The Art of War
A Survival Guide To 21st Century Debating
M. D. Kwak
SCHOOL DEBATING transformed my boring English vernacular into an arsenal of premises, mechanisms, and syllogisms. My objective during one of my debates in primary school was to wage a merciless campaign against the 10-year-olds sitting in the opposition – sparing neither their intellect nor dignity.
I remember one instance against a local school, things went too far. Sensible charitability turned into deceitful straw-manning: “the opposition are totalitarian.” Words began to outpace thoughts` as I veered dangerously towards ad hominem: “an irredeemably stupid speech.” Our baby-faced adjudicator, overwhelmed by my verbal bombardment, ended up (quite unjustly) awarding the debate to us, eliciting in me a shameful pride. A Pyrrhic victory that came at the cost of my conscience.
I had committed war crimes by cauterising rhetoric, by tainting the civil integrity of debate.
Looking back now, I’m not sure what prompted this behaviour. Was it some primal aggression? Maybe a 10-year-old’s juvenile attempt to salvage his self-worth by winning at all costs. Or perhaps we all have that immature hubris inside of us – epitomised in leaders like Trump and Bolsonaro. In the tribalistic 21st century, it seems discourse can so easily become destabilised and distorted into a tool of savage attack, rather than a seed of cooperative bipartisanship. But a scholarly delineation of the whys and hows of discourse’s devolution would probably bore you.
So, I guess the important question becomes how do we go forward? Is there a way to remain unscathed in this era of weaponised dialogue? Well, consider these various scenarios.
STRATEGY 1: PUTTING DOWN YOUR WEAPONS.
Amid the shouting and interruptions, you abandon hope for rational deliberation and embrace apathy. Disillusioned and weary, you stop discourse from taking shape in the first place, before it can morph into ugly cycles of demonising and being demonised – where you’re either too ‘PC’ or too bigoted.
University of California researchers found that after the 2016 presidential elections, Thanksgiving dinners attended by people from opposing political precincts were curtailed by 30-50 minutes. Thirty-four million hours of nationwide cross-partisan discourse was lost. On one hand, this probably averted countless post-election brawls and shouting matches. But the reality is, we (for better or worse) inhabit the same space, experience the same world, and share our lives with each other.
This might suggest self-censorship is a double-edged sword – bringing peace at the risk of atomisation:
Our beliefs remain unchallenged truths.
Our hubristic egos are insulated from the volatile chaos of political discussion.
But I don’t know.
Apathetic silence could be freedom
– or maybe it’s oppression.
STRATEGY 2: USE PROPAGANDA WITH RENEWED SPIRITS.
Refusing to be silent, you fully embrace the dogfight’s combative arena. Simultaneously craving destruction but scared of engaging with opposing views (and risking being destroyed), you find a solution in propaganda – a way to target your enemies without even facing them.
As I scroll past clickbait videos with blown-up visages and hyped-up edits of your average political ‘pundit’ (think Ben Shapiro), I’m often reminded of wartime propaganda posters belonging to an imperial past. Perhaps it’s the ‘zingers’ featured in their titles:
- WOKE SNOWFLAKE LIB-TARD
- ALT-RIGHT BIGOTED FASCIST
- DESTROYS/SCHOOLS
But strangely, I’ve always felt a hollowness – as if underneath that aggressive bravado lay a secret cowardice. Indeed, by utilising an exclusionary and dehumanising semantic dialect, propaganda reduces the perspective of the socio-political ‘other’ to absurd caricature: thus, avoiding the need for genuine engagement of their ideas.
Even I admit – propaganda has an intoxicating thrill to it. Your ego feels empowered. Correct. Meaningful. That’s why so many of us feel exhilaration arguing with 5-year-old siblings or claiming victory as a keyboard warrior in Sisyphean Twitter spirals.
However, when propaganda machines and social media algorithms mass-produce sensationalised outrage to feed us the biases we want to hear, interactions might not just be strained, but irreparably vitiated.
STRATEGY 3: SHATTERING THE ILLUSION OF WARFARE.
In a moment of epiphany, you realise political discussion doesn’t have to be mortal combat; it could just be two people having a chat about their disagreements. Could it be this whole time, you were never in a war at all?
Shame has eroded my memory of that fateful debate years ago. But amid the white noise of attention-seeking microblogging and dogmatic politics, my coach’s feedback remains a bastion of clarity:
“Look guys – mindless bulldozing’s fun, but you risk losing sight of what you’re advocating for in the first place. We debate in pursuit of what is true, meaningful and best serves the people – not just to win-win-win.”
World champion debater Bo Seo echoes this in Good Arguments, where he writes that disagreements serve a dialectic purpose – as levers of progress transcending tribalism. An attack on your ideas, isn’t an attack on your identity. Nor is the epistemic humility to admit you were wrong and revise your beliefs, a sign of emasculating weakness.
Since then, I’ve debated countless more times, and I’ve come to learn that good debaters replace ideas even as they destroy them. Better yet, they grapple with the flaws and strengths of both sides, compromise and engage in constructive dialogue – rather than a savage dogfight. Even in my one-sided discussion with you; I’ve tried to provoke your introspection and restore some hope in the possibility of good debate.
But enough of my thoughts – I’ve offered you some strategies.
You’re the debater now, so you choose.