the-ground hosts with the upcoming tournament would also be in there. And whatever other things I’m not thinking about. Eventually, the model of WUDC could be like any international, academic association, with membership dues being distinct from the fees paid to attend the annual conference.

            Thinking of WUDC not just as the premiere championship tournament, but the culminating annual event of an international organization dedicated to the art of debate practice and development is the ideological shift we need. This will take some time, but providing a bureaucratic staff not only helps make Council more visionary and aspirational, but is a delegation of responsibility the organization sorely needs in order to ensure a future for WUDC.

Just back from another National Communication Association convention, and as usual I have the same reactions:

Great to see all of my friends and colleagues from around the country.

I regret that I have not spent every waking moment of my life before the conference reading books.

My work is more influential than I thought it was.

I’m going to return home and work tirelessly and ceaselessly every day on all these great ideas I have, starting immediately. 

I don’t know if these reactions are commonplace, nor if they fade away as quickly for most as they do for me (except for number 1, obviously). But it’s always something I don’t feel very prepared for, but once I get there I feel pretty together about everything. This year was the first one (been going since 2002) where I did not feel unprepared but just very comfortable about all the things I’d written and really eager to share them with other folks. 

I have a Tascam recorder that I like to use for lectures, audio stuff, debates, etc. and used that for a couple of panels here and there. Unfortunately, for the first time in its little life, it made terrible recordings. I think some setting got moved or something, but I’m going to try to improve the sound quality a bit and post them. They are still listenable, but don’t sound as great as they are supposed to. 

Also NCA should consider booking 2 hotels at least for the conference site that have large enough hotel bars to accommodate everyone! The bar at the Downtown Marriott was always packed.

Here are some other conclusions:

Debate is NCA’s Dirty Fetish

Most everyone in NCA has been brushed by, participated in, or enjoyed the company of those who have practiced the dark arts of debate. Debate is central to the thinking (maybe even the genesis of thinking) for a majority of the scholars that NCA recognizes as significant. Debate is seen as the roots of the discipline, the teaching and conditioning of expressive bodies into something that can shift gears and alter into ways that audiences can appreciate. Such intensive thinking of argument, evidence, and audience can’t help but create some great minds that want to produce texts for audiences about producing texts for audiences. 

Yet how many spotlight panels are there on the debate tradition in NCA? Debate as rhetorical education? Debate’s influence in NCA? How about zero. How about the sad fact that nobody but the organizers attended the Committee for International Discussion and Debate panel featuring the top debaters from the UK? All debate panels happen in places like “Salon J” at the tertiary hotel, far from the center of things, and definitely not in a spot where someone could wander by and join in upon hearing the discussion. Very much like those DVDs in the bottom drawer, or those magazines carefully hidden under the bed, debate is kept out of accidental, offensive view – but still available for moments when we think nobody is looking. 

Empty Chairs and Full Tables

Everyone decries the empty panel – the panel where there are more people around the table presenting than there are in the audience – as a huge problem. Many say that this indicates a lack of scholarly conversation, attention, or interest, or some evidence that we are not communicating our interests to one another or something like that. 

NCA is obviously a productive place – you just have to wander around with an open ear to hear all the productive conversations going on. Have a look at any nearby bar, restaurant, or hotel lobby and you see it. I come up with a lot of great ideas and projects just by randomly bumping into folks and having a chat. This is where the productive work is taking place. Of course, this happens when I see panels too, but not exclusively. 

The empty room syndrome is not a symptom of anything intellectual, but material. NCA is priced in a very expensive, exclusive way. Universities only provide funding to those who are presenting something. So this means that NCA has an obligation to accept more papers and panels than will be attended. And it’s not a problem. The presence of folks at NCA to bump into one another and share ideas is the real value. The paper presentations are the way we get that presence and interaction, even if we don’t go to very many of them (or, as is more likely, there are too many to attend, and you’d be exhausted if you went to every session).

I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts as the week goes on. I had a great time in Philadelphia and hope to post the doctored audio recordings of a couple of my presentations pretty soon.

I was asked to give a talk at the University of Chicago this afternoon to some MBA students about the Presidential debates.  The lecture was done via WebEx, and this is the audio from my audio recorder that I sat down next to the laptop. You can’t really hear their end very well, but to be fair, the WebEx recording doesn’t pick them up either. The questions from the Q&A are repeated to me so you get the benefit of that as well. 

Here’s what I said. I think a pretty good critique of the debates might contain more specifics, but I thought approaching it broadly might be better.

I wonder if these events will ever change. Seems to me we’re stuck with them, at least until a force more influential than the Commission on Presidential Debates takes over. Looking at you, Facebook. 

I was asked to give a talk at the University of Chicago this afternoon to some MBA students about the Presidential debates.  The lecture was done via WebEx, and this is the audio from my audio recorder that I sat down next to the laptop. You can’t really hear their end very well, but to be fair, the WebEx recording doesn’t pick them up either. The questions from the Q&A are repeated to me so you get the benefit of that as well. 

Here’s what I said. I think a pretty good critique of the debates might contain more specifics, but I thought approaching it broadly might be better.

I wonder if these events will ever change. Seems to me we’re stuck with them, at least until a force more influential than the Commission on Presidential Debates takes over. Looking at you, Facebook.