Colleagues
and Friends,
I have been sitting on writing this for a long time, but
today my feeling of disappointment has driven me to ask a
few questions to those of you on this list.
Since
the posting about the changes to WUDC registration were
shared here, there have only been two responses, and neither
of them more than just technical questions about the nature
of the registration system changes.
Where
is the critical discussion about what these changes mean for
our students?
From
my vantage point, as someone who has gone from thrilled with
WUDC to someone who no longer wants to be a participant in
it, these changes make me want to be an active opponent to
WUDC.
When
I first became involved in WUDC in 2007 I thought its
greatest strength was in the diversity of views as to what a
good argument could be. I thought it to be an amazing
experience for my students and myself to encounter such a
variety of different styles and approaches to rhetoric,
argumentation, and persuasion. My recent reticence in future
participation was not because of quality, but more because
of safety and financial concerns.
Now
it appears that WUDC wants to throw away quality in favor of
a faux-quality: A positive feedback loop of people who speak
the "right way" perpetuating a very particular kind of
speech being rewarded with more participants who also speak
in that "right way."
This
feedback loop will be accentuated by the fact that judges
will also be increased from those institutions that
demonstrate they can speak in the appropriate code to reach
elimination rounds. WUDC council has made it very clear that
they are not interested in a broad range of ways of speaking
and arguing, but a very narrow band view of this. Their
annual tournament will serve as the gatekeeper for who gets
to participate in this competition.
It
amazes me that on an email list that includes those who saw
the decline of NDT and NPDA from broad based organizations
to those that try to eliminate diversity of discourse in the
same way, people have remained silent. Not even one word of
critical questioning or examination has been posted about
these changes. Questions need to be discussed, such as:
What is the difference between this change and
mutually preferred judging in NDT/CEDA? Why should WUDC have
a system of participation that reminds us more of the NPTE
than our own USU nationals?
But
the American debate educators have remained silent. The
wisdom of so many years of participation in different
formats and the eventual abandoning of those formats in
favor of BP and WUDC have not inspired any of you to write
one single line of questioning in response to Michael's
emails. This is the root of my disappointment.
Years
ago, I asked the question to many British debaters: What is
the value of having a professional coach or debate director?
What is the value added of such a figure? Most debaters in
the world don't have one, and they do quite well
competitively. Most did not have a response, and weren't
sure. I thought it was a very pressing question. The only
response I could think of that made any sense was the
injection of the pedagogical dimension to debating. If there
is something Americans can bring to the party, it would be
that key element - to help people recognize that every move
they make in the debate universe is a pedagogical one. There
are serious implications to every adjudication and every
comment that is ignored or rewarded in every debate. We are
constantly teaching, and reinforcing, lessons provided by
and through language. This hopefully has some spillover
effect into their daily lives when they encounter other
people. The result would (hopefully) be kindness, patience,
understanding - all concepts brought about by a healthy
sense of uncertainty of the self. Debate provides this
uncertainty all too often, which is the source of it's value
for Universities.
The
narrow band reward-those-who-are-rewarded-already
registration system is pedagogically bankrupt if we are
really still interested in this whole "reasonable person"
judging philosophy, which I already question as a principle
for a lot of reasons based on a lot of my own judging
experiences. WUDC seems to now feel very comfortable totally
abandoning this principle in favor of one where those who
have proved expertise in persuading the imaginary reasonable
person now get more opportunities to do the same, in front
of those who also believe they know what the imaginary
reasonable person wants. We are talking to one
another imagining that we are appealing and representing a
broader based intellectual community.
We are teaching ourselves
and one another how to appeal in a vanguard discourse to
those who love this vanguard discourse, not "reasonable
people." It seems a shame that I have to struggle to find
a WUDC video on the internet that I can show to public
speaking students or beginning debate students that they
can even begin to understand. Our speeches are becoming
appeals to a particular elite, and this decision from WUDC
further refines who can be in that elite. As discourse
training for and by elites, we are far away from
encouraging an attitude among participants that would be
much other than cynical disgust for the rhetorical and
argumentative strategies of those outside the elite; a
worldview that encourages seeing the discourse of the
non-elite as automatically flawed, bad, and not worthy of
engagement. Debate teaches us to be good arguers - the
best, right? Actually, debate like this just teaches us
to be good debaters, full stop.
It
really depends on how you say it: Instead of WORLD
Universities Debating Championship, the emphasis now seems
to be on World Universities Debating CHAMPIONSHIP. Another
question arises: How can someone be world champion in
debating for reasonable people when the participants are
hand selected based on their institution's success at
previous competitions? Where is the door for those who are
new, who are reasonable, and want to argue and judge?
When I first started
participating in the WUDC universe, I was assured this
style of debating would not fall into the pits of the
previous US formats. I was assured by many of you reading
this that "the world will check" the US inclination to
become highly technical, highly cloistered, and highly
specific in style. Nobody who has said that to me has
responded with any critical questions to this decision.
This would amaze me if it weren't so disappointing. Who
is going to check the world when they make decisions like
this one? Here we go again. This is the first step into
creating another inaccessible and limited debating format.
Where
are the debate educators now? Or have you given up the
project of showing students how hard it is to reach the mind
of another in favor of earning more trophies and accolades?
Perhaps you feel like the decision is fine because your
teams will not be impacted by the registration procedure.
The temptation is pretty strong to say, "We can win under
this rubric." But nobody has asked the question, "Who
loses?"
This
doesn't effect me, as I said before. I'm out of the WUDC
game, but not out of BP and debate and the wonderful powers
they provide in teaching people amazing things. WUDC wants
to limit themselves to an elite. We here in the US have
seen what this does to debate participation. But not to
worry. Just because there is a yacht club it doesn't mean
that boating is going away. WUDC doesn't realize that
competitors to their monopoly will quickly arise with the
rise of Chinese debating and North American debating as more
American schools join the BP ranks. Alternatives to WUDC
will arise, including what I'm doing - taking my students to
other tournaments.
Who
should a world champion appeal to? Others in the elite club?
Society in general? University communities? Reasonable
people? their peers and colleagues? Scholars of
argumentation?
Or
perhaps the idea of world champion is best left as a ruse to
get people talking to one another and thinking about how
difficult that talking - and understanding that talking - is
for human beings.
Your
friend and colleague,
Steve