The New York Sophist

<iframe src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/29840075?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0″ width=”400″ height=”300″ frameborder=”0″ webkitAllowFullScreen allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/29840075″>Public Debate: Arab Spring demonstrates American Youth have a lot to learn from Arabic Youth</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user1253612″>Steve Llano</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>

This is a public debate we participated in recently in Virginia. While watching it, it made me think of a couple of interesting things about teaching debate. This debate indicates a couple of gaps that need to be patched up.

First, the debaters assume the audience is already interested and attentive to their arguments. This is a serious problem – the principle of getting audience attention and trust is key to developing credibility as well as any sort of connection for the audience as to why they care about the issue. There needs to be a realistic appraisal of the audience. Many of the people attending were students who were motivated to come via extra credit. This is accounted for by some teams, but it’s not an overarching principle in how the debaters approach the debate.

Secondly, the refutation model of debate is not conducive to natural language argumentation. We see many teams here operate under the assumption that their own arguments will not be valuable unless all the points of the other side are refuted first. Tying the value of your own argument tied directly to refutation encourages a pattern of speaking that listeners will not automatically gel with. They want to hear what you are about first, then they would like to hear how that fits into what they’ve heard from other speakers. By prioritizing refutation, we train debaters to make sure that they are behind others in the attention front during public debates.

I wonder what the extant literature has on the connection between debate pedagogy and the public debate. My searches haven’t revealed much. Seems like an under-covered and vitally important source of data justifying and helping us correct what we do.

There’s another one coming up. Another of these “debates” for Republican candidates seeking the U.S. Presidency. And I know my media department at my University is going to want to put my name out as someone willing to give commentary.

I am uncertain about this, as I always am. My uncertainty is at a high point after reading the commentary given by Todd Graham, debate coach at Southern Illinois University after the last Republican debate. After reading this, I have the following proposal:

I think all professional debate coaches should adhere to a policy of non-interference when it comes to giving commentary on political debates. Very much like the prime directive from Star Trek, we end up causing much greater harm to a system even when we try to introduce elements of good technology (or in this case, techne) to those systems.

It’s not Professor Graham’s intent to cause harm. But looking at his commentary only made me shudder. He easily elided between the terms “debate” and “argument,” set up opposing sides without a clear statement of clash, or even disagreement, and casually labeled candidates as “winning” the debate without referencing one quote from them. There would be no academic or intellectual grounds to distinguish Graham’s commentary from the commentary of a CNN journalist. A trained debate expert needs to offer more than the familiar tropes of TV’s hollow newsreaders.

Oh, except for the fact that he’s a debate coach – a debate expert, and has access to CNN’s audience because of it. Implicitly, his commentary authorizes these events as “debates.” This not only authorizes the media to create and control debates as they see fit, but ignores a stellar opportunity to use the more than 50 years of debate, argumentation, and rhetorical scholarship to make an intervention into the public’s appetite for better discourse.

Before I go any further with this critique, please understand I am not some positivist who is upset because something was called by the “wrong name.” My argument is the reverse – I am afraid that every time we do this, when we offer our political opinions under the title of “debate coach” we worsen the state and the case for debate much more than we assist audiences in reading these rhetorical events.

When I appear in the media to comment as a debate coach, I have to continue to remind myself that I serve the idea of debate, not my personal political interests. My job is not to help out a candidate I like, but to help out reasoning, help out words, help out expression. This is what I try to do. Thinking back to my “interventions,” I am afraid I must put them in scare quotes. I’m not sure if they are interventions. I am sure that my presence in these events in some way authorizes them. It authorizes them in a way that the media can’t quite do.

As an expert on debate, Professor Graham, your first and primary loyalty should not be to the game of politics, but to the principles of debating. You celebrate the bickering and never breathe a word on modes of proof.  I find it interesting that you decided to parse out several mini-arguments among the candidates – this is an interesting move. Unfortunately, you never indicate why or how such a decision could be made. You failed to point out that such distinctions are arbitrary and yet incredibly useful to identifying the points of clash during the debate as a whole. You failed to indicate in your commentary how good debate depends more on agreement than disagreement, and also failed to establish any sound relationship between argumentation and debate. Instead of attending to eristics, you should have attended to debate, and helped the CNN audience develop critical tools for assessing what they had witnessed. A commentary from a debate coach that is indistinguishable from a journalistic accounting is, in my view, shameful. It’s also a lost opportunity to bring the field we so dearly love to a public that could benefit from some tools, some “equipment for living” that both of us have easy access to. It would be a simple matter for you to have referenced some scholarship in an accessible way that indicated the difficulty in discerning a “winner.”  Your excitement in discussing the domination of one candidate over another lacked even the most basic rhetorical or argumentation angle, relying instead on folksy wisdom and tropes that any high school football coach could use to talk about a Monday night football game.  In short, you missed a great opportunity for the field and our art, and instead, you gave the situation right back to the media, helping them profit off of events that probably harm public discourse more than they help.

As upset as I am with Professor Graham’s misstep, I am more upset in general that our work and scholarship are not immediately present before and after events like this. Why can’t we share it? What are we lacking? Why can’t rhetoricians be rhetorical?

These are big questions. Perhaps the best way out is to stay out. What good can I do? Can I say my commentary would be much different than Graham’s? I don’t relish in the political gamesmanship like he does, that much is certain. But could I offer something in the same amount of words that would spark audiences to wonder about the quality of the entire event instead of just their candidate?

Any entry into the media will be on their terms. They want to be the purveyors of these events, hence why they bribed the Congress to take control of it from the League of Women Voters in the 1980s. We are always on their shifting terrain when we participate, and they can shift it however they wish.

