The Master-Debater’s Handbook
I think I can safely say without contradiction that student debating is the best thing in the world ever. And there’s the first rule of Master-Debating: never be afraid to exaggerate. Whether you’re stuck for words in the first round of an interfac in the largely unexplored labyrinth of box-shaped rooms under the Geography Department, or whether you’re fortunate enough to be pitting your wits against the best that Dorkville (Nebraska) Technical College for the Blind has to offer in a World Championship, the ambitious exaggeration is precisely what’s required in order to fill in the gaps between “Mr Chairman, honourable adjudicators…” and “…I beg to propose/oppose.” A typically useful exaggeration is one that presupposes a certain expertise in some esoteric area - one that implies that, to those in the know, this fact is completely obvious and incontrovertible, but which no layperson is liable to have the confidence to contradict. For example, when discussing some obscure topic such as the state funding of research into genetic engineering, it is useful to say “Extensive research carried out by the French government over the last ten years has consistently shown that genetically engineered avocados are capable of producing three hundred times more foodstuffs per acre than organic methods.” (It is sometimes handy to reinforce the point by saying something like “And that’s a fact, ladies and gentlemen!”) It is highly unlikely that your opponents will know the first thing about genetically engineered avocados, or research that the French government has carried out on the matter. Thus, your point is made and no-one can contradict it. Of course, if you are opposing the above motion, you may wish to say that the French have discovered that genetically engineering any food containing protein can make it carcinogenic. Either way, the ignorance of your opponents and the adjudicators is on your side. However, don’t be careless. An example of an unconvincing exaggeration would be “Ladies and gentlemen, it is widely accepted in medical circles that brown hair is associated with elevated levels of heart disease.” Although, when you think about it, that mightn’t be that unconvincing after all.
This guide is designed to provide all you need to know to become a master-debater. Master-debating is something all beginners aspire to, many fail to achieve, and even more believe they are proficient in. Ninety-nine percent of debaters believe that they know more about the pursuit than the average person. And that’s a fact, ladies and gentlemen.
Opening a Speech
It is a widely accepted heuristic that the best way to open a speech is to address the chair, the adjudicators, your fellow debaters, and the members of the house. However, some debaters take this to extremes. If you spot some priests in the audience, there is no need to include “Reverend Fathers” in your greeting. There is generally no need to address the Recording Secretary, unless of course you are taking the piss out of him. A bone of contention surrounds whether you should address a female chairperson as “Madam Chairperson” or “Madam Chairman”. Some people try the visually impressive “Madam Chair” as though the luckless incumbent had four varnished legs and a cushioned back. Strictly speaking, in Old English and Anglo-Saxon, the suffix -man was gender neutral and simply meant “person”. A male person was a waepman and a female was a wifman. A person who fished was a fisherman. One imagines that people who chaired debates were chairmen. Thus, technically, it should be “Madam Chairman”. However, even more strictly speaking, you are likely to be hung from a tree if you describe a female chairperson as a “man”, and so it is probably best to refer to her as the chairperson, and afterwards to compliment you opponents on their sportspersonlike performances and their statespersonlike oratory.
A definite turn-off is to prelude your speech with a
quotation. This awful practice originates from schools debating, where teachers
get students to say things like “Extremism
in the defence of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice
is no virtue” even before they get as far as “Madam Chairperson”. This
habit signifies to the adjudicators that (a) you now intend to read every word
of your speech from cue-cards, (b) you are about to present three reasons why
you’re on the right side of the motion, and (c) that you used to be a schools
debater. Remember: to quote Martin Luther King in such a fashion at the
beginning of your speech is to briefly imitate
Martin Luther King at the beginning of your speech. And if you are afflicted by
a Cork/Clare/Mayo accent, “I have a dream…” just isn’t going to come out right.
