A new debate regime?

I think we probably are at some sort of changing of the guard in debate. Obviously, there’s always change, people coming and going, joining the activity, leaving the activity, that sort of thing. But following the TOC from afar, especially this morning’s award ceremony, there was definitely a sense that the movers and the shakers who have made debate what it is today have been or are being replaced by people who are roughly the age of my favorite green corduroy shirt. (This is a comment that cuts both ways: yes, the new people are young, but on the other hand, that shirt is really old. Still holding up, however. What more could you ask of utility clothing?)

Here’s the way I’m seeing it. High school debaters all have one thing in common: they’re all in high school. So they’re all teenagers. And they’re engaged in a high-pressure activity that, honestly, sucks the life out of most older people. It’s tough enough that it’s all weekends, meaning that right off the bat there are inherent limitations to who will sign up and continually show up. This is not to say that the people who do it long term have nothing else in their lives; far from it, for the most part. They just have the ability to fit in debate as well, and as a result, have lives of incredible busyness that are quite striking when compared to the average adult’s life of work, television, sleep, repeat. Of course, most debate adults are fulltime educators, and with many, they are taking an already exhausting life choice and extending it as far as they can. Admirable. I would say as a general rule that the energy expended by a group of long-term debate coaches is the match of any other group you can think of.

Add to this limitation—the need to find people with an awful lot of energy—the self-limiting nature of some of the activities themselves, which I’ve been talking about recently. That is, the ever increasing arcaneness creating a small coterie of priests and alcolytes and a vast set of the unenlightened and uninitiated that are also essentially unenlightenable and uninitiatable. That is, you need people both of great energy and a willingness, at some point, to devote that energy to a narrow interest. Of course, a lot of coaches outsource their coaching, at least at the highest levels. When you see the announcement of who won what, followed by a list of a hundred names (“Joey McDoakes is coached by X, Y, Z, A, B, C, Pi, Phi, Theta, Curly Joe and Shemp”), usually X is the coach of record and all the rest are college students of one stripe or another. This is not a new practice, by the way, although I think now it is much more the norm. Twenty years ago when I first started, I recall a well-honored policy coach with an ocean of active winning teams telling me that he was no longer able to judge policy rounds. Whoa, thought I. Not any longer.

As I say, I think we are in the midst of a notable turnover of coaches who have been around for a long time, who were already established and in place when I started lo those many years ago, replacing them with a truly distinct next generation. TOC is a good example, under enlightened new management in so many ways (which is not to put down the old management, but simply to point out that the new regime has brought a lot of new ideas and new ways of doing things that I would say are commensurate with the times and the nature of the TOC beast). Still, much of the audience, and certainly much of that dais, have been around longer than my green corduroy shirt. And throughout the audience are their replacements, not complete newcomers but folks who have shown that they intend to be around for a while. Life goes on.

Which raises the question, if new leaders are emerging, what is the role of debate leadership? Needless to say, I personally don’t feel that it is best evidenced in the preservation of high-level ultra-competitive debate, although I see no reason why this can’t be maintained in the future, and most likely the leaders in debate overall will have a hand in this as well. No, it is the day-to-day, week-to-week world where the real leadership will be needed. I think the two most important areas of concern are, first, ensuring that there is forensics for as many people as possible. That’s a no-brainer, obviously, but it requires respect for all the activities under the forensics umbrella and a maintenance of activities for people who may benefit but don’t want to dedicate themselves completely to speech or debate. It also requires money, at all levels, i.e., a commitment on the part of school administrations. The second concern is making the forensics universe safe and welcoming to everyone. High school activities cannot be removed from the high schools of which they are a part, and these high school environments may or may not be enlightened in terms of sexual identity, class, race, gender, etc., but forensics needs to be the City on the Hill for this. If not us, dedicated as we are to ideas and ethics and self-fulfillment, then who?

Going into whatever brave new world is ahead of us, one of the good things I see is that, despite occasional skirmishes on the sidelines, in general this is a group that is willing to engage itself on virtually anything. This is probably a result of the nature of the activity in the first place. When you have as an avocation the art of convincing people of your point of view, you are going to freely present and defend that point of view and, with any luck, change it when a better argument comes along. (How else could you teach Mill with a straight face?) I obviously write my opinions here with little or no hesitation, for instance. We’ve aired all sorts of conflicting ideas on TVFT. This is not unusual behavior for debate people. For the most part we are happy to confront issues without being confrontational, if you know what I mean.

There are exceptions, though. I have managed once or twice to get caught in controversies where I feel I have been maligned, and where the folks involved have not bothered to address me directly. I have seen other controversies not including me where others have been in that position. A lot of this is enabled by the social media, and fuelled by the intrinsic immaturity of our young constituents. As a rule, it is probably best for the graybeards to ignore this sort of thing. Actions speak louder than words, in other words, and if someone is really the lout they are accused of being, we’ll all know sooner or later. Otherwise, would it kill us to assume good intentions? We must, if we wish to engage in meaningful dialog over important issues of change. Otherwise we might as well spend our time in an empty-headed standards debate arguing about our arguing. At the same time, maturity demands that we take the high road in not responding to immaturity; otherwise, we simply get immersed in the immaturity ourselves.

I’m quite sanguine about this whole business overall. I look at the people who I assume will be the graybeards twenty years from now, and I have a good feeling. As long as we remember that bottom line, making the activity as available and welcoming to as many as possible, we’ll be fine.