The Most Important Skill In Debate - Part 2

The Most Important Skill in All Debate, Part 2

…And no, it’s not because I think that 4 is the first number in the numerical system (see my previous post). It’s because I think it makes sense to arrange these priorities on a pyramid, like so:

#4: Winning

#3: Enjoying the activity

#2: Learning important lessons for life

#1: Glorifying God in your thoughts, words, and actions

When you look at a pyramid, your eye is drawn toward its peak. It’s the highest point, it’s the point where all four sides converge, and it’s the point you can see from farthest away. In Ancient Egypt, the tops of pyramids were sometimes covered with gold, which I imagine made for a very impressive spectacle. 

However, if you think about it, the top of a pyramid is the least important part of it. You can take it away and nothing happens to the rest of the pyramid. Yet if you start taking away stone blocks at the bottom of the pyramid, it won’t be long before your pyramid turns into a taco. This is because the layers at the bottom of the pyramid, the most insignificant layers to the average observer, are actually the most important. They hold everything else up. If they disappear, you’re left with the aftermath of a game of Jenga.  

Likewise, on the pyramid-shaped priority list of speech & debate, I believe that while the lower priorities don’t look as impressive to the average observer, they are much more important than the gold (or rather, gold-painted plastic) at the top. And while the top layer (#4) is the most eye-catching and publicly impressive priority, it is worthless if the other priorities (#1–#3) are not holding it up. As a competitive perfectionist, this is something that’s quite hard to say, but here goes: winning is among the least important things in speech & debate. 

This doesn’t mean that we should never try to win, any more than we shouldn’t put tops on our pyramids. After all, winning is kind of what debate is about. But only kind of. Debate is about so much more than winning that when this priority comes into conflict with the other three, I think it’s overall better to ditch it for the sake of what’s more important. Let’s contrast it with the other three.

The choice between winning and enjoying the activity is largely a situational one, but I think a general principle can still be applied. Some people are really gunning for it and, like any successful athlete, they know that it requires a lot of hard and sometimes unenjoyable work that will pay off in the end. That’s great! That isn’t for everyone, however, so don’t think that has to be you. Debate is a unique subject to study because there is no limit to the amount of work you can put into it, and that can foster a constant worry of “Oh no, I don’t think I’m spending enough time to be ready for the next tournament.” If it starts sucking your will to live because you think you have to chalk up 20 hours a week, perhaps reconsider whether the higher ranking you’ll get is worth the extra mental and emotional strain. 

Personally, I wish I had taken debate a little less seriously and tried to have a little bit more fun over the years. My mom can attest to the number of late-night conversations that mostly consisted of me complaining about how my cases weren’t coming along, or worrying about how they’d do at the next tournament. I’m glad I stuck with it through the highs and lows, but I wish I had put “enjoying the activity” a little higher on my pyramid. As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve known competitors who seemed to be putting so much pressure on themselves to perform, perform, perform that debate was a burden, not a joy. So while it still does depend on you and your individual goals, I’d overall say that winning is secondary to your enjoyment of the activity. Definitely put in the hard grunt work, but be careful to see how it’s affecting you overall.

The choice between winning and learning often comes when we have the opportunity to gain victory through someone else’s work. The obvious example is cheating—if you steal someone’s really great case and run it, you may win many more rounds, but you will not become a better case-writer. You will have won on paper but lost in actuality, because when speech and debate is all over and your little plastic figurines are collecting dust in a cardboard box somewhere, your knowledge-box will be deficient of the writing skills you otherwise would use for the rest of your life. It’s not worth it. 

However, cheating is something that’s glaringly wrong; there are less obvious ways to sacrifice learning on the altar of winning, like solely running cases and using briefs that other people have written for you and given you to use. If you find that most of what you say in a debate round consists of copied-and-pasted sourcebook cases and responses your older brother told you to say, consider whether you are actually learning the most you can from the experience. As I tell my students, when you’re in a job interview and your prospective employer asks you a tough question, you won’t be able to ring up your old debate coach and have him feed you an answer. You will have to figure it out yourself, so start developing those skills now! And don’t think that gaining more theoretical points on a ranking system outweighs the opportunity to become a more independent, articulate, and winsome person for life.

(Don’t get me wrong: I am not discouraging buying casebooks. Sourcebook cases can be a good learning opportunity in and of themselves, especially for those who are first starting out but have no idea where to begin, and for those who are trying to get a pre-tournament heads-up on what everyone else is likely to argue. The caution is just to beware how you are using them. There’s a difference between imitation—one of the classically recognized modes of learning—and rote regurgitation. Make sure to use someone else’s brain as a booster for your own brain, not as a replacement for it.)

Another thing to clarify: a lot of the time, winning and learning go hand-in-hand. New skills that you develop will improve your chances of success, and you learn what works and what doesn’t when you get your results back. Don’t see these two priorities as enemies of each other. However, there are instances where you can choose one at the expense of the other, so that’s what we’re talking about right now. When you have to make those choices, do consider taking the hard route for now which will bless you in the end. Winning should be a side-effect of learning; learning should not be an afterthought of winning.

Take it from someone who was blessed with a moment of success in the world of debate: Your trophies will eventually sit on a shelf somewhere and few people will ever see them. Your name will be on old web pages that will only be occasionally viewed. In a few years, people will hardly even remember your name. That is the nature of winning, all the way from every novice who finally got a 4-2 to every national champion. That doesn’t mean winning is not important; far from it, it is a huge blessing and a goal to be striven after! But it is the lesser reward. So don’t shoot for the lesser prize by sacrificing the greater one.

How 1000 words goes by fast when you’re writing about something you really care about! Next time, we’ll talk about the contrast between winning and glorifying God.