Debating society

“ Here again the analogy between debate and the later debate of life runs close and sure. The man who in the activity of his group—whether his lodge, his club, his society, his church, his city, or his State—has nothing but criticism to offer is of but little value. It is easy to say “you can’t, you can’t.” Such a statement is as valueless as it is easy.
One most important tactical reason for a constructive argument of your own is that you can never tell whether you have destroyed all of the enemy’s bridges. ”

“ A debating society is at first somewhat of a disappointment. You do not often find the youthful Demosthenes chewing his pebbles in the same room with you; or, even if you do, you will probably think the performance little to be admired. As a general rule, the members speak shamefully ill. The subjects of debate are heavy; and so are the fines. ”

“ It is desirable that people with a strong reforming zeal should at least debate in companies of ten up to the point of agreement before they ask for legislation which involves sixty millions of people. A debating society has a fine field for suppressing raw social schemes, and this is one of its normal functions. ”

“ In the first place, the debate of the boys’ club, of the school society, or of the city lyceum, is the same in form and method as the debates in legislature or Congress. Any lad who is trained to debate, who knows his subject, who is logical and direct, who is frightened neither at his own voice nor of his opponent’s ability, will later in life be able to meet an opponent in the larger halls of the capital. ”

“ But the pride of intellect, the love of reasoning everything out, the desire of superiority in debate, were so prominent a feature in society as to spoil conversation, and generally to turn a dinner-party into a debating club. ”

“ Because this task is so onerous and, indeed, so valuable in its training, it is an excellent plan to have members of your group—society, class or patrol or whatever it may be—act as judges. The [29] practice in so weighing arguments and evidence will be invaluable to them when their time to debate comes around. ”

“ In the plans for your hike, you proposed to do something, to go somewhere; if the question of conservation is up for discussion it is with some definite end in view, not simply as an excuse for general talk about it. The discussion which does not lead to a definite plan of action is not truly argument. If after your audience, whether it is your patrol, your debating club, or later your legislature, has listened to you, it says “What a fine speech!” you have failed. The audience should be convinced to the point of action. ”

“ To make a good debate you must meet your opponent most fully on his strongest ground. Any tricky evasion of his strong points and enlarging of minor issues is disgraceful to you and insulting to the audience. It is this latter kind of debating which has prejudiced the public against debates.
A real debate should be a clear presentment of two opposing schools of thought by men who understand both, but basically disagree as to their truth. Such a debate has an educational value of the very highest order.
Every speech, as in lecturing, should have a strong close. ”

“ That is why our political meetings are conducted like a debating club, as if the Government is a rival school-boy whom to silence is to defeat! But as men may die under the most scientific treatment, so have we failed of our object in spite of the most splendid oratory. ”

“ As a spectator in close enough contact with present social problems to understand all the points under discussion, yet at the same time sufficiently removed from them to analyse them coolly and judge them without prejudice, I bring forward my evidence unshackled by conventions. It has seemed to me that such fair, exact evidence might interest those who seek to glean, amongst all classes of society, the thousand dissimilar and contradictory elements whence proceed the lessons needed both for the present and the future. ”

“ If, however, someone should urge that you may be losing some of the educative value of debate by thus avoiding such subtleties and trickeries as I have just been condemning, let me remind you again, that the real value of agreement, whether in the debating club or in later and more real life, is not in just winning but in determining just what should be done. Your purpose to arrive at a correct course of action will be strengthened, not weakened, by clearing away the unnecessary and non-essential points at the beginning. ”

“ It must be candid debate, and it must have for its honest purpose the clearing up of questions and the establishing of the truth. Too much political discussion is not to honest purpose, but only for the confounding of an opponent. ”

“ If your audience—and your judges—is entirely impartial and unprejudiced, if you do not have to combat a preconceived position, you can probably safely content yourself with advancing your own position and leave the rebuttal of your opponent’s arguments until later. But [74] if you are presenting some novel proposition or some unpopular idea which cannot be entertained unless certain hostile ideas are cleared away, you will win better attention if you demolish the fundamental ideas upon which the old theory rests before you present your constructive argument. ”

“ The debates there are still earnest and sometimes brilliant, and to have presided over them is a distinction of value in after life; but as far as I could gather, their prestige is falling before the smaller debating clubs. ”

“ Don’t try to trap the other side into some unfortunate position which will prove its undoing. Note the difference: in the actual debate, be merciless to your opponent’s argument, but before the debate and during it, treat him frankly and generously. Trail down his argument, track it to its lair, flay it, have no respect or mercy to it, but be sure you are remorselessly pursuing the contention and not the contender. ”

“ I have nothing to say against debating societies: perhaps it was my own fault that whenever I belonged to one as a young man, I found them inclined to make me conceited, dictatorial, hasty in my judgments, trying to state a case before I had investigated it, to teach others before I had taught myself, to make a fine speech, not to find out the truth ”

“ It is because they will no longer be choked with the mere dry husks of conversation which society offers them, that they fly its assemblies, and seek those with whom they may have discourse that is at least real, though unpolished. ”

“ Concerted action will extend the benefits of this individual action to the creation of Public Opinion in the Community, in Society at large. As all great powers, Public Opinion is courted; this courtship is "Propaganda." ”

“ Full and free discussion even of ideas we hate encourages the testing of our own prejudices and preconceptions. Full and free discussion keeps a society from becoming stagnant and unprepared for the stresses and strains that work to tear all civilizations apart. ”

