Freedom of Speech is not Enough

Freedom of Speech is not Enough

Tom Ogg

You know, Glaucon, it’s extraordinary how powerful the influence of debating technique can be
Plato, The Republic

Philosophers and politicians axiomatically tell us that debate is crucial to the democratic process and enthuse about its capacity to encourage civic engagement, intellectual development and ultimately a greater dispersal of knowledge across the population. Less recognised is the significance of how you debate, as Plato has Socrates blithely point out above. This article examines the nature of Popper’s effort when he described his attitude to knowledge that “I may be wrong and you may be right, but by an effort, we may get closer to the truth.” Society is based upon a set of ideas, and those ideas are the products of debate. If those ideas are stagnant, so will be society. Imagine if all debates were only as good as the worst you have seen. My point is that freedom of speech is not enough, even a lot of debate is not good enough - for a lack of good debate unacceptably slows the development of the ideas that drive society as would no debate at all.
John Stuart Mill argues in On Liberty that lack of debate robs the human race of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth, or what is just as important, the clear perception and livelier impression of the truth, produced by its collision with error a. There is a legitimacy attached to winning a debate, because those winners have gotten closer to the truth than any other. Truth drives man forward, shapes his experiences and his passions, and losing possibly the greatest means to the truth will certainly cause progress to falter (CITATION). Lack of rigorous, engaged and constructive debate smothers truth. It prevents a proper understanding of the important issues of the day and crucially, prevents a satisfactory assessment of ideas contemporary and aged.
Parliamentary debating, loosely based upon the proceedings of the House of Commons, dominates our educational institutions and consequently public discussion on all topics has been permeated by the spirit and practice of this form of debate. If you have ever taken part in competitive debating, at school or elsewhere, it is highly likely that this was the technique used. I believe there is a problem with the way we have been taught to debate, and consequently the development predicted in Mill’s grand vision above by debate is not as it should be. I believe that Parliamentary debating is a source of the estrangement from debating which is often expressed by many otherwise intellectually engaged and thoughtful people. There is a sense that it is no longer possible to learn through debate (CITATION), for truth to emerge from debate, for audience or debater to learn from debate. I think this is because winners of parliamentary debating need not have necessarily gotten closest to the truth in debate, that the debate often does not even approach developing the audience’s understanding of a subject, and consequently the legitimacy I spoke of above is lost. Furthermore, the negativity and flippancy of parliamentary debate promotes a polished but pervading scepticism which borders upon cynicism. This is a sad state of affairs. Mill argued the price for the “intellectual pacification” of censorship was the “sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind” (CITATION). Censorship prevents debate, but if debate is distrusted and despised regardless, then this culture of estrangement could prove to have the same effect, being equally lethal to man’s convictions.
Parliamentary Debating works through long speeches which are (usually) prepared beforehand but which should be delivered extemporously (off the cuff). Usually each side takes it in turns to speak, attacking the opposition’s speech which precedes it whilst forwarding an argument for their own side. In the speech there must be a constructive case, which must be as immune to attack as possible, well researched, authoritative and persuasive. To excel at parliamentary debate, you need style- sounding confident, persuasive, keeping the audience’s attention, good intonation and body language. These speeches can be interrupted by “points of information”- very short points asking a question, pointing out a weakness in an argument, or challenging a fact. It is within speeches that all the actual engagement takes place- all rebuttals, responses to criticism and debater interaction takes place here. Debaters are encouraged to ‘think your feet’, making criticisms throughout the speech or beginning their presentation by attacking the opposition. Strategy is important in parliamentary debating, in using the tools available to best undermine the opposition (i.e. points of information, the structure of the speeches, turning the debate to what you want to talk about).
Now, the key part to any debating technique is the act of engagement itself- debater interaction if you will. This is the most significant part of any debating technique because it determines the spirit in which the competition takes place, and most crucially the effectiveness in developing and defending arguments in order for audience and debaters to gain from debate. In Parliamentary Debating this takes the form of the ‘rebuttal’. The rebuttal is where you attack and undermine the opposition’s arguments, point by point, contradicting their facts and the value judgements made upon them. Michael Gove, editor of the Saturday Times and former President of the Oxford Union1 is a keen defendant of the parliamentary debating tradition. In an article on debate2 he advises debaters to “attack, attack, attack. However convincing your own arguments, victory in debate goes to the side that can most effectively undermine the other.” He sees debating as “seeking to persuade by bankrupting the alternative view”.
