Topical Debate Thoughts
With new and exciting presidential debates on the horizon, I thought I’d interject with a non-political memory.
I was a debater back in high school, but only for my freshman year. I won the Best Freshman Debater award, and then I neglected to go to a prestigious debate institute over the summer, and, consequently, my career as a debater was all but over.
Oh, well. No big loss.
The problem was that debates became an exercise in who could speak the fastest. You only had a few minutes for each speech, so you had to cram in all the info you could by speaking at six zillion miles per hour like that guy from the old FedEx commercials.
I was a pretty good fast speaker, but I never knew much of what I was saying. I would make an assigned point and then sift through a file of index cards to read a piece of “evidence” supporting my position. The cards had been prepared by senior debaters on the team, and most of the time I had never read them before. I couldn’t tell you what was on them even after I read them. But if I could make more points in my speech than the other team could respond to in theirs, I won by default.
It all seemed so futile.
The debate topic that year was “Resolved: That the United States should significantly curtail its arms sales to foreign countries.” Every freshman debater was given a copy of a case that maintained that the US should cut off its arms sales to Taiwan. Opposing teams often opposed us with a “topicality” argument, which asserted that our Taiwan case didn’t match the assigned topic because the topic said foreign countries, plural, and since Taiwan was only one foreign country, we were breaking the rules.
Seriously. We would argue about this for hours on end. Totally pointless.
So the most delightful experience I had that year did not involve a debate in which I was a debater. I was just the assigned timekeeper, watching as varsity debaters competed in the regional tournament. An odd friend of my brother named Alan and his partner were competing on behalf of our school, against a team that obviously was more concerned about maintaining the integrity of the process than Alan was.
Alan and partner were assigned the “affirmative” position. So they ran a case that asserted that the United States ought to provide more free health clinics to its citizens. The problem was that the topic was supposed to be arms sales to foreign countries. Not to worry, though – Alan offered a clear plan for how their case would be implemented, and it included a provision that one handgun would not be sold to Canada. So it was topical after all.
Or maybe not. After the first speech, the opposing team leader stood up for the assigned period of cross examination – “cross ex” in debatespeak – and asked a very simple question.
“Alan,” he said, “would you mind telling me why you are running a case about health clinics, which wasn’t even topical last year?”
Alan responded that he was fully prepared to respond to any topicality issues they may raise.
And prepared he was. He had over 137 different topicality arguments on file. Their sheer volume made up for their total incoherence. In his rebuttal, Alan launched into his topicality defense, giving each of them a number and reading an evidence card to support them.
Argument 1: President Ronald Reagan states that topicality is not relevant to the debate process.
Then he would read the card that supported the statement. It was a direct quote from President Reagan, saying the words “It’s not.”
Then Alan moved through the list. Apparently, a lot of public figures said the words “It’s not.” Alan used each of them to support his argument, giving each a number in his barrage of irrefutably stupid facts.
Not all of the facts had evidence to back them up, though. I remember “Topicality Argument #42: Big rock” and “Topicality Argument #73: Flouride is safe.” There were other assertions that included verbose evidence cards that had nothing to do with the preceding statement. So topicality argument 89 could have included a statement like “Topicality causes cancer among rats and should be avoided at all costs,” followed up with a paragraph talking about the rising cost of car washes.
Alan lost.
This is a story without a moral. It just makes me laugh.
I was a debater back in high school, but only for my freshman year. I won the Best Freshman Debater award, and then I neglected to go to a prestigious debate institute over the summer, and, consequently, my career as a debater was all but over.
Oh, well. No big loss.
The problem was that debates became an exercise in who could speak the fastest. You only had a few minutes for each speech, so you had to cram in all the info you could by speaking at six zillion miles per hour like that guy from the old FedEx commercials.
I was a pretty good fast speaker, but I never knew much of what I was saying. I would make an assigned point and then sift through a file of index cards to read a piece of “evidence” supporting my position. The cards had been prepared by senior debaters on the team, and most of the time I had never read them before. I couldn’t tell you what was on them even after I read them. But if I could make more points in my speech than the other team could respond to in theirs, I won by default.
It all seemed so futile.
The debate topic that year was “Resolved: That the United States should significantly curtail its arms sales to foreign countries.” Every freshman debater was given a copy of a case that maintained that the US should cut off its arms sales to Taiwan. Opposing teams often opposed us with a “topicality” argument, which asserted that our Taiwan case didn’t match the assigned topic because the topic said foreign countries, plural, and since Taiwan was only one foreign country, we were breaking the rules.
Seriously. We would argue about this for hours on end. Totally pointless.
