Cultural Report Blog

In my cultural report, I took a rather critical approach to culture. In this approach the definition of a culture is not exactly static or all-encompassing; a critical approach to culture understands culture as constantly changing. Culture is adapted, and your position relative to that culture is significant. Martin and Nakayama indicate that "[v]iewing culture as a contested site opens up new ways of thinking about intercultural communication" (2012, p. 96). I've reaffirmed with my research that debate is certainly the ultimate site of contestation. The purpose of the activity is to clash ideas together to see who wins. When these ideas are about how debate ought to be enforced, we see cultural clash. Contestation. A struggle.

My connection to this culture is a participant and coach of several years. Not only do I have a huge investment into the activity as someone who believes in an educational approach for the students involved in the activity, but many of my closest friends -- including my significant other -- I met within the debate community. I care deeply not only about these people within the community, but about the direction the community itself chooses to take.

As a reminder, the topic I chose to engage in this project is the practice of debaters shaping the way debate as an activity functions from within the activity itself. Many of this is on the basis of racial or cultural inequities inherent to the activity. For instance, that debate always affirms action from the federal government may distance persons of color from discourses about self-empowerment outside of the state. I've noticed a few themes:

Competition vs. Activist space: an issue of framing

Many view debate as a competition. That teams attempting to change the format of the activity are seeking to win a competition cannot be ignored, even if their advocacy is genuine. That it must be structured within a competitive framework means that certain arguments are affected. One story I heard about a round involved a revolutionary team actually conceding the round to get their message across, but changing their mind and deciding they wanted to win. This was perceived by the judge of the round as disingenuous and resulted in a win for the other team.

This is an example of one of the idiosyncrasies of debate itself (the competition) influencing and even crowding out the social project. For those who view debate as a competition, this is not a huge problem; however, many view debate as a space for advocacy and expression. Under this view, winning is not necessarily the goal of the round. When in conflict, the idea of competition generally seems to win out amongst most debaters and coaches, which is one of the reasons why I suspect these projects face challenges in implementing real change.

Privilege and accessibility

Many teams seeking to reform debate consist of persons of color or other socially subjugated groups. In some instances, however, relatively privileged persons chose to join in. These instances were often uncomfortable for some judges. One said that "Hearing a bunch of wealthy suburban white kids talk about black empowerment doesn't seem fully genuine". The problem here is that a movement started by a counter-culture is being taken over by members of the dominant structure. Combine this with the quest for winning rounds and you have a devastating formula: the use of the suffering of disadvantaged populations to create competitive success. In other words: Debate is flawed because it excludes people who aren't like you and me, so you should vote for this white person for acknowledging that.

Not exactly a persuasive story. This is another challenge that revolutionary teams face.

What we can learn

I think we can learn that it is important to give people a space for their argument. If someone can justify an alternative framework for evaluation, then that framework cannot be discounted. A rejection of the topic in favor of a criticism of debate as a practice may seem unconventional and even logically inconsistent, but these teams are justifying their stance by demonstrating how practices like speed-reading and emphasis on academic privilege exclude some populations from public discourses.

In layman's terms, this means that we should evaluate arguments on their own terms. Take a step back and forget about whether or not you agree. Is the argument valid? Is a reasonable point being made, with claims to support it not vastly outweighed by claims against it? If so, it may be worth hearing, even if it challenges everything you even believe.

Works Cited

Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2012). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.