“ In debate, after the question has been defined and limited, you must present your arguments so clearly and conclusively that your opponent as well as your judges will agree that your course is wise and will be ready to follow the line of action that your conclusion calls for. Otherwise your opponents, if they be equally honest and efficient, in mind and method, have the right to demand the same surrender from you. ”

“ The most important reason why you should know the other side of the question is the necessity of your determining the issues correctly, and thus building a constructive argument that is overwhelming and impregnable. Many a debate has been lost because the debaters worked up their own constructive argument first, and only later, in order to prepare refutation, considered what their opponents would say. ”

“ You will be more interested in the affairs of Fairfield than in those of a city in Patagonia. Your school will interest you more than the schools of the other States. Besides, as I tried to show you all the way through the book, the application of your work in debating is what really counts and using local questions freely will help tie up debate with life. Study your local problems and debate them. ”

“ On one occasion, when the subject of discussion was not of any such serious import as Socialism, but more a question of who could win a debate on a subject of small merit, I defeated my opponent by a trick that I am heartily ashamed of, even under those mitigating circumstances. ”

“ Thus holding himself above the arena of dispute, he gracefully settles a question by speaking so home to the core of the matter as to undermine the premise upon which an issue had been taken. For whoso speaks to the Personality drives beneath the grounds of difference, and deals face to face with principles and ideas.4
[74] Good discourse sinks differences and seeks agreements. It avoids argument, by finding a common basis of agreement; and thus escapes controversy, by rendering it superfluous. Pertinent to the platform, debate is out of place in the parlor. ”

“ Frank wished to have more in this preamble and urged that they write it so that it would state that they would be benefited by drill in discussion, in composition, in declamation, in elocution, in parliamentary practice; in fact, in many other ways growing out of their meeting as a club, but Henry Jordan, a quiet, unassuming member, asked if all that really was not included in the word “debate.” ”

“ Our debates were very different from those of common debating societies, for they habitually consisted of the strongest arguments and most philosophic principles which either side was able to produce, thrown often into close and serri confutations of one another. ”

“ If every one in position of leadership or authority in relation to it—and among those are members of this Society—shall feel a responsibility for guiding discussion into proper channels; if debate on school-book questions shall be kept not merely free but also parliamentary in form and spirit; if we all insist that differences of view must be treated tolerantly ”

“ You see, if you think a moment, that every one of these things, so important to you whether as boy or man, is drilled into you by practice in debate.
Debating Means Constructive Thinking.—In the next place, not only is practice in debate invaluable [11] in acquiring self-control and correct habits of speech, but also it teaches you to organize your own powers; it drills you in constructive thinking. In much of your school work, you learn and recite the words of others—either of teachers or of textbook writers. But if a subject for debate is proposed, you must think it out yourself. ”

“ In this view a debate seems a much more earnest and real thing than as we read it in a newspaper. Think of the debaters meeting each other's eyes, their faces flushing, their looks interpreting their words, their speech growing into eloquence, without losing the genuineness of talk! ”

“ We live in a new era, when public opinion is king, and no other rule is possible; public opinion, as expressed in the press and on the platform, and by the deliberately chosen representatives of the people. Every question can be discussed and argued, all sides of it can be heard, and the nation makes up its mind. The collective judgment of all is wiser than the wisest single man—securus judicat orbis. ”

“ He reads the publications of his own party, and listens to their conversation and their speeches; and when he hears a speech on the other side, he looks upon it as the mere one-sided harangue of a professional advocate, and fixes his own attention mainly on what there is to be said against it. ”

“ W., whose beliefs are quite fixed, vacillates nobly in matters of opinion. In a group of debaters he holds with no one long, but must needs jump at a conclusion so liberal and sure that it reconciles all hostilities. ”

“ And no mode of implanting a wholesome political feeling in the masses can equal candid political discussion: discussion one ruling principle of which shall be to teach that the greatest differences of opinion may be honestly entertained; that, with scarcely an exception, the leading men of each party, those who have any title to the name of statesman, are animated with an honest, patriotic desire to promote the best interests of the nation; and that the elucidation of truth is not aided by unreasoning invective and the undeserved imputation of base motives. ”

“ I allude to the very general disposition to confine political discussions to political men. Thus, the private citizen, who should presume to discuss a political question, would be deemed fair game for all who thought differently from himself. ”

“ Debate is angular, conversation circular and radiant of the underlying unity. ”

“ What are the right methods of politics? Why, the right methods are those of public discussion: the methods of leadership open and above board, not closeted with "boards of guardians" or anybody else, but brought out under the sky, where honest eyes can look upon them and honest eyes can judge of them. ”

“ In formal contests, however, you will call upon teachers, lawyers, ministers; men who are trained to think clearly and definitely and whose decision will mean something as fairly standing for the judgment of your community. For it is to this community judgment your real debate in life must appeal, and you must learn as soon as possible to aim at no less a tribunal. ”

“ The parties to an argument, absorbed in admiration of their own opinions, seek not to become wiser through discourse, which should be the end sought in all Conversation of an argumentative or discussive character, but seek only to draw attention to their own views and opinions; until that which should be Conversation degenerates into a mere war of words, in which each party strives to talk down, rather than to convince, the other. In such wordy warfare charity has no part; but pride and combativeness hold entire dominion over the soul. ”