Oratory

It is interesting that, in forensics, we often remove from the art of argumentation the skill of articulate presentation. That is, we have redefined “good speaker” as, often, someone who is anything but a good speaker. We give high speaker points for coverage and skill and the level of the round in toto way more often that we give high speaker points for pure oratorical ability. In fact, to reward pure oratorical ability would, in many cases, be seen as punishing better arguing. Rewarding oratorical skills is what “lay” judges do, which is why we shy away from those judges. We want people who can hear what we are saying despite the way we are saying it. There is no greater proof of this than the pure existence of most policy debate, and plenty of proof as well in LD.

The use of lay judges does inhibit poor oratory, or perhaps you could say it encourages good oratory. Since PF is the dumping ground of all the lay judges in a given pool, either by choice or by default, PF remains oratorically viable because, competitively, it has no choice. A Pfffter who goes at blazing speed would simply cause a lot of head scratching as the poor parent judge looks at the ballot to find how many points to give someone who is totally unintelligible. Whether this will change over time as PF matures, as many people have suggested, remains to be seen. It won’t be soon, in any case. And one of the challenges facing PF is to balance strong argumentation with strong oratory. It’s not an easy task. But it’s a good challenge, worthy of the attempt.

I point this out because I was talking to someone yesterday who is simply not fond of public speaking, despite being in a position of being unable to avoid it, at serious professional stakes, and because I know that I have lost some nascent Sailors who were so shot down by the internal butterflies of presentation that they gave up performance altogether. I perform no great coaching feat by getting some ham actor to stand in front of an audience; it is the folks who are uncomfortable speaking in public who are going to most benefit from learning how to do it. Which makes you wonder, if we’re not teaching classic public-speaking skills—and often we are not—are we really benefiting our debaters?

Surprisingly enough, I would answer yes to that question, if we keep one underlying idea in mind, that success in presentation is measured first and foremost by knowing to whom you are speaking and adjusting accordingly. I have always ranked judge adaptation as the #1 key to competitive success in debate, although lately the Sailors have ranked Knowledge as #1. It’s a close call. But if we accept that adapting to the audience is important, then if the audience is capable of understanding fast speaking, there’s no fault in speaking fast. In debate, you often have that audience. Outside of debate, you seldom do. I would suggest that most people know the difference, and the best debaters even know the difference from round to round and from judge to judge. My point, however, is not adaptation: that’s the premise. Beyond that, public speaking has so many facets to it that are hard and scary, that our teaching it, and doing it, on any level, is beneficial.

First of all, public speaking requires preparation. You learn that pretty quickly, that before you can talk, you need to have something to say. Speaking when you’re prepared versus speaking when you’re not prepared is the difference between confidence and pure gall, and most of us don’t have the gall to get away with it most of the time. Writing your cases on the bus means that you will be able to leave the tournament early, while everyone else is in break rounds. There is no other benefit to writing your cases on the bus that I am aware of.

Secondly, public speaking requires guts. It is not easy to get up there and present yourself and your ideas to strangers, especially in a competitive framework, arguing often against one’s own private opinions. For many debaters rounds are nothing but spurts of dueling adrenaline, but the doing of it, over and over again, leads to self-confidence. The more you do it, the more confident you feel doing it. Adrenaline may still flow after 4 years in the activity, but your concentration and skill will be so much more focused than when you were a first-time novice. I’ll be honest. When I was in high school, and early in my business career, I was a nervous, uncomfortable public speaker. I was also quite hairy. Today I am neither, the former through practice and acquisition of confidence, the latter through genetics (damn you, Grandpa!).

Thirdly, once you learn to prepare and learn to control yourself physically—to master the adrenaline—you start tuning up the fine points, like reading the room and knowing if you’re winning or losing the attention (and ballot) of the judge(s). The best debaters by definition are in lots of break rounds with multiple judges and large viewing audiences, and success in break rounds definitely requires an ability to read a room and grab the subconscious of the group and win it over, a skill that goes beyond simply arguing better. A good debater is, to a great extent, also a good entertainer. I’m not saying that they’re standup comedians, but that they know who to work a debate as an entertainment for an audience that wants to be entertained by debate. They become, inherently, judge—and audience—adaptors.

So debate, even if it’s terrifically fast and incomprehensible to the average person, nonetheless teaches you the value of preparation, it trains you to develop self-confidence as you present, and as you do it more and more you begin to develop inherent skills in communicating with your audience. Once you have done that, even at blazing speed, it isn’t particularly difficult to slow down a bit and do it again, in college or business or anywhere you can think of. It’s like learning the scales. Maybe you play them really fast; it doesn’t matter. When it comes time to playing music, you play the music, whatever it is, the way it’s meant to be played. You’ve got the training. Now you can put it to use.

All of which is good.