Here's a sample work:
~Should formal debate societies embrace willful pretence?
I came upon a rather thought provoking -succinct nonetheless- exposition on my drive through 'The blindwatchmaker' by Richard Dawkins. Now, keep your predicaments at bay, this associates little with the heart of the book.
Richard Dawkins recalls an event of his debate with creationalists; he cites his encounter with a certain woman who had made a very powerful argument(s) favoring creationalism. During dinner, a skeptical Richard questions her maintenance on the same. The latter freely admits otherwise, and vindicates her proposition by identifying it under her polishing her debating skills.
The prime attribute of pro debaters -and by extension, debate- is to advocate a position(s) in an issue or the matter in hand they are passionately for, and do it so well so the witnesses are caught between two stools. It is the cumulative of heat between the adversaries, and the invariable zeal to ram one's point home that accounts for a dominant propotion of the core engagement factor of debates, and allowing or enforcing pretence comes at the cost of the same. I say so being a witness to one such event.
A few years back, I was a spectator to an inter-school debate competition staged on the auditorium in my school. The topic "A pen is pen mightier than a word" was too lopsided to pick a bone on. To my surprise, however, the participants were evenly split to present polarizing opinions on the subject. But here's the catch: the candidates dissenting, were, not surprisingly, a distinct drag in terms of reasoning and persuasiveness, as opposed to their adversaries. The debate, as a whole, thus, felt rather dismal. It is later, on digging deeper into the rules and regulations, that I understood that candidates are left with little choice over which side to pick.
Another impactive factor was dubiety: it is ideally expected of the organizers and/or judges to declare a topic dubious enough to be debated on. The topic was biased, if not heavily biased, towards the candidates bolstering it. Any rational thinker, today, would tell you how comparatively far-reaching an impact a manifestation of writings -scripts, books, journals, thesis- through any forms of arts/science can leave when pitted against violence, and if that doesn't sell my point, consider the practicality in advocating both.
Here's a shoe in another foot; for the sake of turning the corner and making strides, we're advocating a practice that shows little regard to delivering the message, nullifying the core objective of debates. Anne Osrerlund hits the nail on the head here:
'Look, Aerin, preparation is only half the challenge of winning a debate.”
“And the other half?” He had her now.
“You have to choose the right side.”
“Your side, you mean.” She bristled.
“No, the losing side.”
“What?”
“Always choose the weaker side.”
“Why would I do that?” Doubt edged her voice, but now she was sitting erect, her feet flat on the floor.
“Because then you have further to go to prove your case.” He eased the feet of his chair down. “In a debate, there are two sides. If both make a good argument, then the less popular side wins because that side had further to go to prove its point. Simple logistics.”
“If you don’t care which side wins.” She frowned.
“It’s a debate. It doesn’t matter which side wins.”
“You mean it doesn’t matter to you.” The tone in her voice unsettled him. Or maybe it was the fact that that her criticism disturbed him at all.
“It’s a class,” he said. “The point is to flesh out the different sides of an argument.”
“And you don’t care if the truth gets lost in the shuffle. Don’t you believe in anything?!'
Besides diluting the the primary objective of debates and disregarding the significance of the respective subject at hand, conditionally speaking, this allegedly sides championing ideas one resents, painting an inapt image of debates in the participants' mind.