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> debate The last time i had a conversation with an american trained in "debate", it was quickly obvious that reality and truth were the last thing on his mind

> debate The last time i had a conversation with an american trained in "debate", it was quickly obvious that reality and truth were the last thing on his mind, but scoring rethoric points was the first. The rest of your points are good, but i think if you start it out with the word debate, many americans are going to mentally short-circuit to that style of conflict, instead of "respectful conversation".

_dps 9y ago
I haven't found any nationality to have exclusive rights to turning civil debate into a partisan shouting match. But I agree that some people do have that tendency. Still, such people seem even less likely to be productive if they approach the situation as open conflict — hence the advice to reframe conflict as debate, not to insert debate where it is otherwise unnecessary.
- Mithaldu 9y ago
  > nationality I mention it specifically because, in all the nationalities i have talked to, i.e. in my personal experience, the USA is the only one to have a high school debate club culture that's widely spread.
  - _dps 9y ago
    At a minimum, I personally know of active school/university debate societies in the United Kingdom and Australia. And while it sounds like you've had some bad experiences, my personal sense is that the majority of people with formal debate experience are actually better, on average, at staying within the bounds of civil discourse. Having said that, there is indeed an overly aggressive subset of the population that is, as I think you're suggesting, attracted to debate for all the wrong reasons. But based on the literally hundreds I've met, I'd say as a population they are on average more civil and more likely to follow norms of "fair argument". They are much more likely to aspire to be erudite policy wonks than to be angry talk show pundits. YMMV obviously.
    - Mithaldu 9y ago
      Notably both of these countries are english majority. I went looking for german debate clubs and found that we have some, but also that they're relatively young (the national debating org in germany was formed only in 2001), and were mainly formed based on inspiration by the english language sphere. I'm also curious what exactly you mean with civil discourse? I don't know which style you're referring to, but i've seen people who cared primarily about discourse being "polite", even if the most horrible ideas were being presented as valid.
      - BrandoElFollito 9y ago
        I checked the same for France and they are a few but this is not something common. There are debates at law schools (horrible exercise of corporatism favoritism, having attended to a few of them) though.
      - _dps 9y ago
        There are many norms of civil discourse represented in debating traditions, but there is substantial variation. Still, two that are enforced in all formal debate I know are: 1) all participants have equal access to present their views, usually uninterrupted for at least some portion of time 2) all participants have equal access to rebut their opponent's views, so neither side has an opportunity to present an uncontested idea These are important norms to keep more powerful, obnoxious, or charismatic people from having (as much) undue advantage in the contest of ideas. I see these formal characteristics as orthogonal to whether someone has horrible views. Without guarantees of this kind you may find yourself on the wrong side of a power imbalance, and then you have no right to challenge said ideas in a fair contest.
        walshemj 9y ago
        Normaly there are rules of debate the main ones are All debates are to a propesed motion. Motion must make sense. Time limits on speach for all participants. Debaters must speak to the motion. Pious motions normaly ruled out of order No wreaking amendmenst are acepted. No non relevent amendments.
  - bsenftner 9y ago
    Decades ago, 70's & 80's, saw a progression from the more respectful, objective debate style to the linguistic attack scoring style popular today. It's too bad, because back in the "early days" it taught how to collectively arrive at a solution. Today, not really.
dieterrams 9y ago
‘Debate’ does seem to have strong connotations of a rhetorical fight. ‘Discourse’ has been the preferred word among philosphers and other circles that discuss this sort of thing.
- _dps 9y ago
  "Debate" has a long tradition of meaning a formalized presentation of opposing views, each represented by a person or team, for the purpose of evaluating relative merits. "Discourse" is a much broader term and does not imply formal structure, opposition, merit evaluation, or that advocacy of particular ideas is associated with particular speakers. IMO "Debate" is absolutely the right term for what the advice suggests, which is to reframe a conflict situation into a situation where there are norms of fair argument and expectations of equal access to present opposing views, with the hope of evaluating the merits of said views.
  - Mithaldu 9y ago
    You're right that historically debate was more noble. But meanings of words change. The problem with debate as it exists today in the english sphere is that it refers to a sport where teams try to argue for views they don't even hold regardless of what they themselves even think about it. Due to the idea that regardless of the actual merits of an idea debated, either team needs to have an equal chance to "win", the whole "evaluating merits" part has in more recent times been deemphasized.
    - _dps 9y ago
      Could you elaborate on why you think the meaning of the word has changed? If I'm understanding you correctly, it sounds to me like you think the current use of the word in the USA is restricted to one narrow activity of debating societies (formal tournaments where neither side is, a priori, invested in a particular idea and in fact doesn't even know which side of the debate they'll have to represent). This is just one of many things debating societies do, and yes it does have a sport element as you and others suggest. But, based on my experience (and I have quite a lot with debating societies in both the USA and the UK) I don't think this one activity has come to dominate what "debate" means in the USA. I would be surprised if the average citizen thought in this way. So I wonder what makes you think this activity has come to be the meaning of debate in the USA, as opposed to just one thing debating societies do? P.S. purely as an aside I think there may be misunderstanding about the value of people advocating "views they may not even hold". This is only characteristic of tournaments, and is a feature not a bug. Since you don't know until quite late which side you will represent, it forces you to be prepared to do an equally good job representing either side. This is, in my opinion, an excellent mental exercise. At the moment the debate happens, you are arguing something one-sided you may not believe — but in the preparation for the debate you are carefully evaluating the best arguments for both sides.
dhimes 9y ago
Debate is a sport over here in America, where high school teams compete. It's just as you say: they are not seeking truth, they are trying to win. It's reflected in our adversarial legal system as well. I personally don't like it that way, but there are people who think it's the best way.
- walshemj 9y ago
  From a discusion on here a while back hs and uni debation seems to have not much conection to real world parlimentray debates and would fail outside its own artificial world.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    In professional politics, debate is an open charade, an excuse to get on camera and rally your supporters. High school and university debate actually care about argumentation, for example, and the electorate very much doesn’t.
    - walshemj 9y ago
      Ah I meant real debates not the reality tv shows - a political speech to the masses is not a debate in the strict sense of the word. For example a motion of no confidence is a serious matter in any parliamentary system.

