For the past three years I’ve had the feeling that there needs to be more debate on campus at Fairfield. I’m still feeling that after watching the College Republicans and Democrats debate each other last Monday.
I commend both clubs for attempting to raise the intellectual discourse of students by organizing the debate, but I think the event fell short of the advertised intent of “debating the issues that really matter.” Debate implies discourse, analysis and clash. What I saw were political statements, sound bites and statistics.
Politics is perhaps the most debatable subject in the world, but they should never be debated as politicians debate. Political debate is crafted so that the least amount of clash can occur while each candidate can still spout off the statements that their speechwriters created.
Moreover, it is impossible to debate politics by trying to defend the views of one politician, which is what both sides did. While we’re all idealistic college students it would be better to talk about the issues as we see them instead of how politicians see them.
So I recommend to the democrats and republicans to drop what Kerry and Bush say-it is not coherent, consistent or reliable. Everyone there seemed intelligent, but stumbled over the obvious inconsistencies of their politician. Much more intelligible arguments could have been made without quoting the stances of the candidates.
Another problem that I saw was that there was not enough time for people to make well constructed arguments. The format would start with a question for one side, a one minute answer and then a 30-45 second rebuttal. What substantive contribution could possibly be made in 30 seconds? Debate should not be given in sound bites. That is too superficial a format. The reason why Americans have no sense of what’s going on is because we’re used to catchy, simplified summations instead of the depth that is inherent in each issue.
Lastly, there were entirely too many numbers and statistics. One College Republican even said that “all the numbers are garbage on both sides,” and I completely agree. Since everyone was quoting politicians during the debate, I’m going to quote a sardonic journalist now: Benjamin Disraeli said that “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.” You can get statistics to support anything you want them to support. A few are warranted, but the vast amount that was tossed around during the debate was useless. No one will remember those numbers and they are not impressive. They are excess baggage to sort through in an effort to get to the contentious issue.
Although it doesn’t seem like it, I’m really glad this debate took place. I think debate between these two clubs is a good step forward in the intellectual milieu on campus. I’m critical because I think it needs to be developed. So republicans and democrats: do it again, but do it better.
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