I learned the hard way what a debate was in my first year of college. A friend persuaded me to be her debate partner in my first year of college even though I had no training, had never attended a debate and was so foolish as to agree to do her a favor.
We rushed to the debate and arrived late and the other side had been given the chance to choose which side of the argument they would have. My heart sank when I heard the topic. I happened to have some fairly strong opinions in support of the side of the position I was supposed to argue against. The other team went first. When it was time for our side to present our case I expected my friend to speak but she asked me to go first. I felt like Jackie Gleason on the Honeymooners caught in one of his ridiculous schemes that backfired trying to 'splain his way out from under his wife's attacks.
I heard myself saying something like - well, I'm in a difficult position, I feel fairly strongly about this and in real life I strongly support everything the other side has said. They used the arguments I would have chosen, had we been given the other side of the argument. The other team started to snicker and I think I may have embarrassed myself further by making some lame points for our side of the argument but acknowledging each time that I really didn't believe these things.
hmmmmmm...........
(this is how I stumble through life)
So, I have always felt in a way that a debating is confusing. How does one do one's best on behalf of something one does not believe?
How does one suspend one's own beliefs to make the case for the other side when one feels in ones' gut that it is wrong?
Well, better people than I can explain that to me. But as far as this past Wednesday, Oct 3rd's, Presidential Debate, this "dilemma" was not supposed to enter into things.
President Obama was supposed to argue on behalf of the principles of the Democratic Party and his own vision for where our country should be headed and how he plans to achieve those goals in a second term. And Governor Romney was supposed to defend the Republican Party's platform and his own vision of how to achieve those goals.
Wikipedia defines a debate thus:
Debate is contention in argument; dispute, controversy; discussion; esp. the discussion of questions of public interest in Parliament or in any assembly.[1]
Debate is a method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than deductive reasoning, which only examines whether a conclusion is a consequence of premisses, and factual argument, which only examines what is or isn't the case, or rhetoric which is a technique of persuasion. Though logical consistency, factual accuracy and some degree of emotional appeal to the audience are important elements of the art of persuasion, in debating, one side often prevails over the other side by presenting a superior "context" and/or framework of the issue, which is far more subtle and strategic. The outcome of a debate depends upon consensus or some formal way of reaching a resolution, rather than the objective facts as such. In a formal debating contest, there are rules for participants to discuss and decide on differences, within a framework defining how they will interact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
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