Potato is yum

I loved debate. Debate was probably one of the most useful activities I did in school. It taught something extremely useful. The way to persuade an audience.

On the surface, this might not seem so amazing. Like isn’t it true that most of the time you are trying to persuade another person? Like a one on one argument. That’s what an argument is! But that’s not a debate. A debate is a more constructive, more structured argumentation. What’s the difference? Well it’s pretty well known that when in an argument neither side is really open to changing their thoughts. Because well… that’s the reason the argument exists. If someone was going to change sides so easily why would they argue for that side? Someone arguing for something they don’t believe in is just stupid. People normally don’t do that.

So it seems as if debate isn’t so useful. Or is it? Is a one on one debate really just about you and your idea? Is the debate really about you winning? No. Not really. The winner of a debate is the side the audience agrees with the most. And often, the winner is not arguing the same point by the end of the debate. In policy debate, one of the strongest arguments the offence has is a counterplan. A counterplan lets the neg come to the table and offer something different to the plan the aff wants to enact.

A neg that doesn’t run a counterplan is missing out on an extremely powerful persuasive device. The ability to force the aff to shift the goal posts closer to the middle. To shift the goal posts, the aff usually uses what is called a permutation or perm. One of the most common perms is perm do the counterplan and the plan. This allows the aff to shift their goalpost to a more agreeable position for both aff and neg.

So why am I talking about all this? Well, it initially appears as if debate isn’t helpful in a strictly one on one debate. But once you consider the argumentation structures to attack plans and the mechanics of counterplans and perms you start to realize that these are not tools to pick apart plans but rather tools to find a more agreeable middle ground. Each attack is meant to be as a way to refine the final plan to be something better for both aff and neg together. This thinking directly ties to the actual way to win arguments. Compromise. Sometimes as the neg you need to drop the claim because the aff just makes some really good points. Why argue on something that will get both of you nowhere? Instead, poke at the other parts of the plan to make the plan more favorable for you.

At the end of a debate, whoever’s plan is the most convincing ends up winning the debate. But in real life there is no winners or losers. The real winner is the people who walk away from the debate satisfied that they got something out of it.