_dps 9y ago

I haven't found any nationality to have exclusive rights to turning civil debate into a partisan shouting match. But I agree that some people do have that tendency. Still, such people seem even less likely to be productive if they approach the situation as open conflict — hence the advice to reframe conflict as debate, not to insert debate where it is otherwise unnecessary.

Mithaldu 9y ago
> nationality I mention it specifically because, in all the nationalities i have talked to, i.e. in my personal experience, the USA is the only one to have a high school debate club culture that's widely spread.
- _dps 9y ago
  At a minimum, I personally know of active school/university debate societies in the United Kingdom and Australia. And while it sounds like you've had some bad experiences, my personal sense is that the majority of people with formal debate experience are actually better, on average, at staying within the bounds of civil discourse. Having said that, there is indeed an overly aggressive subset of the population that is, as I think you're suggesting, attracted to debate for all the wrong reasons. But based on the literally hundreds I've met, I'd say as a population they are on average more civil and more likely to follow norms of "fair argument". They are much more likely to aspire to be erudite policy wonks than to be angry talk show pundits. YMMV obviously.
  - Mithaldu 9y ago
    Notably both of these countries are english majority. I went looking for german debate clubs and found that we have some, but also that they're relatively young (the national debating org in germany was formed only in 2001), and were mainly formed based on inspiration by the english language sphere. I'm also curious what exactly you mean with civil discourse? I don't know which style you're referring to, but i've seen people who cared primarily about discourse being "polite", even if the most horrible ideas were being presented as valid.
    - BrandoElFollito 9y ago
      I checked the same for France and they are a few but this is not something common. There are debates at law schools (horrible exercise of corporatism favoritism, having attended to a few of them) though.
    - _dps 9y ago
      There are many norms of civil discourse represented in debating traditions, but there is substantial variation. Still, two that are enforced in all formal debate I know are: 1) all participants have equal access to present their views, usually uninterrupted for at least some portion of time 2) all participants have equal access to rebut their opponent's views, so neither side has an opportunity to present an uncontested idea These are important norms to keep more powerful, obnoxious, or charismatic people from having (as much) undue advantage in the contest of ideas. I see these formal characteristics as orthogonal to whether someone has horrible views. Without guarantees of this kind you may find yourself on the wrong side of a power imbalance, and then you have no right to challenge said ideas in a fair contest.
      - walshemj 9y ago
        Normaly there are rules of debate the main ones are All debates are to a propesed motion. Motion must make sense. Time limits on speach for all participants. Debaters must speak to the motion. Pious motions normaly ruled out of order No wreaking amendmenst are acepted. No non relevent amendments.
- bsenftner 9y ago
  Decades ago, 70's & 80's, saw a progression from the more respectful, objective debate style to the linguistic attack scoring style popular today. It's too bad, because back in the "early days" it taught how to collectively arrive at a solution. Today, not really.

