Debate culture in 2024/2025

This is going to upset the right people if anyone even sees it; if it upsets you, then great, you’re the right audience. 

The most accurate generalization one can make in this day and age with all the intersectionality and nuance of the world is this:

Americans are god-awful, horrible at debating, yet we somehow allow them to dominate the online sphere. Please leave debate alone; you’re ruining it for the rest of us with all of your tomfoolery. First off, please learn the formula in which debate is had, both in general and professionally. Second off, when you stop regurgitating the indoctrination your country has groomed into you as fact, when there is absolutely no evidence to support such ludicrous claims, then I’ll hear you out. Third off, you cannot expect to even have a productive conversation when you’re coming to the table disingenuously, with no room to listen, learn, and possibly have your mind changed. Fourth thing, in the space of debate, you cannot make such generalizations based on YOUR experiences. “Well, I experience this ____, so everyone does too,” or “Well, I don’t experience ___, so everyone doesn’t.” YOU CANNOT MAKE SUCH GENERALIZED CLAIMS FOR SUCH A WIDE MAJORITY OFF OF YOUR OWN SUBJECTIVE, INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE. 

Americans suffer from so many internal conflicts that their “great nation” teaches them they should just stay far away from talking about global issues/dilemmas. You cannot approach a conversation effectively from a place of self-centeredness, individualism, willful ignorance, lack of education, lack of empathy in general as a concept, apathy, or even just lacking critical thinking, thorough reading skills, and comprehension. You need equal parts emotion and intellect to form a logical conclusion; emotion is motivation, takes into account a large portion of the human experience, and regulates your argument to remain thoughtful and decent. Intellect is the process in which you explain the thought process behind your argument while also validating the argument factually, giving it a basis in the real world, the objective experience we all share. 

Me enforcing the fact that if you lack key components of debate, essentially saying that your understanding of word definitions, concepts, nuance/intersectionality, and how to do research are all not up to par to debate is not argumentum ad hominem. Whenever an American tries using that as a “gotcha,” I just ignore it; I can’t expect someone to make that claim accurately while their entire argument is purely based in argumentum ad authority. I don’t come to debate to hear the opponent go on about “well, he said/she said”; neither do I join to hear your life story. In the debate of shared experiences, the last thing I want to hear is your life story for a bigger portion than what should be allocated to it. For the most part, I ignore silly, repetitive arguing. I shouldn’t have to explain back to you the fallacies, contradictions, and blatant stupidity in what you’ve said the entire debate; I’m meant to be focusing on structuring my own debate. I also see Americans having a habit of jumping straight to the fact-checking portion before even making a fucking case for their argument. Like, if you have no case built, then what the fuck are you proving?. Fact-checking is important, sure, but when you follow the formula of debate, again, what the hell are you doing if you’ve jumped like 5 years into the future to “prove” your unestablished claim?. 

How can I build my case with a strong, reliable foundation, and just as I’m preparing to move forward with my proceedings, damn Cletus over here has quoted Donald Trump (argumentum ad authority in its purest form) as his opening status, again HAS ONLY JUST DONE HIS OPENING STATEMENT and is already asking me to “prove” my claim before I’m fully ready??. Debate isn’t the same as arguing; it doesn’t play. If you can’t keep up, if you’re holding yourself to lower standards than your competitors, if you’re actively breaking debate rules and denying empirical data and facts to push your agenda, because it’s not even a point of defense, I suggest you drop out of the race, man. I don’t claim to know everything; that is why I enjoy debating. I want to learn and grow while sharing why I’m passionate about backing my claim, and that is the true nature of debate. Americans seem to think that the exclusive point of debate is to “prove the other side wrong,” that it’s some game of superiority and inferiority; this could not be further from what debating is actually about. 

