Idea Junkies
“ I do not agree with what you have to say, but I
will defend to death your right to say it”
— Voltaire
T
here are two ways to look at debating: One, that it involves a bunch of
loud and boisterous people needlessly squabbling with each other, nitpicking
and over-analysing everything and trying
to use unnecessarily complicated words all
the time while trying to mock those around
them; or Two, that it’s a platform where the
merits and de-merits of any idea can be
discussed unreservedly, and the part where
winners are declared is just to keep motivating people to get better at discussing. I guess
it takes no deduction to know which view I
would advocate.
For sure, I can’t not acknowledge the
existence of debaters who do fall squarely
within first description. These are the Don
Quixote’s of the debating community. They
come dressed in shining armour, looking for
demons to slay and confusing windmills for
monsters, detached from reality and making
mountains out of molehills. They are fun to
watch for a short while, but soon become
exhausting. But they are at the fringes of debating. They never achieve anything significant because their approach is wrong.
The two views themselves, I think,
56
The Shoreline
by Vishnu Swaroop
are also analogous to the “Romantic” and
“Classical” understandings, as those of you
who’ve read Robert. M. Pirsig’s Zen and the
Art of Motorcycle Maintenance will realise.
The “Romantic” view looks at the surface. A group of speakers, coming one after
the other, each trying, to the limits of his/
her eloquence, to bring down their predecessor. Debaters who hold this view will not
know what to prioritise in their speeches,
will focus on trivialities and never realise
where they are going wrong. Non-debaters
with the same view will find watching debates incredibly tiring.
The “Classical” view of debating will
look at the underlying principles. It looks
upon the format of debating as a structure
conducive to effective discussion. The 7
minute limit on speeches prevents rambling,
the order of speakers encourages engagement between the two sides. You can also
see, in good debates, the continuity and flow
of thought between speakers on the same
side. You can see that the speeches involves
analysis of the “motion”, where blind assertions don’t help at all and backing up with
clear reasoning is the only thing of value.
This does not mean that all the romantics are trolls, or that all the others are saints.
Just that your approach determines how far
you will go, or how much you gain from it,
for your compass needs to be pointed in the
right direction before you step out.
Let’s take a step back for a historical
perspective.
Ancient civilisations have a rich history
of argumentation. India itself celebrated it
with public debates between representatives
of different religions being organised by emperors, from Ashoka to Akbar, over many
centuries. Akbar’s reign was a time where
all religions were equally accepted and even
atheism had an opportunity to speak. But
even before that, we had our own version of
“The Art of Rhetoric”, the “Tarka Sastra”.
Written in Sanskrit, it details argumentation,
the raising of points and criticising them,
questioning and cross-questioning, following a structure of discourse guided by definitions and goals. We have stories of Ashtravakra, a young sage physically deformed
in 8 ways, each resulting from him writhing
in frustration in his mother’s womb for each
mistake that his father made when reciting
the scriptures.
Ancient Greece laid a lot of emphasis
on discussion and oratory too. Demosthenes, being their most famous orator (He
is said to have conquered a severe stammer at a young age by placing stones in his
mo uth and trying to talk clearly over the
sound of the ocean). Being the expounders
of the earliest forms of democracy, where
all male Greek citizens had right to opine
on, among other things, policies governing
the people, you can see why the Greeks at-