This year we have been doing our Debate ELO a little differently. Instead of everyone competing in biweekly debates, we have extended the ELO to include a discussion group and a forensics speech section, while also keeping the traditional debate section. Each of these three sections offers a different perspective and a different way of looking at issues. Having not been extremely active in the forensics section, I will speak here just on the debate and the discussion tracks. In both of these, we take a look at various issues and share opinions on them. However, they are very different in the way that these opinions are expressed.
In the debate group, we have set debates where each person is designated a debate and a side and must argue for that side, regardless of their own personal beliefs. In fact, it is often the case that someone is forced to argue a side that they are fundamentally opposed to. As the leader of this track, it is up to me to decide what will be debated and who will take each side. It is always interesting to see how different people take on different debates, especially when they are arguing against their own beliefs. Usually I have some idea about how a debate might go, which points will most likely be prominent for each side; quite often, though, the debates do not resemble anything that I had envisioned. I believe this is the best part about the debate track: that at every meeting, and almost every debate, there is a fresh perspective, innovative arguments, and new research presented that I had never even considered when picking the topics. It is truly fun to listen to how some of these controversies are tackled and to see the different tactics used by each of the members of debate. So far, we have debated such things as the morality of murder, civil disobedience, the effectiveness of compulsory voting, and national sovereignty versus human rights.
The discussion group discusses some of the same issues and certainly deals with controversial topics, but does so in a way completely different from debate. In debate, there is much structure, with each person having a designated side to argue in a specific debate. There is research done to support that side, and very little is said without some sort of source. In discussion, we don’t have the luxury of that structure. The topic is not chosen beforehand, though there are certain ideas that we have the opportunity to discuss. Our discussions really just follow the flow of the conversation. For example, in our last discussion meeting we started out talking about the Republican presidential race, and within minutes we were discussing the differences between morality, spirituality, and religiosity and whether today’s morality is based on historical religious beliefs. Unlike in debate, it is impossible to predict what will come up in a discussion, so there is no research to back up your opinion. Instead, these discussions force you to think about your gut feelings on the given subject and then be able to justify those ideas.
Both debate and discussion have provoked a lot of thought on controversial topics and, at least for me, have forced me to not only look at what I think, but why I think that and how I came to think that. I would encourage any scholars who are not a part of the debate ELO to stop by either of these meetings and see some of the ideas that are brought up and how they resonate with you.