So the most delightful experience I had that year did not involve a debate in which I was a debater. I was just the assigned timekeeper, watching as varsity debaters competed in the regional tournament. An odd friend of my brother named Alan and his partner were competing on behalf of our school, against a team that obviously was more concerned about maintaining the integrity of the process than Alan was.
Alan and partner were assigned the “affirmative” position. So they ran a case that asserted that the United States ought to provide more free health clinics to its citizens. The problem was that the topic was supposed to be arms sales to foreign countries. Not to worry, though – Alan offered a clear plan for how their case would be implemented, and it included a provision that one handgun would not be sold to Canada. So it was topical after all.
Or maybe not. After the first speech, the opposing team leader stood up for the assigned period of cross examination – “cross ex” in debatespeak – and asked a very simple question.
“Alan,” he said, “would you mind telling me why you are running a case about health clinics, which wasn’t even topical last year?”
Alan responded that he was fully prepared to respond to any topicality issues they may raise.
And prepared he was. He had over 137 different topicality arguments on file. Their sheer volume made up for their total incoherence. In his rebuttal, Alan launched into his topicality defense, giving each of them a number and reading an evidence card to support them.
Argument 1: President Ronald Reagan states that topicality is not relevant to the debate process.
Then he would read the card that supported the statement. It was a direct quote from President Reagan, saying the words “It’s not.”
Then Alan moved through the list. Apparently, a lot of public figures said the words “It’s not.” Alan used each of them to support his argument, giving each a number in his barrage of irrefutably stupid facts.
Not all of the facts had evidence to back them up, though. I remember “Topicality Argument #42: Big rock” and “Topicality Argument #73: Flouride is safe.” There were other assertions that included verbose evidence cards that had nothing to do with the preceding statement. So topicality argument 89 could have included a statement like “Topicality causes cancer among rats and should be avoided at all costs,” followed up with a paragraph talking about the rising cost of car washes.
Alan lost.
This is a story without a moral. It just makes me laugh.
posted by Elder Samuel Bennett | 3:38 PM
9 Comments:
That was pretty funny.
Ah, memories of Allen. (you've spelled his name wrong, but what do I care?) Actually, it was he who gave me my name, because he decided that we all needed nicknames that dealt with meat (I think his was rump roast, but I'm not sure). After all, what could make more sense than that?
I must contribute an Allen memory -- a similar waste of a speech tournament that we were all required to compete in was held at 8:00 am Saturday morning, the day after a huge Who concert. Allen had gone to the concert. He didn't do so well the next day, but he was the most entertaining speaker there, because all he did was talk about the concert in his impromptu speeches. Word got out fast, and even though he was losing horribly, he had the biggest audiences.
He was (surprisingly) also one of the few of my friends that wasn't stoned out of his mind at Grad Night at Disneyland. He told me that that was one of his goals -- to stay sober all night! Ah, the things we can accomplish when we set our minds to it!
Stallion, you'll be interested to know that Allen now writes for the NY Times (seriously!). He also wrote a book about Festivus that Jerry Stiller (Frank Costanza) wrote the foreward for.
Hello Bone. You've come out from the underground.
I CAN NOT believe the detailed memories! I had TOTALLY forgotten about my topicality case. Lordy!
It really was brilliant, though, no? Why did I do it? I don't know! But I wish I could follow my muse so diligently still.
The Who thing I remember well. The fact is I SHOULD have won every round. What other measurement should there be at a speech tournament except that people were showing up to see me for pleasure?
Same thing goes for the time Todd Thornton and I did a humor doubles event where we read chapters from a book of the world's worst tragedies in history. The Krakatoa explosion was a big hit. People couldn't fit in the room and were standing outside and they had to open the windows to let them hear. We came in last, but did we? Did we really?
-- allen
what is the sound of one ego exploding?
Also - big rock.
Also - Allen was following a tradition. The previous year a team performed a Bar Mitzvah.
I attempted to continue the tradition during a tournament in Modesto. As the tournament wore on it became clear that the usual style of speed reading facts made it impossible for us to win. We decided to attempt to set new speed reading records.
Who might this new, anonymous commenter be?
how quickly they forget. You don't remember me, psghetti man?
That rings a bell, but the sound is fuzzy.
Are you Allen's brother?
Ultimately the Health Clinic case and the topicality arguments were really a piece of post-modern art composed of a pastiche of hot-button high school debate moments from the early 1980s, meant to provoke laughs and thoughtfulness in all who encountered it. The thoughts being: all this arguing by be-suited high schoolers has surely meant something, but what?
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