Anti-Debate

Kicks out of Debate?

2006-01-15T17:00:00.000-08:00

How can someone actually get kicks out of formal debate? I have come to a proposition that all debaters who enjoy formal debate and have done it for more than one year are deemed "debater geeks". The next thing you know everyone's off to Patrick Henry College drooling all over their suits and blouses after seeing the topics debated there. I mean come on...it doesn't get much nerdier than that. I mean no disrespect to people I know. It's nothing personal. I just entirely despise and dislike it.

I came across this interesting blog against fact debates:

"Universal decisions of fact are extremely difficult to make.

Ultimately, a fact debate comes down to deciding something is either "true" or it is not "true." To say that 45 minutes is an insufficient amount of time to analyze an issue of "truth" (rather than of simple "desirability," which is what a standard policy debate does) is understating it.Every day, in their daily lives, people make decisions about what to do, but very few people decide definitively what is true. To the extent that people decide what is "true" or not, they are mostly deciding that instrumentally, to help them in a decision about what to do. Very few fact questions are pondered in the abstract. If you don't believe me, try this experiment: try to start an argument with someone who doesn't know about what the capital of Sudan is. Very, very quickly, you will get the question, "Why do you care?"Knowledge, to the human brain, is basically instrumental. That is how a policy debate treats questions of fact: they can be disputed, and remain fuzzy, and still render a decision possible." - Ian Samuel

The Lord of the Evidence Ring

2005-11-10T11:11:00.000-08:00

Miss Noah and the NCFCA are collaborating together to create a Lord of the Rings spoof called "The Lord of the Evidence Ring". Principal photography will begin in January right after the Chrismas holidays in December. It hits theaters early December 2006 just in time for the holidays next year.

It's quite interesting how this might turn out. I can't wait to see what it will be like.

Research

2005-10-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

Try doing research when you don't have time for it. it's hard.

Anti-debate definition

2005-10-17T16:04:00.000-07:00

This is the initial post of the Anti-Debate blog. So far we have two members involved with this blog. If there are any others out there who is interested in becoming a team member then please post a comment.

When we say anti-debate what do we mean exactly? Our blog is in no way against informal debate. We are against formal debate such as team policy debate and Lincoln Douglas. There are many reasons why we don't like it. We don't like the fact that it is dictated by rules that govern how humans should perform. It also minimizes creativity by not allowing the debaters to come up with their own cases and evidence. A good example of this is "The Blue Book". Yeah, well, you know what I call it? "The-Here-I'll-Do-Lots-of-Work-for-You-So-You-Don't-Have-To" book.

We will reveal more later.