Are we teaching our children to debate or to de-base each other?
Formalised debate has premium value in our society with the parliamentary model in most first world countries having this as a foundation for law-making and governance. The capacity to be able to present a coherent, cogent argument that communicates one's ostensibly unique viewpoint on a particular topic, is seen as a skill that is essential to be able to hold one's own in society at large, and in life in general. It is a skill that is considered as equally essential to that of being able to recount or share a story about the events in one's life.
We shall present how debate and argument have (and had) a true historical lineage. Later, the element of persuasiveness and persuasive speech was introduced and overlaid onto the purity of the origin of each, layering them with taints of prejudice, imposition and the right to defend and demand one’s desires through combat with the perceived opposition, namely other people.
The True Origination of Debate
Debate has an extensive historical lineage that is very much associated with the art of oratory. It was a standard mode of communication in ancient Greece and, according to some traditions, also in ancient India. The original purpose of debate in ancient Greece was to consolidate what was known to be true and supportive of all within society and to elaborate upon the practical application of the detail of this. It served also to expose any falsities or undermining of the truth that had entered and were potentially corrupting the foundation upon which that society was founded. When fabrications, falsities, interpretations and lies enter any society, what ensues is the sabotaging and the dilution of truth expressed in word. This infects the society from the inside out. Ultimately, the health of that society fails, and so it falls.
The health of the society was assured by the use of the Pythagorean model of debate. Under Pythagoras, there were no opposing sides; rather each person’s contributions built upon what had been expressed by the previous contributors, until a steady state of unanimity and understanding was established. This form of discourse is unifying and consensus building, and each person’s interests are the interests of the whole because the health of the whole depends upon the health of each part.
The De-basing of Debate
Modern debate arose from the dilution and bastardisation of the original lineage. The focus moved from sustaining a unified societal foundation to an emphasis on promoting and protecting of one’s ‘own side’ against the opposition. Today the actual intellectual exchange is tainted with the stench of victory and loss, and the whole debate consciousness is characterised by competition and adversarial combat against the opposition. Wars of words in lieu of the exchange of military missiles are a daily normal, with the intent to annihilate each other the same in both scenarios. This occurs in politics and government, in academia, scientific research, in the corporate world, in households and is taught in schools from an early age.
Speaking on behalf of others and on behalf of all has been usurped by speaking to influence, persuade and achieve a specific outcome that serves the interests of the ‘victor.’ The true oratory of Ancient Greece was sabotaged to become the manipulative rant of the delinquent demagogue of Rome.
Friends, Romans, Countrymen…
A great expose of this demagogue type of public speaking is seen in the speech delivered by Mark Antony to ostensibly laud Julius Caesar upon his death in the Shakespearean play of the same name. (1) The speech is actually a tool for manipulating the masses into revolt and includes all the hallmarks that have become the persuasive rhetoric of today, including repetition, rhetorical questions, exaggeration, hooking and baiting the audience, sympathy and justification. These aspects of debate and public oratory are clearly visible in political speeches and motivational speakers in our current times, as well as in the current parliamentary system and the most esteemed heights of academia. In written form, they comprise the texts that make up the bulk of our global newspapers and screen-based newsfeeds.
In schools and undergraduate university courses, debating and debating teams are assigned premium value in terms of social accolades, status and recognition, on par with sporting glory, but with the coveted additions of sophistication and superiority.
So what exactly is it that we are affording with so much value and social kudos?
The Features of Argument and Debate
The basis of argument and debate is that one adopts a position, based on belief and opinion, and that this be at least partially endorsed by some form of evidence, which can include direct personal experience. In schools, the standardised format includes three arguments, one counter argument (just to show you are aware of the opposing viewpoint) and then to unseat the counter argument by referring back to an original argument and repeating it in a different way.
At times, this gives a sense of tilting at invisible, internal, mental windmills that bear little to no reference regarding what is actually going on in the outside world that one could be more productively responding to.