‘Defining’ the Motion
In the Observer Mace format it is up to the first speaker in
the debate to define the motion. For example, if the motion is “that this house
would respect the right to life”. you can define it as “that this house is
anti-abortion” or “that this house is anti-euthanasia” or “that this house is
anti-capital-punishment” and so on. And that decides what the debate is going
to be about. However, some people undergo bouts of temporary insanity when
placed in this position. The motion “that this house would ban boxing” should
not be defined as “that this house would ban putting things into boxes.” It is
likely that you will have walked yourself into a cul-de-sac, unless you can
come up with a very good argument for not putting things into boxes. Also, unless
it is absolutely necessary, you shouldn’t really be unreasonable. Being
pro-life doesn’t; necessarily mean that you are anti-murder and are in favour
of continuing society’s prohibition of homicide. Similarly, when discussing
censorship, it isn’t appropriate to define ‘censor’ as anything other than a
censor in the normal sense of the word. the debater who spoke in favour of
censorship by referring to the Tidy Towns competition as “the censorship of
litter” probably doesn’t have any friends. However, if you are in a
particularly desperate mood, a bit of creativity is justified. With the motion “that
this house would legalise drugs” you could define ‘drugs’ as ‘democracy’ - the
opium of the people - and argue that this house should maintain trade sanctions
on undemocratic countries such as China. of course, you should read up a bit on
In the Irish Times, you are not supposed to define the motion. However, similar problems often arise. When dealing with the highly original and obscure motion “that this house would protect the private lives of public figures”, it is probably a bad idea to say that public figures are people who go out in public.
Useful Phrases, Examples, and Moments of Extreme Daftness
There are some phrases that are extremely popular with debaters and if you want to convey the impression of being an experienced master-debater you might want to use some of them. Refer to the arguments of the other side as “fundamentally flawed” and people will think you’ve been debating successfully for years. “That just doesn’t hold water” and “The simple fact of the matter is…” are popular in some circles. So is “the proposition/opposition are living in an ideal world.” However, be careful of the phrase “ideal world”. There is no point saying that in an ideal world we wouldn’t have drugs in prisons, or that we would permit gays in the military, or that politicians wouldn’t be corrupt. Remember, in an ideal world there wouldn’t be any need for prisons or the military, and we certainly wouldn’t have any politicians. A useful substitute for “ideal world” in such circumstances is “optimal situation”. If you think the other side are being too tolerant, say “You can’t be a little bit pregnant.” If you think they are being too intolerant, say “Ladies and gentlemen, intolerance cannot be tolerated.”
Examples should be used with care. However, a well chosen example can be quite useful in sticky situations. It is often said that examples should be used to illustrate a point and shouldn’t be used instead of a point. But I wouldn’t get too bogged down in that. If you are speaking against Political Correctness, point out the absurdity of the New England Journal of Medicine, which, in 1982, insisted that a corpse should thereafter be referred to as a “nonliving person”. If you are speaking in favour of PC, rhetorically ask whether it is right to refer to children with Down’s Syndrome as “Mongols”. If you are in favour of being hard on crime, mention Veronica Guerin. If you are in favour of the opposite, mention the Birmingham Six. If you are speaking against organised religion, mention paedophile priests. If you are speaking in favour, mention Mother Teresa. Nobody will say anything bad about Mother Teresa.
In the same category as Mother Teresa is Adolf Hitler.
Nobody will say anything good about Adolf Hitler. Hitler has been very useful
to many master-debaters, as he can be linked to quite a lot of relevant topics.
Hitler had the support of the majority of wartime Germans. Thus democracy is a
bad thing. Hitler was in favour of federalism. Thus the EU is a bad thing.
Hitler was anti-Semitic. Thus, Israeli policies in the
Moments of extreme daftness have been known to strike even
the most accomplished master-debater, so you should always be on your guard
against them. These fall into four distinct categories. The chief culprit is
deficiency in attention span. If a daft sentence is sufficiently long, you
might be under the impression that it actually makes sense. For example, “In
1993, over one hundred abortion clinics were set on fire, and another
ninety-seven were victims of arson.” Another category is the rush-job, usually
a response to a point of information, e.g. “All anorexics know that they are
not fat” of “The IRA are the democratic voice of an oppressed community.” The
third category of extreme daftness is the ridiculously sweeping statement or
over-ambitious inference. For example, the statement “Homosexuals deny our
right to exist” is fundamentally flawed and unlikely to hold any water.
