Take it from this documentary junkie, “Resolved” is one of the better documentaries I’ve seen in a couple of years, and lucky for you it’s playing on demand on HBO and is available via Netflix.
“Resolved” trains an eye on high school debate competitions and the peculiar traditions that make them so competitive, also basing a large portion of the movie on the fact that the upper eschalons compete on arguably classist and racist terms. But most interesting is the introduction of the underdog team, Louis and Richard, a duo of African-American students from inner city Los Angeles whose debate coach introduces them to Paolo Freire and the pedagogy of the oppressed, and in addition to a meta-narrative questioning debate tradition itself, Louis and Richard interject a radical streak into the classical banking-style debate model that turns the tournament of champions on its head. Sadly the trailer above doesn’t highlight the underdog team as much as it should, especially since they are the overall focus of the film, but trust me, it’s well worth your time to see these two in action.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in social change — especially for Freire-philes — because, though some of their results are frustrating, it demonstrates how effective and moving are our attempts at remodeling culture from the inside out and outside in.
I caught this the other night on cable. As a former high school and college debater, I found that things haven’t changed much on the circuit in the last 25-30 years.
I tried mocking “the style” a few times –to no avail– in the hope of earning ballots from judges who also didn’t see the point of a “who can read the fastest” contest.
I was only in HS debate for two years (the more hardcore people were 4 year starters), but it was just so objectively fucking ridiculous. The preparation (going to libraries and getting choice quotes) was the best part, but I imagine that’s been ruined by the internet with its spurious information and rotten tubes. It was a really strange, insular culture that didn’t seem to bear much relation to any real-life situation, unless going auctioneer at a DMV worker would help you.
To date myself: the two main topics approved by the Texas UIL during my somewhat unsuccessful career were something like “Resolved: we should stop fucking around in Central America” (the damage had already been done, incidentally) and “Resolved: we should kill the old and harvest their precious bodily fluids.”
Did every resolution end in nuclear war?
Yes, and it’s too bad that tactic never worked out in dating situations. C’mon, baby, NUCLEAR WAR! Read the index cards!
Did every resolution end in nuclear war?
Oh yeah. That was the deal back in ‘77. And still the deal now.
The debate strategy called SPREAD seems to only suit to those who can think and pick up fast..I was watching the video and I can’t even understand a word they were saying..I think in a debate the most important thing to consider is you being able to deliver your arguments as clear as possible..
I was briefly (IE: two tournaments) a debater at McGill, but by that time I was 24 years old, having gone through high-school and University without knowing that organized debate happened outside of the movies. I found it intriguing, so I hung around, got to know them.
Most of them had debated in high-school (in fact one was something of a minor celebrity in New York State debating circles), some American, some Canadian. But I didn’t hear any auctioneers, and the format of debating we used was far more improvisational and informal.
I was terrible. There was something of a vocabulary (stylistic, not literal) and I wasn’t well versed in it. I remember winning a round in my second tournament my repeating “body sovereignty” (a popular argument that year) in opposition to force-feeding anorexics, and winning another by arguing “rich people get an unnecessary free ride” in opposition to some severely outclassed military college kids who argued in favour of universal free University education. Which is to say I only won when I was able to give the “WTF?” argument to way-out proposition (in fact, one of the first things they told us in noob training was never to propose free universal university, since it was so easy to oppose). It didn’t help that I adopted a forceful slightly fire-and-brimstone voice-of-wisdom style, when all the vets recommended that beginners start meek-and-well-reasoned.
I hated it. I have very little fear of public speaking, but a even less patience for artificial oppositional exercises. The only things I was consistently good at was giving “cross-bench floor speeches”, floor speeches being post-scripts by audience members contributing (after the fact) to the debate, cross-bench meaning not taking a side, but pointing out flaws on both sides, offering a reconciliation, or pointing out important issues that had been overlooked. I can’t handle simplistic arguments, I can’t handle false controversy, and I can’t handle meaningless competition. That was debate, as I saw it. It made my teeth itch, so I quit.
I was, however, a good judge, and I was a fantastic runner, which were the behind-the-scenes people to make sure all the debaters and judges, and the results after the rounds, got to the right place at the right time. I got to carry a walkie-talkie.
So, debate drove me nuts, but the world is fascinating. The thing that scares me is that this is how we prep out keeners in politics and law. God forbid we have organized clubs and events wherein we openly question our own beliefs and understanding in a collaborative environment for mutual illumination.
I hung out with feminists and Filipinos for the rest of the year.
Debates, however, sometimes veer quickly from fine displays of logic to acts of immaturity–a reflection of the tensions experienced by young people learning to think as adults.
I debated both in high school and college, with some success….and even debated with many of the people interviewed in the documentary as coaches. I can say that the arguments that Long Beach used, the inherent elitism of debate as an activity, were used ten years ago as well, and perhaps better. The difference is the personal stake the two kids had in utilizing the arguments…that the implicit uneven playing field in the activity had a personal impact on them and their lives. The competitive equivalent of a high school football team complaining to a referee that the other team had more money for equipment and more time to practice, and that, therefore, they should automatically win the game. Long Beach, however, would object to the idea of debate ideally being a competitive activity and would claim that such a characterization precludes it from the sort of truth seeking academic activity that it should be. The inherent contradiction in that approach, as brought up in the film, is that you can’t claim that the activity shouldn’t be competitive, that wins and losses and illusory or oppressive, and then end that argument by saying “vote for me”.