However the problem is not so much debaters being critical and attacking the opposition’s arguments, but that this is all that debaters are asked to do. The audience and debaters miss out on the most crucial and interesting part of debate, where the arguments are further developed and defended, where a single issue or argument is explored in depth by both teams and some intellectual progress is made. In other words, lines of argument are explored in more depth, defended with additional examples or modified in the light of criticism to be a stronger and more convincing point overall. This usually occurs when debaters are put under pressure by the opposition or someone else to give better answers to the core problems. For example, in the Edinburgh 2004 heat of Debating Matters, a new competition run by the Institute of Ideasb, the judges pushed the debaters on the key questions of ‘exactly who will regulate the internet? Who will ensure the regulators do the right thing? Why should they censor, what should they censor and how?’ The debaters were forced to clarify the issues and the debate was far better for it- we understood the stances of the teams, what they were saying and the problems with their arguments became clearer. More than just the initial challenge to the debaters, there must be a mechanism for a ‘come-back’, where after initial explanation are given, further criticism is put forward, responded to, and in rare situations, criticism and response gained again. Without a sufficient and prolonged time of interaction between critic and respondent allowing criticism to be developed and responded to from an intellectual standpoint debate becomes stagnant and uninteresting. To achieve this intellectual progress, it’s normally a matter of constraining the debate one specific aspect, and forcing each side to respond properly to the criticisms of the other- this requires some form of flexible interaction between protagonists. This is often the problem with many debates on television and radio; the debates are too disparate and discursive for intellectual progress to be made. My proposal is that we should force debaters to respond to serious criticism, because if we do not we condemn countless debates to be pointless affairs where no arguments are developed and the standards of intellectual debate fall.
Parliamentary debating does not do this because of the constraining effect of the speeches. It is a formidable challenge to combine the positive justifications and arguments for a case with rebuttals, accurate citations and calm explanations all within one speech. I think it is asking too much to do this and expect an engaged debate where arguments are developed further than initial responses, or expect criticism to be well thought out. It would seem to take a great set of speechmakers for any sort of intellectual progress to be possible, with the bad debaters gaining little from the experience. But surely everyone who has done some research and is willing to discuss an issue should be able to gain from debate to some extent, if set up right, but the lack of experience of parliamentary debating denies those new to parliamentary debate the chance to use debating as a tool for intellectual engagement. This may explain why so many people are estranged from parliamentary debating- it is very difficult to gain from the technique; and those that do gain the skills of a politician rather than a citizen. Poor debaters are not challenged on their argumentative weakness, they continue in their ignorance, and are denied the chance to calmly expound what may well be good, well researched and rigorous arguments. Parliamentary debate shows a distain for these individuals and sanctions endless boring and frustrating debates!
In the absence of time to develop arguments3 in this way parliamentary debating has been forced to concentrate upon what there is possible within the format- the rebuttal. This means, first of all, that debaters are inculcated with a strong incentive to challenge any weak point within the argument of the opposition- the contradict-the-opposition-on-any-point-possible attitude. Debate gets hung up on trivial points rather than the deeper, more fundamental dividing lines between the arguments. Plato pointed out centuries ago that people get side tracked into what he called “purely verbal contradiction; they aren’t; really arguing, but only scoring points”c - it still happens today. Debating is frequently very negative, as teams are trained to destroy arguments and ideas as robustly as possible, rather than trying and get at the truth. The ideas, the principles, the very subject of the debate are far too often lost in the flurry of fur between the two teams. Debaters are not pushed intellectually, but are challenged rhetorically, at a superficial level of thought and argument. Often parliamentary debates are more like very public personality clashes rather than serious debates.
Furthermore, the culture of rebuttal gives debaters incentives to avoid genuinely addressing the question asked. Remember always that the reason we have debates is that there is an important cultural or political issue at stake which we want both the debaters and audience to genuinely consider, have a greater understanding of the facts and problems inherent in the debate, and ultimately have a better idea of where the truth lies within a particular dispute. However Parliamentary debating gives incentives to produce an internally consistent case that is best moulded to rebut the opposition’s probable arguments. Often this is the case with what is called ‘definitional debates’, where one of the teams attempts to define out of the debate a series of particularly difficult issues for that side of the debate- for example, if there was a debate on whether free trade benefits the developing world, defining free trade as either the trade situation currently, or alternatively completely free trade. Arguing about what you are arguing about is obviously boring.
Consequently, a vast majority of the parliamentary debating rules are dedicated to dealing with how to penalise definitional debates. You do see however the incentive to avoid addressing the most difficult of questions because of the huge risk of being rebutted on their proposals. Far better for a team who wants to win to avoid the questions entirely, or give answers that are so obscure that it is difficult to accurately criticise them, or use rhetorical flourishes4 to gloss over the issues. If there is a chance to respond in a lengthy way to criticism then it would not matter that they have been heavily rebutted in the initial stages. They could respond later with a further developed case which is far superior to that which was initially severely undermined. “Attack, attack, attack” without “defend, defend, defend” makes debaters far too conservative in their positive cases such that debaters are taught not to defend ideas, but to cynical towards any ideas at all.