Part of the proof of the argument resides in the forcefulness of the delivery. If a speaker conveys their point with a great deal of conviction, accompanied by emphatic gestures, they are deemed ‘convincing.’ This is often regardless of the content, ethics or applicability to everyone. Clearly it is not only in physical battle that the measure of force signals victory. The same criteria are applied to the verbal delivery of argument and debate. I am yet to hear this overtly expressed as a learning intention as in Today children we are going to learn how to forcefully impose an adopted viewpoint on to others. They will come back at us with their own adopted viewpoint and then we’ll all see who the winner is…
When did we collectively agree that the forceful delivery of an argument constitutes what will be accepted and circulated as normal or even as ‘truth’?
If we collectively sanction the forceful imposition of one’s opinions, beliefs and viewpoints onto others, do we not then end up with the bully running the schoolyard and the military or political tyrant ruling the world?
Modality: Using Language as a Force
Another overtly instructed aspect of argument and debate that incorporates both the level of conviction and of forceful emphasis is the use of modality. Primary age children themselves readily identify the quality of modality as telling others what you want them to do or to believe. The range of modal verbs are taught as a scale from low (may, might, possibly) through to high (should, absolutely must, ought to). The former are more polite and the latter more overtly forceful with both, nonetheless, imposing and demanding a response from the listener or reader.
In conjunction with the use of modality, the main sentence type is the command, used in the much the same way as it is in the world of advertising in terms like you must buy, you should desire xyz, you have to align with this xyz perspective.
To say the least, it is a disturbing reflection to witness young children dictating to their peers what they should be doing, saying, or believing. The forceful energy conveyed through the words, which is identical to that of the cut-throat worlds of marketing, politics, and society at large, is what guarantees the good grade in accordance with the prescribed criteria of grading. I am not the only teacher that has winced at this and then questioned why we are instructing our children in this type of expression.
Indeed, how, and why, did we allow this type of communication to be standardised as normal in our world when all that is required is for us to present our truth simply, without imposition, expectation, or investment in an outcome?
The Constant Movement of Force
Language is further weaponised in these genres through a number of other mechanisms uncritically identified as language ‘features.’
Higher grades are allocated to children who employ the strategy of repetition where sections of their spoken or written argument repeat the same phrases several times e.g., this is why we must; secondly, we ought to; thirdly we absolutely should ban homework in schools. Each repetition is accompanied by an increasingly forceful quality with accompanying gestures. These are believed to be a display of confidence. Is this not a dissembling of true confidence that arises from inner poise? Does truth require constant repetition or is it the meagreness of wishful thinking that masks its poverty via an endless loop of the same conviction on repeat?
Repetition is accompanied by exaggeration with children instructed to overstate and even to embellish their point of view. This can come across as a form of socially sanctioned lying, very much in line with what we see daily in the political and commercial machinations of our world. When we question how things ended up in such a state, we need look no further than the education of, and social saturation in, these features from a very early age.
The simplicity of truth requires neither repetition nor exaggeration. It is registered immediately by the body as true and is completely absent of the many verbal assault weapons that accompany persuasive argument and debate.
The Corruption of True Language Use ~ The Rhetorical Question and the Rule of Three
Two significant language features of argument and debate that are taught in schools are the use of the rhetorical question and the rule of three.
By origin, the rhetorical question differs significantly from its contemporary usage. It is currently defined as a question that does not require a verbal response or answer from the listener. However, this is because the way it is used presupposes a fixed alignment with what is being communicated. Again, the rhetorical questions posed by Mark Antony and Brutus in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar demonstrate this clearly and also indicate how the false version of the rhetorical question sows the seeds of the orator’s manipulation onto their audience. In short, the rhetorical question is being (ab)used to serve an unspoken (but energetically obvious to the discerning eye) pre-set agenda with a specifically intended outcome.
This does not represent the original use and intent of the rhetorical question. By origin, it was a question that was presented on behalf of everyone and to which no one had a pre-set answer because it represented the potential of an emerging point of evolution that could be embraced by all. Responses to this petitioning query arose from the ensuing discourse of the group ~ very much in the Pythagorean style of debate mentioned previously, where each contributor builds upon the foundation of those who have already expressed. This discourse took place without the peddling of multiple agendas, without manipulation and without any singular person knowing or enforcing an outcome. What unfolded, was the expression of the group as a whole, a unified truth that served all participants and, potentially, all of humanity.
