Unique forum for debate related issues: Eighth Monash Debating Review published

Datum: Dec 26th, 2010
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Category: Politik und Gesellschaft, Rezension

Debating expertise from down under: The Australian Monash Association of Debaters (MAD) published the Monash Debating Review (MDR) for the eighth time in a row. Debaters from all over the world have contributed to the journal on debating related issues.

The first article in the current MDR issue is from the author Tim Sonnreich. As a debater, the Australian was runner-up at Worlds 2003 and won the Australasian IV in 2000, 2001 and 2004. He has also been DCA at both competitions. In his essay “There is no spoon: beginner, intermediate and advanced first principles debating”, Tim shows  how one makes arguments from “first principles” and thus becomes a better debater. This concept gains more traction which is true at least for Australasian debating, the author recounts from his experience on that very debating circuit. Knowing the basics of “first principles” will help speakers as well as trainers. Essentially, it is a method with which to approach motions and issues one does not have specific knowledge about. Basic to it is the understanding of logic and how to shape a clash, Tim states.

Doug Cochran, familiar to German debaters as designated chief adjudicator of the Berlin bid for Worlds 2013 since recently and runner-up to Euros 2007, suggests in his piece to apply Marxist, Classical Conservative and Libertarian arguments to expand the argumentative focus of debate. Hence, his article is entitled “Liberal argument and its discontents.“ He built it on his experience that most speakers approach their speeches from a liberal point of view. This is particularly true for IONA, the “Islands of the North Atlantic” which comprise Great Britain and Ireland, the Englishman admits. “Liberal ideals shape the default assumptions that most debaters and judges apply”, Doug says. He is afraid to see debates deprived of their potential richness and complexity.

“The role of trust in political culture when teaching debate: the Kosovo case study” is the title of an essay by Leela Koenig and Maja Nenadović. The two authors, both located in The Netherlands, show their experience at the Balkans where in 2008 they started to distribute parliamentary debate as means of democracy. Empirical basis of their study is a workshop at the university of Prishtina, Kosovo. Leela and Maja taught the format British Parliamentary Style to students. At the workshop, the two faced difficulties characteristic to democratizing countries: The Kosovan debaters had to learn about the roles of government and opposition as well as to trust that these roles will be performed. The two are equally committed to debating in Europe: Leela was Best ESL Speaker at Euros in Tallinn, Estonia (2008) and Koç, Turkey (2007) as well as at Worlds in Cork, Ireland (2009). As a CA she coined this year’s Euros at Amsterdam. Maja committed in founding debating societies across Europe and works as a freelance rhetoric coach in addition to her Ph.D. on democracy on the Balkans.

Judging is at the focus of Daniel Schut’s article “Judging debates: a pragma-dialectical perspective.” The Dutch was runner-up to Euros and Worlds 2006. Already in 2007 he published a guideline to judging for the Amsterdam Open. There it says: “If this confuses you somewhat: don’t worry. It’s just Daniel Schut on his argumentation-analysis rant.“ – Daniel is famous for his analysis of judging. In his latest piece for the MDR, he mentions in the beginning: “Judging debates is a lot harder than debating.” As a good judge you cannot only rely on common sense, he advices the reader. How do you weigh up arguments as an adjudicator? How do you weigh the relative persuasiveness of two equally good opposing arguments, when both sides haven’t made these arguments clash? Your own opinion as a judge cannot be a factor in the debate. This is a platitude. Daniel responses to this questions in much more detail.

Populism is the issue of his namesake Daniel Berman, speaker at the SOAS IV 2010 final. The focus in his article “Populism, debate and the tea party: how the appeal of populism separates debate from the wider public” is on the recent ultraconservative remake of the Boston Tea Party and the US-American debating circuit. Daniel opposes parliamentary debating and politics. While politicians weigh their arguments from a selfish or pragmatic perspective (“Will I be re-elected?”), the debater factors in a more philosophical level of arguments which lacks a closer connection to the wider public, Daniel thinks. This gap is even more obvious when you look at populism: In ancient Greece, populism was intended to move the mob, while today’s parliamentary debating is rather elitist – the judges who are the addresses of speech and persuasiveness form a rather small audience.

Last but not least, Stephen M. Llano likes to relate Zen Buddhism to debating: In the current issue of Achte Minute’s op-ed ZEITGEIST, he just recently wrote about how ancient Japanese kyudo, or archery, could change the competitive character of debating. Now, in the current edition of the Monash Debating Review, Stephen relates debating to koan, usually an anecdote of a Zen adept that may be accessible through intuition rather than rational thinking. In his essay “The motion as koan: seeing debate as transformative practice”, Stephen argues that debating may change the whole person. “Does a dog have a Buddha nature?” is one of the questions the author tackles – the debater shall not approach this as a philosophical conundrum but rather make it their own problem, confronting it with their very own being.

The Monash Association of Debaters (MAD), founded in 1962 and among the top ten of the world’s best debating societies, has been publishing the Monash Debating Review (MDR) since 2002. The Review offers a unique forum for debate related issues of all kinds. Therefore, the international editorial team relies on the opinion and expertise of some of the best debaters of the world who approach debating issues from various multi-disciplinary perspectives. Hence, the editors gathered six essays from seven authors on 62 pages. The Monash Debating Review is ready for download on the website of the MAD.

apf / glx

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