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The Importance Of Being In The Policy Debate

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Debate is an activity that has existed for an extremely long time. People all over the world have participated in debates, whether a debate in a formal setting or a friendly argument between acquaintances. Policy debate is a form of debate in which high schoolers and college students discuss policy ideas to fix problems happening in society. This has also expanded to include philosophical ideas to fix social situations. Numerous students enter debate hoping to learn skills that could help them one day to actually fix the problems of the status quo. This idea of why students do debate begs the question of “How does being in the policy debate community change and/or support one’s desire for creating change in the broader community?” In regard …show more content…

When debaters read the 1AC they read scenarios that will cause a catastrophe in the current society that we live in and that ends in violence or extinction as referenced in “There will always be War.” However, since at the end of every round no matter who the judges votes for everyone knows that nothing changes. This seems to be problematic as the extinction scenario becomes immensely likely as nothing will change for the foreseeable future and the scenario outlined in the 1AC will never be addressed. This can actually change debaters into people without fear, those who have overcome the fear of death. This is made clear in the evidence “Fear of Death” which is a piece of evidence which illustrates debaters critiquing people’s use of death in their 1AC’s. It might seem that this would cause unscrupulous debate as great risk impacts like global warming can never be discussed. However, this argument only creates better debate. It asks for an explanation of the violence rather than the number counting which is commonly done. This brings insight to how the death occurs and the types of suffering that lead to these death, to construct us as less sanitized to violence and death and that better mobilizes us as activists and creators of …show more content…

In the “Help will always be there” evidence it is evident that debaters will always help other debaters. This also references the evidence in which people in debate feel superior for the reason that they feel that helping others makes them better than those who don’t. This also applies to those who run affirmatives in which they discuss social issues that affect minorities, since they feel the need to help those in pain, however most claim to be a part of that minority. Nevertheless, the debate community is full of people who believe that they are actually creating change when they debate. This is evident in the piece of evidence called “Differing Views of Debate.” Both teams were willing to risk the round to chance seeing that they felt like the debate space is a place for education and community and that a discussion of issues would be more productive in creating change. However, no one else is the room to hear this discussion and thus the ideas and messages conveyed during the discussion wouldn’t likely move far past the room. On the other hand, as indicated in the evidence “Why we do debate,” there is a whole heap to learn by doing debate. The author of this comment clearly shows the valuable skills one learns from doing debate such as, greater political knowledge, better speaking skills, greater philosophical knowledge, and research skills. These can all shape the student to

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