dieterrams 9y ago

‘Debate’ does seem to have strong connotations of a rhetorical fight. ‘Discourse’ has been the preferred word among philosphers and other circles that discuss this sort of thing.

_dps 9y ago
"Debate" has a long tradition of meaning a formalized presentation of opposing views, each represented by a person or team, for the purpose of evaluating relative merits. "Discourse" is a much broader term and does not imply formal structure, opposition, merit evaluation, or that advocacy of particular ideas is associated with particular speakers. IMO "Debate" is absolutely the right term for what the advice suggests, which is to reframe a conflict situation into a situation where there are norms of fair argument and expectations of equal access to present opposing views, with the hope of evaluating the merits of said views.
- Mithaldu 9y ago
  You're right that historically debate was more noble. But meanings of words change. The problem with debate as it exists today in the english sphere is that it refers to a sport where teams try to argue for views they don't even hold regardless of what they themselves even think about it. Due to the idea that regardless of the actual merits of an idea debated, either team needs to have an equal chance to "win", the whole "evaluating merits" part has in more recent times been deemphasized.
  - _dps 9y ago
    Could you elaborate on why you think the meaning of the word has changed? If I'm understanding you correctly, it sounds to me like you think the current use of the word in the USA is restricted to one narrow activity of debating societies (formal tournaments where neither side is, a priori, invested in a particular idea and in fact doesn't even know which side of the debate they'll have to represent). This is just one of many things debating societies do, and yes it does have a sport element as you and others suggest. But, based on my experience (and I have quite a lot with debating societies in both the USA and the UK) I don't think this one activity has come to dominate what "debate" means in the USA. I would be surprised if the average citizen thought in this way. So I wonder what makes you think this activity has come to be the meaning of debate in the USA, as opposed to just one thing debating societies do? P.S. purely as an aside I think there may be misunderstanding about the value of people advocating "views they may not even hold". This is only characteristic of tournaments, and is a feature not a bug. Since you don't know until quite late which side you will represent, it forces you to be prepared to do an equally good job representing either side. This is, in my opinion, an excellent mental exercise. At the moment the debate happens, you are arguing something one-sided you may not believe — but in the preparation for the debate you are carefully evaluating the best arguments for both sides.

dhimes 9y ago

Debate is a sport over here in America, where high school teams compete. It's just as you say: they are not seeking truth, they are trying to win. It's reflected in our adversarial legal system as well. I personally don't like it that way, but there are people who think it's the best way.

walshemj 9y ago
From a discusion on here a while back hs and uni debation seems to have not much conection to real world parlimentray debates and would fail outside its own artificial world.
- closeparen 9y ago
  In professional politics, debate is an open charade, an excuse to get on camera and rally your supporters. High school and university debate actually care about argumentation, for example, and the electorate very much doesn’t.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    Ah I meant real debates not the reality tv shows - a political speech to the masses is not a debate in the strict sense of the word. For example a motion of no confidence is a serious matter in any parliamentary system.