Until we develop a better strategy for injecting our collective scholarship into Presidential debate commentary, I propose we stay out of it. If I comment on the next debate, it will be carefully articulated to ensure that more of a connection can be built between the public and the debate and argumentation scholarship that I believe could open all of our minds, as it has mine.

Or maybe I’m naiive, and a Prime Directive of non-interference by those skilled in the techne of debate is the way to fix it. After all, these events are so unlike debates, it would be like having a cardiac surgeon give commentary on the latest version of the board game “Operation” to be released.  Staying out might not help our public discourse, but it sure won’t add fuel to the flaming barge of political debate. Best to stand on the shore and watch it sail away.

There’s another one coming up. Another of these “debates” for Republican candidates seeking the U.S. Presidency. And I know my media department at my University is going to want to put my name out as someone willing to give commentary.

I am uncertain about this, as I always am. My uncertainty is at a high point after reading the commentary given by Todd Graham, debate coach at Southern Illinois University after the last Republican debate. After reading this, I have the following proposal:

I think all professional debate coaches should adhere to a policy of non-interference when it comes to giving commentary on political debates. Very much like the prime directive from Star Trek, we end up causing much greater harm to a system even when we try to introduce elements of good technology (or in this case, techne) to those systems.

It’s not Professor Graham’s intent to cause harm. But looking at his commentary only made me shudder. He easily elided between the terms “debate” and “argument,” set up opposing sides without a clear statement of clash, or even disagreement, and casually labeled candidates as “winning” the debate without referencing one quote from them. There would be no academic or intellectual grounds to distinguish Graham’s commentary from the commentary of a CNN journalist. A trained debate expert needs to offer more than the familiar tropes of TV’s hollow newsreaders.

Oh, except for the fact that he’s a debate coach – a debate expert, and has access to CNN’s audience because of it. Implicitly, his commentary authorizes these events as “debates.” This not only authorizes the media to create and control debates as they see fit, but ignores a stellar opportunity to use the more than 50 years of debate, argumentation, and rhetorical scholarship to make an intervention into the public’s appetite for better discourse.

Before I go any further with this critique, please understand I am not some positivist who is upset because something was called by the “wrong name.” My argument is the reverse – I am afraid that every time we do this, when we offer our political opinions under the title of “debate coach” we worsen the state and the case for debate much more than we assist audiences in reading these rhetorical events.

When I appear in the media to comment as a debate coach, I have to continue to remind myself that I serve the idea of debate, not my personal political interests. My job is not to help out a candidate I like, but to help out reasoning, help out words, help out expression. This is what I try to do. Thinking back to my “interventions,” I am afraid I must put them in scare quotes. I’m not sure if they are interventions. I am sure that my presence in these events in some way authorizes them. It authorizes them in a way that the media can’t quite do.

As an expert on debate, Professor Graham, your first and primary loyalty should not be to the game of politics, but to the principles of debating. You celebrate the bickering and never breathe a word on modes of proof.  I find it interesting that you decided to parse out several mini-arguments among the candidates – this is an interesting move. Unfortunately, you never indicate why or how such a decision could be made. You failed to point out that such distinctions are arbitrary and yet incredibly useful to identifying the points of clash during the debate as a whole. You failed to indicate in your commentary how good debate depends more on agreement than disagreement, and also failed to establish any sound relationship between argumentation and debate. Instead of attending to eristics, you should have attended to debate, and helped the CNN audience develop critical tools for assessing what they had witnessed. A commentary from a debate coach that is indistinguishable from a journalistic accounting is, in my view, shameful. It’s also a lost opportunity to bring the field we so dearly love to a public that could benefit from some tools, some “equipment for living” that both of us have easy access to. It would be a simple matter for you to have referenced some scholarship in an accessible way that indicated the difficulty in discerning a “winner.”  Your excitement in discussing the domination of one candidate over another lacked even the most basic rhetorical or argumentation angle, relying instead on folksy wisdom and tropes that any high school football coach could use to talk about a Monday night football game.  In short, you missed a great opportunity for the field and our art, and instead, you gave the situation right back to the media, helping them profit off of events that probably harm public discourse more than they help.

As upset as I am with Professor Graham’s misstep, I am more upset in general that our work and scholarship are not immediately present before and after events like this. Why can’t we share it? What are we lacking? Why can’t rhetoricians be rhetorical?

These are big questions. Perhaps the best way out is to stay out. What good can I do? Can I say my commentary would be much different than Graham’s? I don’t relish in the political gamesmanship like he does, that much is certain. But could I offer something in the same amount of words that would spark audiences to wonder about the quality of the entire event instead of just their candidate?

Any entry into the media will be on their terms. They want to be the purveyors of these events, hence why they bribed the Congress to take control of it from the League of Women Voters in the 1980s. We are always on their shifting terrain when we participate, and they can shift it however they wish.

Until we develop a better strategy for injecting our collective scholarship into Presidential debate commentary, I propose we stay out of it. If I comment on the next debate, it will be carefully articulated to ensure that more of a connection can be built between the public and the debate and argumentation scholarship that I believe could open all of our minds, as it has mine.

Or maybe I’m naiive, and a Prime Directive of non-interference by those skilled in the techne of debate is the way to fix it. After all, these events are so unlike debates, it would be like having a cardiac surgeon give commentary on the latest version of the board game “Operation” to be released.  Staying out might not help our public discourse, but it sure won’t add fuel to the flaming barge of political debate. Best to stand on the shore and watch it sail away.

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.

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.