Debating the Practice of Debating

I've always been good at debates and I've liked them mainly because they were so easy to win. The biggest part of debating is supporting a viewpoint, and I can support almost any. The problem comes in when I start to believe what I say. If I'm forced to produce evidence that freedom of religion is wrong, I can do that. I can do it so well that my mindset starts to shift. I can even shift the mindset of others.

Many say that this is the best thing about debating: making oneself and others consider both sides of an issue so that they can form their own opinion. I can see merit in that, but at the same time, it comes at a cost. Many who are impressionable see a debate and side with the group that supports its ideas the best. The group may not even believe the ideas, but have become so talented at debating that they make it seem as they do and can make a compelling argument.

The focus on debate in school may be sending bad messages to students. One such message is that one must take a side on either extreme and support it with everything they say. This creates extreme viewpoints. In debating, there is no room for finding middle ground or creating solutions. It is merely arguing at one extreme and sticking to a stance without compromise. This reminds me of our political climate, and I'm tempted to say that there is a relation between the focus on debating skills and the inability to compromise in congress. A few weeks ago, John Stewert had a rally in which one key point was that moderate shouldn't be a bad word in politics. In debate it is-there is no room to be moderate and it frightens me how debate mirrors our political system.

As a pacifist, a major problem I also see with debate is that it creates a young army of arguers. Instead of congratulating students for talking though a problem peacefully and coming up with solutions, we reward them for attacking each others viewpoints and never really resolving an issue. Students are simply not being able to resolve problems in debate and it certainly isn't being addressed in other areas of schooling. Debating trains kids to argue and not to build relationships and solve problems.

I know that my opinion about debating is unpopular, but it teaches people to agree with things that they do not. While it may seem like a good skill, it seems to eventually create people who are weak willed. If in the workplace, one is presented with a view that they don't agree with, they will go back to their conditioning in school and find reasons to support it instead of stating their alternate view. Debating, I think, trains people to ignore their moral conscious and thus wears it away.