In schools, it is the corrupted version of the rhetorical question that is instructed. In the genres of debate and argument, it is about the most forcefully and cleverly delivered argument based on individual self-aggrandisement, without consideration of the possibility of one’s argument serving or evolving the group.
The Rule of Three
In contemporary usage, the Rule of Three language feature has also been bastardised and reduced to the emphasis of repetition, literally to drive home a point. Whilst it does feature in the genres of argument and debate, it is also easily discernible in the world of advertising to promote products. In schools, children are taught to apply this feature by way of three successive adjectives e.g. littering is inconsiderate, disgraceful, and disgusting. The sense of imposition detected with the rhetorical question is equally present here. The reader or listener is being recruited to agree with the presenter through the use of emotive language that one would not want to be associated with, whilst in other instances, emotive language is used to secure alignment to what one is desirous and in need of.
Once more, the original rule of three was used to represent the spherical nature of one’s topic or to give a more rounded view. In an above paragraph in this article, I expressed the rule of three in:
This discourse took place without the peddling of multiple agendas, without manipulation and without any singular person knowing or enforcing an outcome.
In this example, the rule of three is being used to highlight the many angles of abuse that are occurring. This applies equally to the use of the rule of three to represent the depths of what we are and the expression of this truth as for example:
By essence, we as children, all have the natural capacity to communicate all that is received, all that is expansive for another, and all that restores a lightness to what has become the denseness of linguistic expression.
Employing the rule of three in this manner confirms the several aspects and qualities of what we all are, with nothing of emotive manipulation contained within it. This is the original and true use of the ‘rule of three,’ which, by origination, was never a rule, but a manner of conveying and earthing what supports, and even evolves, everybody.
The true use of rhetorical question and the rule of three, based upon the modes of expression presented by Pythagoras, have been prostituted in the contemporary world into serving the many voices of manipulation, securing the upper hand, the validating of superiority and the crushing of one’s opponent.
The shift from expressing in support of everybody to expressing to feather’s one own nest, has been a distinctly involutionary movement that sets us at odds with each other and ultimately, serves no-one.
Language for Connection or Disconnection
As educators, it is for us to query the validity of modes of expression that encourage open combat through words and that allow imposition, negotiation, and persuasiveness to usurp the natural flow of what is simply true. These corrupted forms of expression also close the door on relating intimately with each other through the all-inclusive quality of what is expressed. Instead, specific, assigned roles like proposer and defender are the accepted norm. Such genres, and other daily prescriptive ways of speaking and expressing, inhibit the capacity for connection and intimacy that is present in every interaction ~ the silent directive only to politely talk about the weather with anyone not considered as family or close friends.
Genres, as set down in the school curriculum, indicate that there are varying layers of permissible intimacy from informal to formal based on the prescribed roles and relationships of the engaged parties. I wonder that we do not question why there are such a plethora of conditions placed on our potential for intimacy with everyone, singularly, or as a group. Our speech would then be the expression of such transparency. Would we possibly also revert back to the true origins of debate, where ‘argument’ was used to present a unifying consensus for all? The dual aspects of intimacy and truth are very clearly interrelated in ways we are yet to acknowledge fully.
Debate or De-base?
The original Pythagorean debate was a collaborative foundation for ensuring that only unifying truth was circulated through the society that it served. This was corrupted by the introduction of persuasiveness, the movements of manipulating others through a range of tactics from negotiation through to forceful imposition. This de-based the truth of actual debate, rendering it as tool of combat, in overt and more concealed forms.
The relationships among all participants were also de-based from the intimacy of cooperation to the formalised distance of negotiation or the aggression of imposition. Language itself was de-based from being an instrument that served the expression of unity and intimacy into a weapon of combat and war, a means of undermining and destroying each other’s communication and ultimately ourselves.
It would be less than the wisdom that we all hold within to allow this de-basing of our expression and natural intimacy to continue to circulate in society. Shakespeare conveyed this same sentiment hundreds of years ago through the medium of the stage (ibid). Our humanity renders us far greater than instructing our children into the continued imposition of the orchestrated manoeuvrings of constant conflict and combat, when we can allow our speech and language to serve as the instrument of our restoration back to the truth of our natural intimacy and unity.
(1) Shakespeare, W. Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 2.