High School Debates Can Now Hinge on Personal Tweets and Microaggressions
“This debate is more than just about the debate—it’s about protecting the individuals in the community from people who proliferate hatred and make this community unsafe.”
In May, we highlighted a report by James Fishback on the changing nature of high school debates, for the worse. Debate judges are becoming overtly political and stifling debate, rather than encouraging it.
Now Fishback has published a new column on the subject, where he looks at how a debate can be lost based on posts on social media sites like Twitter.
A month ago, I wrote about the hijacking of high school debate.
Today, in Part II, I report that high school debaters can lose their rounds for:
— Referring to their female opponent as “Miss”
— “Micro aggressions”
— Their personal tweetshttps://t.co/sAVuubMVeY
— James Fishback (@j_fishback) June 26, 2023
Once again, Fishback writes at the Free Press:
Part II: At High School Debates, Watch What You Say
The NSDA has allowed hundreds of judges with explicit left-wing bias to infiltrate the organization. These judges proudly display their ideological leanings in statements—or “paradigms”—on a public database maintained by the NSDA called Tabroom, where they declare that debaters who argue in favor of capitalism, or Israel, or the police, will lose the rounds they’re judging.
This has fundamentally changed the culture of high school debate—or so scores of students are telling me. One of them is former high school debater Matthew Adelstein, a rising sophomore studying philosophy at the University of Michigan, who was a member of the NSDA in high school.
Adelstein told me that, in April 2022, he competed at the prestigious Tournament of Champions in Lexington, Kentucky, where he debated in favor of the federal government increasing its protection of water resources.
In his final round of the two-day tournament, Matthew was shocked to hear the opposing team levy a personal attack against him as their central argument. The opposing team argued: “This debate is more than just about the debate—it’s about protecting the individuals in the community from people who proliferate hatred and make this community unsafe.”
That claim of making people feel ‘unsafe’ is a common and tired trope in higher education. It’s nothing more than an excuse to shut down the free speech of others. Back to the story:
Then they pulled up a screenshot of a tweet from earlier that month, which Matthew had responded to.
The tweet read: “Name one thing that you, personally, feel is morally disgusting, but that you think, rationally, should be legal and accepted by society.” Matthew had replied: “Calling people racial or homophobic slurs.”
Suddenly, Matthew’s six-word tweet and an accompanying Discord message became the focus of the round, U.S. water policy be damned. You can read his opponents’ entire argument—a rambling 25-page treatise in a multi-font format with no real mention of U.S. water policy—here.
But what is most incredible is that this argument actually won Matthew’s opponents the round.
The truth is that the left no longer wants to debate. They would much rather discredit their opponents with this nonsense.
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Comments
That’s not a debate that’s cowardly. I know I’m dating myself but back in the day, you had to do your homework and be ready to defend every aspect of your position.
It’s consistent with the way the Left has redefined “dialogue”. Nowadays a “dialogue” is where you sit quietly while a leftist lectures you on your sins and then you loudly and tearfully repent.
It appears that https://www.nfhs.org/articles/finding-volunteer-judges-for-speech-and-debate-tournaments/ is where these judges are coming from.. Communities should vet judges for themselves.
The oath that all debaters should be required to take before participating:
“Sticks and stones may break my bones But names will never harm me.”
And especially the judges.
Microaggressions won’t harm you either.
These techniques remind one of the politically enforced “criticism and self-criticism” sessions originating during the purges of academia within the Soviet Union. AKA brainwashing.
Obviously, the most direct way to fix this is to fire all the Stalinist-Marxist activists posing as ‘judges’ in these mind-control exercises and those who set the ‘rules’ and conditions for them to thrive.
Failing that, we are in occupied territory. Perhaps it is time to respond by forming alternate debate leagues, unaffiliated with any school if necessary. Leagues that by their example highlight the travesty the others have become. Ones which keep the spirit and traditions of proper debate alive until the oppression has passed and it can be returned to its rightful place in our schools.
When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When the law is on your side, argue the law. When you don’t know or care which is on your side, attack your opponent.