Similarly, to say that “Everybody knows that all women are secretly in favour
of abortion” is a tad unconvincing. The final category of extreme daftness is
the statement of denial, where the debater denies everything in the face of
overwhelming evidence that he or she is incorrect. For example, to insist that
Points of Information
Giving and taking points of information is one of the rudiments of master-debating. the name of the game is to try to get your opponents to knock themselves out of the running by saying something silly in response to your point. Sometimes, they don’t even have to accept your point of information in order to do this. For example, shouting “No! Sit down!” usually fails to impress the adjudicators. Similarly self-destructive is “Take a seat” or “Have you got piles?” You would imagine that only a seven-year-old would say “I’m not taking a point of information from you because you didn’t take one from me.” However, many college-going debaters do actually say that, whereas few seven-year-olds would. If the first bell has been sounded, you shouldn’t say anything like “No thank you, it’s too early.” The bell is struck to signify that it is actually not too early. Similarly, saying something like “I’m not going to take any more points of information” is thoroughly amateurish. Saying “No thank you, I haven’t said anything yet” is unfortunately all too revealing.
When you do take a point of information, there are a couple of things you should never say. “You might be right, but you’re still a fat bastard” falls into this category. Also outlawed is “I’ll get onto that later on in my speech” or “My team-mate will be dealing with that whole area.” When accepting a point of information it is useful to nod your head continuously as you as your opponent speaks as though you are agreeing with what he or she is saying, but when he or she has finished to immediately shake your head and say “No!” before responding. All the good Scottish debaters do this.
“Are you seriously suggesting…” is a good format for a point of information. For example, you could say “Hitler had the support of the majority of wartime Germans. Are you seriously suggesting that democracy is always a good thing?” Or, “Mother Teresa is a public figure. Are you seriously suggesting that we need to know what colour underpants she wears?” It is always dishonest and unsportspersonlike to draw your opponent onto some tangential matter in a point of information. Therefore, you should always attempt to do so. For example, if your opponent is arguing that overpopulation in the Third World is the result of First World over-consumption, give a point of information along the lines of “The Ethiopian government commandeered all the Live Aid trucks and used them to repatriate the Eritrean rebels. Are you seriously suggesting that Live Aid was a success?” That should do the trick.
And Finally…
Now that you have successfully taken note of the above, you should be well on your way to becoming a master-debater. Just a few miscellaneous points remain. First of all, if you wear glasses, get into the habit of taking them off in the middle of your speech to make you appear serious about your main point. Secondly, never try to engineer any form of audience participation. Telling the audience that you want them to close their eyes just for a moment, so that they can see what the future looks like when you’re poor, is a bit like telling them to hold their noses so that they can see what the future smells like when you’re poor. In general, try to act as least like a primary school teacher as possible. Thirdly, don’t use props of any kind. Don’t say “Imagine this podium is a Third World government. I stand behind Third World governments!” Fourthly, if you tell a joke, make sure it’s a good one. Don’t say “I am like a swimming pool. I have a deep end. Ladies and gentlemen, tonight you can ‘deep-end’ on me!” Fifthly, use lots of complicated words. Don’t say “true”, say “incontrovertible”. Don’t say “vague”, say “epistemological”. Don’t say “abstract”, say “metaphysical”. Sixthly, don’t argue a motion on “social, political and economic” grounds unless you are taking the piss. Seventhly, don’t quote the Oxford English Dictionary without stating that the OED gives fourteen definitions of the word “definition”. Eighthly, adopt the high moral ground if you are arguing in favour of the Third World, changes to the criminal justice system, environmental issues, or nuclear disarmament. Ninthly, adopt a stance of feet-on-the-ground pragmatism if you are arguing against any of those things. And tenthly, don’t refer to feminism as “a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practise witchcraft destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
In short, to be a master-debater you should always say intelligent things and be better than everyone else. Easy-peasy. Good-bye, and happy master-debating!
Brian Hughes