debate?

[asterroc]

Anyone here been on debate team ever? What is permissable? I'm specifically trying to figure out if name-calling and cursing are considered "debate". This comes from some trashtalking people on parrot_lovers were doing of me in the name of debate. To me it's a flame war, not a debate. Debate includes civil rational discussion with the presentation of facts and arguments, and the criticism of said facts/arguments, without ad hominem attacks. Flame wars consist primarily of personal attacks.

Comments

[blue102.livejournal.com]

Kudos to you - you handled that extremely well. Probably better than I would have. :)

I was on the Speech and Debate team in HS, although I didn't personally do debate, I can clearly say that cursing and name-calling would have been frowned upon. WTF, indeed!

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Good good, that's what I thought. Nice to know I'm NOT losing my mind.

oops, messed that up...

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Hm, get a load of this one:

Considering that I am the one who stated you do a stupid thing, I will be the first to say that I did not say *you* are stupid or imply that in any way. Doing something stupid does not have anything to do with the intelligence of the person.

So to take this to an extreme, saying a person rapes children doesn't imply that they're a child rapist? Raping children has nothing to do with the person being a child rapist. So I guess she won't mind it if a person who has repeatedly raped children were to move in next door to her.

I guess I understand what she means to say, but I do not agree with her. It's SUCH a fine line that I'd need an electron microscope to tell the difference.

Oy. Reminds me of a post I wanted to write...

Re: oops, messed that up...

[blue102.livejournal.com]

Yeah... you are what you do, right? Because you can't be something that you don't do. I kind of see what she's trying to say but I disagree as well.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

There are instances where I'd agree with her - for example, smart people often do stupid things by mistake like pull on push doors or forget to carry the one in addition. However, in this instance we were discussing my well-thought out reasoning as to why I don't throw out all my Teflon. I spent a lot of time thinking about it. Therefore the things I say and do are deliberate, and insulting what I say/do is an insult to the thought process that got me there, and therefore to me.

It was also doubly insulting to me because she said that my attempt to bring in statistics was "bullshit to justify my carelessness." Um, no, it's an attempt to apply an objective viewpoint to the situation. Insulting and ignorant.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

The other issue though to "you are what you do" or "you are what you have done" is the implication that people cannot change. I'll have a post related to this probably tonight, and it's gonna be friends-locked.