I refuse to give anyone the time of day who cherry-picks what is true. The bickering, aggression, and the willingness to be loud and incorrect would be insulting to my intellect and valuable time if I were to entertain it, so I don’t. Often ignoring this type of behavior ignites an uncalled-for reaction out of the person in possession of it; they feel insulted that I will not waste room in my mind for their nonsense. What do I say to that? As you should be. I personally think directing such thoughts towards being ashamed of your reaction and behavior would be more productive while also acknowledging that you’re wasting debate time with theatrics, but in a world full of betas, that’s just my alpha opinion. The reality is, I know too much; I’m far too intelligent and educated to be teaching a classroom full of kindergarteners in bodies of supposed adults. Me being 16 has nothing to do with my credibility; you can learn a lot more through listening, observation, and reading as opposed to the objective length of experience on this earth. Being old and physically matured does not automatically mean that your psyche has caught up to that maturity. I do not care if you’re 3 years old or 60 years old; if you have a perspective worth inspection, I’ll stick around to learn more about it. 

I will not have conversations debating the logistics of subjective experiences and going around in circles with people who think that we can logically, objectively measure those concepts. I know enough to know that I can not make a definitive, objective judgment about the subjective reality of others if the only subjective reality I can truly measure and perceive is my own. No matter what you try to fabricate, the truth is that you will only ever know your own subjective experience, as those are tailored to you based on your personal beliefs, experiences, how you process information in relation to yourself, and genetic components, such as preferences, predispositions, and your innate sense of your own identity; they are predetermined and hardwired specifically to you. We may have some shared subjective experiences, but they’ll always be individual to varying degrees. As humans, we have the beauty of being unique; this is why, while identical twins look very alike, they are nowhere near the same person. How they subjectively perceive our world, the objective plane, will be individual to the person. Our environment and how we respond to it are both different physiologically and psychologically, with also more shared experiences being different across societies, cultures, differing environments, geographical regions, social groups, etc. The innate nuance across the abstract human experience is truly incredible if you ignore specific social constructs like gender, race, sexual orientation, nationality, ethnicity/culture, etc. 

My point is, I don’t read, I don’t learn, and I don’t observe all of this knowledge just to be having petty arguments. I want to be taught; I want to teach. Debating is merely the professional way of exchanging information and perspectives on issues, dilemmas, and phenomena we encounter as humans with our complex social and environmental systems and structures. Disagreements are welcome if they meet a standard in which the elaboration of it would be worthwhile in the end. Our world is much bigger than what the average person knows, and that’s totally okay; if we all knew everything, then life would be boring. What I personally don’t appreciate is these “average people” ruining this space for big, complex conversations to be had, unable to admit that they don’t fully understand debate or merely the point they’re defending; therefore they think the space is for arguing who is right and wrong, ruining the enjoyment for us who do understand.

Trying to keep my composure around those who treat the debate space as a joke, I must admit they do frustrate me. While my feelings are obviously valid and I am entitled to them, operating off of common decency, I must control my outward presence as best I can when in the company of others. This is another point I would like to bring to the attention of Americans: social etiquette, common decency, and the behavior you are expected to portray while in social situations. You don't have to particularly like or respect someone, but as a human being, you do have somewhat of a responsibility to present yourself in such a way that it causes the least amount of harm to yourself and others as possible. While your feelings are valid, that fact does not justify the collateral damage done by the reaction you chose to have, the damage to the person or thing that caused the feeling, the environment, and the other beings in the situation, both fellow human and animal. We all have a responsibility to keep the environments we share as harmonious as we can manage; that means everyone does their part to just keep the peace if there is no immediate threat present. Americans miss this; they don't think that while participating in the world, they have no responsibility to basic respect for others in the space or control their own behavior. 

Anyways, what a first blog! I've had a few ideas in mind, but I suppose my passion for this topic in particular has taken precedence over others. This topic has had my "knickers" in a twist; I will admit, the sheer amount of bullshit sets me off, truly. I hope you enjoyed this read; it's just short of 2,000 words as I'm writing this sentence, which is impressive for me. I'm not much of a writer in general. Comments on this and discussion are welcome, of course; however, I can tell if you read the first couple of sentences, got triggered, and are voicing that opinion in the comments. If you actually read and understood what I've put in front of you, then the reply you make will match the energy. You will know that the criticisms are directed at the triggered, uninformed ones who obviously didn't read the entire blog and jumped to conclusions. They know who they are, and if you got this far, you know that the criticisms are for them and not for you. That's all from me. Any questions, elaborations you'd like to see, or more content suggestions are also appreciated! . 

See ya later, alligator.