That should hardly be news. It is up to parents to teach history and a philosophy of history. Public schooling has went full on post modernist indoctrination.
Here we see a bunch of (white, male) kids, all of whom are supposed to be experts in persuasive rhetoric, who have been trained to make arguments in a way that is utterly unpersuasive to anyone who has not spent years steeping in the world of academic debate. In fact, not only is it unpersuasive to the untrained ear, it is actively off-putting -- difficult and unpleasant to listen to.
Their method demonstrates both of the troubling points that TFA calls out:
1) They have been taught to cram more arguments into a given amount of time than their opponents can, so they race through their arguments at 350 words per minute like meth-fueled auctioneers; and
2) They have been taught to crowd out their opponents' time to make their own arguments by throwing out as many outrageous, nonsensical arguments as they can, since an argument their opponent does not refute will be scored by the judges as a point won regardless of its factual merit.
These things are fine if you see debate as a sort of abstract exercise. But if the point of debate is to train young people how to argue persuasively in the real world, they are disastrous, because they do the opposite. The "overload your opponent with nonsensical arguments" part teaches them to be aggressively obtuse, and the "spit out the words as fast as you can" part teaches them to communicate in a way that no lay person can understand or appreciate. And taken together they send the message that debating policy positions is an activity for a narrowly educated priesthood to do among themselves, not an activity in which the goal is to educate and persuade masses of normal people.
For all the good their teachers are doing these kids, they might as well be teaching them to argue in Latin. And that's a problem if you think of debate as a way to train future leaders in a democratic society.
> so they race through their arguments at 350 words per minute like meth-fueled auctioneers
Honestly, it kinda seems like they need a rule that forbids speaking faster than a certain rate, say 150 wpm or whatever a comfortable speaking rate is. I assume the debates have time limits to limit argument size, and speaking fast is just a cheap way of gaming that system. I'm surprised they've let it go on so long.
that's it in a nutshell. Modern debate has nothing to do with logic, reasoning, rhetoric, facts, persuasiveness or eloquence. It is a perversion of the concept.
This is the transcript of the first two arguments in the video. This is the winning team of a national debate.
"they say the n* is always already queers thats exactly the point it means that the impact
is that that is than an impact turn to the afraid is that that it is the case turned to the affirmative because uh uh we we are saying that queer bodies are not able to survive the necessarily means in the body uh uh the n* is not able to survive
when the n* uh sees these people uh peace and suffering that he can only uh envision himself uh that he uh does not see another n* that he uh feel sympathy for or embrace but rather uh that the other n* gets obliterated"
They may have had a good argument, but articulating it well? They're just shooting out words in a flurry in order to "win" at debate; it's incredibly hard to comprehend without a transcript. And like the original article stated, this is pretty common. I remember my friend doing the same thing when he was in debate.
I posted it, and your implication of some deeper reason is rubbish. Race or sex has zero to do with anything. The reason I chose this video is due to the stunning contrast between the news reporter describing the "debate" team's win as a high-brow achievement and a calm discussion of the merits of the debate along with the preparation, etc. which paint a picture of intellectual refinement, cut with the video full of racist n-words peppered with "uh uh uh" which exposes the event to be a sham.
It is a sham. The video is a study in contrast. THAT is what made it effective to expose the absurdity of the "win", and probably why you don't like it.
I notice you called it a "dog whistle" in a different comment, which I resent. That term seems to be a favorite term of the political left synonymous with "this doesn't agree with my worldview so I'm going to cast it as a racist viewpoint to shut down debate. I will insinuate racism where it doesn't exist."
I mean, maybe that's true, but does that negate what I said?
Also, if you could link more examples, I'd love to see them. I'm amused by the fast talking, but City Cleveland high school or whatever dominates the first few results on YouTube and jumping around, I see only a mild form of it.
EDIT: actually, I just saw that 2 minutes ago someone posted another example! :)