Re: Adelstein told me that, in April 2022, he competed at the prestigious Tournament of Champions in Lexington, Kentucky, where he debated in favor of the federal government increasing its protection of water resources.
Let me get this right,
Adelstein was arguing for the tree-huger side, and lost?
1. People in the classroom are worried about microaggressions.
2. People on the street people are are worried about being raped, robbed and murdered.
Let’s focus on number one, okay? Because white people are so damned microscopically aggressive.
Isn’t the purpose of debate competitions to make arguments better than those of your opponent, i.e., to “win” the debate by utilizing more rational and/or more compelling thought? Shouldn’t a competent debate team be able to argue in competition in favor of either the Holocaust or the existence of Israel? Will debates be reduced to having “opponents” who are actually making different arguments in support of the same conclusions, e.g., both arguing for the benefits of DEI, rather than having one side argue that DEI is detrimental to societies and organizations?
If the Left is so convinced that what they support is righteous and correct, why are they afraid of honest, unfettered discussion? Do they not understand that even darkness serves the purpose of helping us appreciate the light? It’s obvious by now that they do understand, and they’re afraid that discussion and argument would reveal that their ideas and agenda items do not exactly glow.
It is supposed to be, but it wasn’t even in the early 2000s in a red state like Arkansas.
Should be able to win no matter which side of the debate you are on. But ya won’t.
Cultural Marxism Seminaries rue the day, better to get your kids out before they turn on you.
“Will debates be reduced to having “opponents” who are actually making different arguments in support of the same conclusions, e.g., both arguing for the benefits of DEI, rather than having one side argue that DEI is detrimental to societies and organizations?”
The People’s Front of Judea.
The Judean People’s Front.
The Judean People’s Popular Front.
The Campaign for a Free Galilee.
We hate those bastards!
I strictly reason that these events are no longer debates because the NSDA consists of big, fat, smelly, poopy-faced pigs.
While it is perfectly acceptable for us to sit here and “debate” whether these positions are silliness, or Marxist (objectively, both are true)….the key to defeating all of this is to point out that these radicals are DOING the very thing they’re criticizing us for doing. They claim that “reason” and “logic” and the “structure of knowledge” artificially give certain (dog whistle for white) people an advantage….the “new” rules they’ve imposed do the exact same thing for non-whites.
Debate rules that artificially privilege emotion over reason, lived experience over scientific method, and illiterate ululating over grammar, they are – by definition – tipping the scales in such a way that no one except their side can win.
The only difference is that after they re-write the rules, the result is garbage.
Emotion, lived experience, and illiterate caterwauling doesn’t build bridges, solve math equations, or cure disease. Instead it temporarily and falsely inflates the egos of fools and their race-hustling circus masters, and leads to disaster.
What exactly is the purpose of this new debate protocol? What’s the point of joining?
Leftists can’t win a debate on the merits, as their positions HAVE no merits.
So this is quite literally the only way they can “win” a debate.
Shades of the trans problems in women’s sports.
Could be handled the same way — a new category.
“Best departure from initial topic”
John Derbyshire wrote about the decline of formal debate several years ago. There was a team that won the national championship for debate composed of a few black students. Every argument was reduced to racism. They spoke quickly but incoherently.
Want to debate about a flat tax? Racism. The benefits/detriments of nuclear power? Racism. The value of sixth-century Assyrian poetry? Racism. It seems kind of odd how everything can be reduced to racism.
I looked for a link to his original article but was stymied.
Erronius
I debated in high school and college (1970s) and coached and judged (1990s). As an educational exercise, interscholastic and intercollegiate debate has long been dead.
I came in as a guest coach in around 2003 at an intercollegiate tourney in New York. I was appalled. One debater’s constructive speech was a ukulele recital, and others essentially argued that we were debating the wrong resolution and so the other team needs to lose. There was little or no clash on genuine issues. The whole enterprise, I mused, had become a medieval exercise in determining the number of angels who could dance on a pinhead.
Defund it and let it die.