Whilst debate is uninteresting from an intellectual point of view unless debaters are forced to address serious criticism, parliamentary debates can nonetheless be very entertaining. Indeed parliamentary debaters are often some of the most impressive speakers in terms of humour, style and prima facie persuasiveness- this is a good thing. What is not so good is that attitude that it is worth little having something to say unless you put it across well. I think this is misplaced- debate should interest and enlighten first, and entertain only as a secondary to keep interest for a clash of ideas. It is due to the fact that parliamentary debating is often constrained to speeches that there is a heavy burden upon style in order to keep people’s attention for long periods of time. This is not a new development, for Karl Popper pointed out sixty years ago that “our intellectual as well as our ethical education is corrupt. It is perverted by the admiration of brilliance, of the way things are said, which takes the place of a critical appreciation of the things that are said (and the things that are done)… We are educated to act with an eye to the gallery.”d If the engagement were far more direct and explicit (although initial speeches are still necessary) this would reduce the need for humour as a clarifier and the clash of ideas itself would be interesting enough to hold the audience’s attention- brilliance public speaking skills are a bonus and a virtue but should not be central to assessing the strength of a debater.
You might say that Parliamentary Debating is overly formal- it is, but there is nothing wrong with a formality as long as it institutionalises the correct principles. However the widespread formality of greeting the “lords, ladies, gentlemen, esteemed judges” to the sort of “I will make three points” setting out of what will be argued before it is argued is useless and stuffy- a clichéd waste of time. I believe that the formality of parliamentary debate smothers the argument- there is not enough room for proper criticism and response. Debate must have some measure of formality, in that there should be some preparation for the discussion, some structure as to who speaks when and for how long, and an implied commitment to follow the debate process through to the end. The formal element is also important because it distinguishes debate from other forms of argument. Informal discussions in a bar or over dinner, email or letters, are not debating, although I think that the spirit in which debate takes place strongly affects the effectiveness of discussion or conversations because the spirit of parliamentary debate penetrates all arguments. What debate ought to be about is forcing debaters to respond to strong criticism, rather than constraining debate to speeches and intermittent points of information.
Ideally, we want debating to be as similar to the ideal form of interaction in ideas as possible. This is probably in the one-to-one situation where there is a shared assumption that each wants to learn from one-another and purposefully helps each other build their case and cooperatively highlight the weaknesses in each other’s position. In Oxford this would be recognised as the tutorial. In debate we lose this assumption, but want to gain the clarifications possible, the possibilities of following up points, and the intellectual growth possible from such conversations. The best way to ensure that we recreate such growth is by ensuring that it is made impossible to avoid directly addressing criticisms without obviously looking foolish and evasive. This can only be made possible by a very strong chair or a specific part of the structure dedicated to forcing a tighter debate on particular issues. In Debating Matters, the judges themselves challenge the debaters to respond to key criticisms, and come back on their answers. This also has the virtue of helping to clarify where the debate is to be had- the debate gains a focus on the issues that separate the teams become clear quickly, and the problems that that the opposing teams must solve are highlighted. In the society I run, the Hive, I think it is both the culture of the individuals which make up the Hive which penalises evasiveness and the role of the chair that should ensure that criticisms are properly responded to and lines of argument followed through.
Rather than a battle between two teams, as such, debate should be about two teams tussling with the truth. You should know a good debate because the audience and debaters leave with a far greater understanding of the issue at hand. The criterion for winning a debate, I believe, should be the production of the best possible arguments for a position, their effective application against the opposition (including rebuttal), and a better response to criticisms than the other team by either modifying their position or persuasively expanding their arguments explaining why no modification is needed. The point of debating is for debaters and audience to gain from the discussion on the level of ideas and understanding, not to train people to make speeches or prepare for parliament, although this is an important and useful skill.
There are virtues in a nation of trained sceptics. However too much scepticism quickly turns into cynicism. We must check bad ideas, sure, but if we want to see the world develop it is not just a lack of bad ideas we need, but a proliferation of good ones. Moreover, if you see debate as a cure for civic engagement, then you need individuals who are inspired into bringing about change, rather than good at shooting down foolish proposals. We need individuals trained to respond to criticism of their ideas, to be good at showing convincingly that their case is correct, adapting to criticism and developing their arguments. For the sake of a better society, we need individuals to be as good as defending good ideas as attacking bad ones. Only then will debate find the equilibrium required for truth to emerge and for error to subside.

Tom Ogg CCC, Oct 2004

A version of this paper will be published in the new journal 'Learning for Democracy'

a JS Mill, On Liberty, Ch. 2. p76 of the Penguin Edition
b http://www.instituteofideas.com/events/ideasidol.html
c Plato, The Republic, part VI [1, 454a]d Karl Popper, Open Society Chapter 25 §4
1 whose slogan “the most famous debating society in the world” nicely sums up what they value
2 21 November 2002, The Times
3 I have been influenced in my thoughts on the development of arguments by Eric L. Krug and David Rhaesa, “Socratic Techniques in debate education”, Kansas Speech Journal (date unknown)
4 I owe this phrase to the debating matters competition

I owe thanks to Dr Dennis Hayes for clarifying my thoughts for the first section, to David Perks for showing me the bigger picture of what I was arguing about, and to Patrick Hayes for sparking a thought process crucial to the core of this critique. Just to show that you’ll always forget someone on these ‘thank you’ bits, I also owe a great deal to the committee of the Hive.