Forensics: In which we adapt to our audience

PJ talks about not wanting debaters to be directed into one or another of a couple of narrow styles. I wonder.

For the longest time, I preached that judge adaptation was the most important thing a debater could do in a round. After all, it was the judge who was writing the ballot, so if you wanted that ballot, you did your best to appeal to that particular judge. We’ve talked a lot about prefs and paradigms, but realistically, at most tournaments most debaters know pretty well who’s judging them. Sure, if I go to Greenhill, I’d better read some paradigms, because I don’t know Texas from taxes and the pool will presumably be strongly circuit, but if I go to Bump or Ridge or Newark or Scarsdale, well, it’s mostly the usual suspects. Even Yale and Princeton and Columbia trade in mostly the usual suspects. There’s not a hell of a lot of mystery for the average debater, in other words. I wonder sometimes if we’re talking generalities that are, in fact, inaccurate extrapolations from narrowly perceived specifics.

In any case, while judge adaptation may not be what it used to be as LD has grown up a bit, I think it’s still more important that people acknowledge. I know plenty of extremely strong debaters who have been able to pick up anyone’s ballot, from the most circuit judge to the sweetest mommy judge. They might have on some level preferred a circuit judge, allowing them to get up their head of argumentative steam, but on the level of, I wanna win this ballot, they did what had to be done. They slowed down. They lost the jargon. They skipped the outré material. They stuck to the basics of upholding their values and got nice little 30s and nice little wins. I have, by the same token, actually seen debaters prefer to forfeit a round than debate in front of a judge they thought of as (I shudder at this word) “illegit.” I’ve also seen debaters who have refused to acknowledge the nature of their judge, refusing to adjust on some presumption that their way of debating is the right one, and if you don’t get it, that’s your problem. As far as I recall, the point of a debate round is to pick up the ballot. How does one get one’s brain into such a twist as to think there is some other point? (I don’t mean, of course, a ballot at any cost, but the issue here is not sportsmanship, just common sense.)

Public speaking, per se, requires knowledge of your audience. I’ve seen this over and over again at my DJ. People who are making a presentation who understand their audiences and present accordingly, win. People who talk over their audiences’ heads, or under them, lose. That’s core. On top of that, making your audience feel smart—which, I hasten to point out, is inevitably true, even if they don’t necessarily know what the speaker happens to be talking about—is a worthy approach. “Here: let me tell you about this thing that I happen to know about that I think you’ll be interested in.” It’s about what you’re saying and not about you, which is why there are modes of dress (boring business attire) that make your message clearer. (There may be exceptions to this latter principle, but not that many.) Knowing what you’re talking about is important because, otherwise, why exactly am I spending time listening you if I know more than you do? In debate, I would suggest that you should always believe your judge knows more than you do; it will probably be true in most cases (unless you’re being judged by another high school student) and it will undoubtedly be prudent in all cases.

Et cetera.

In the movement of LD away from public speaking, we do lose something. To be realistic, LD was never about the public speaking per se, and there have always been muttermouths who have been brilliant and successful debaters. But today, that skill of becoming a good speaker, in the real sense of the word, is all but tossed aside. This is neither good nor bad (it’s been replaced by other skills), but it is unfortunate for those of us who happen to value public speaking highly. In any case, no matter how parochial a debater may be in terms of style within a round, no truly good debater doesn’t have the ability to adjust as necessary.

That, to some extent, motivates my pushing for the trads to embrace MJP. In rounds where everyone is on a different page, it will demand adaptation. The better debater, defined as the debater who better adjusted to the situation, thus will have a better chance to win. I think PJ would actually like that.