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.

Reclaiming the Legitimacy of Debate

Thomas Ogg

First published in the Owl Journal, 16th February 2005

The Oxford Union conducts Parliamentary Debating. It is a public area, where politics is played out - the great and the good come to spin out their arguments. It is fair because everyone gets their say, at length. It is good because, as we are constantly told, it is the most famous debating society in the world, and can therefore attract the leading men and women on this planet to address the students of Oxford. It is, however, greatly limited.
Countless speaker societies also attract the great and the good to Oxford. They bring together the ambitious souls of Oxford and the 'like minded'. Through them we probe the thoughts and observations of the elite, and we bring our questions to them in an attempt to further our understanding.
However, neither of these Oxford monoliths are what we should demand as intelligent, engaged students who will later shape the world we now seek to understand. Neither genuinely offers the opportunity to subject ideas to a rigorous examination. Neither encourage us to bitterly yet genuinely argue out the important issues in politics, philosophy and society. I have consequently founded a society in an attempt to address my misgivings about the way we argue in Oxford, and in this piece I intend to demonstrate what is wrong with the present systems and set out my arguments for change.
In Oxford we are too deferential to the arguments of speakers we invite to our institutions, yet paradoxically, when we do attack them we are all too often cynical and arrogant. We all on occasion disagree with speakers - we should have the confidence to argue it out with them. Moreover, we should build institutions that allow us to do this. Speaker societies are pitifully weak - if you invite someone eminent to give a general talk, the substance of which can frequently be found in their published work, it might seem that the sole reason for inviting them would be to network, with speakers and other ambitious souls, and possibly enjoy a meal at the expense of the Society. For some it is - but a talk with questions is an exercise in understanding a position, gaining insights and information, learning the dynamics and assumptions of an argument. This is good. However, I don't believe we can truly understand the meaning of an argument without testing it, without struggling with it and baring oneself in a shared forum. As Mill said, we gain "the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error." There is something special about open debate, the collision of ideas, which we have not experienced as we should.
We are young, inexperienced, and have read little. We do not really know what we believe politically. We do not understand where society is going today, nor its past. Not genuinely. Hence it seems strange to me that we form societies based upon our perceived political affiliation - surely we are only going to affirm our prejudices, rather than test them. I think that before networking up the political ladder we should spend more time working out our own politics. I'm not pessimistic about our ability as students to understand and argue about the world - on the contrary, it is now that we can begin to form our judgements about the world, through reading and experience, and gain more sophisticated beliefs with an ever increasing rigour and insight. We can find out what we want to change and how we want to change it. My suggestion is that, for those of us who care about politics, university should be about helping each individual work out where they stand. Ideas should be tested, and we should test our own prejudices by arguing with those who put forward those ideas. We should aspire to debate properly.
Unfortunately, parliamentary debating in the Oxford Union does not serve these ends. True, it trains our contemporaries to be politicians, to network and please all, to talk a lot and say nothing and to know precisely how to persuade and win an argument by any means. These skills are useful and many are virtues. The demands of parliamentary debate - analytical rigour, strategy, command of an audience, deep understanding through research - are formidable. They serve a purpose in training our public speakers and equipping them with skills of persuasion. But that is not the purpose we should come to university, neglect our essays and sacrifice relationships for. We should value the development of good ideas, rigorous arguments and insightful observations. We should value institutions that help us to examine ideas, argue about politics - because politics is important - and engage with fellow students.
We should do more of the obvious things. We should attempt to follow the logic of an argument as far as we can, to understand its assumptions and the fundamental assumptions which divide people. How? Preparation - knowing what the issues are before the debate, and pursuing them. Following individual points through - debate is a messy process, but we can help clean it up by, for example, returning to someone who has just been criticised for a response, perhaps even returning again. By asking the audience respond to each other's points, and not returning to the speaker after each point. Understanding the issues and attempting to break them down so that each claim can be understood and fought over within the debate.
We should argue with each other far, far more. Oxford students sit in political meetings as if they were going to watch a film, consuming the virtues handed down from the speaker and enjoying the show, before scuttling back to the library to write an essay. I think we should be prepared to argue with each other within and beyond the event, student to student, on our beliefs and assumptions. We should debate, and fight, with each other and more importantly with speakers. No speaker has the divine right of truth - we should criticise, propose other views, demand clarifications, and make the speaker feel that they must persuade, not preach.
Ultimately, speakers come to the Oxford Union, in the context of Parliamentary Debate, to persuade, to rally the troops, build support - to win the argument in front of others. Clearly, this reflects the British Parliament the technique is built upon. Debate in this sense is in the public sphere, where, as a society, we struggle with the truth and build our ability to make political choices. It is not where we, as students, should have our main involvement. It may be a crucial way to grow to understand the world, to understand contemporary political conflicts and struggles, but unfortunately it is precisely because such debate is in the public sphere of real politics, that it is limited.
In Parliamentary Debate, as practised at the Oxford Union and elsewhere, there are few ways for the protagonists to interact. They give long explanations for their position, or more often why the opposition is wrong, but rarely can a speaker be successfully challenged, except rhetorically. Few have mastered the format. It is too easy to do badly (because it is such a challenge) and so we lose out. Parliamentary debate privileges details while core problems are lost in the flurry of fur between the two sides and it prioritises rebuttal. As Michael Gove once put it, you must "attack, attack, attack" and "seek to persuade by bankrupting the alternative view". The problem is that without the corresponding "defend, defend, defend" we never get to see the arguments developed. We do not see a clash of ideas because the formality prevents it. We miss out on the most crucial and interesting part of debate, where the arguments are further developed and defended, where a single issue or line of argument is explored in depth, defended with additional examples or modified in the light of criticism to become a stronger and more convincing point overall. We do not get the chance to see why a common criticism is irrelevant, how we might have misconceived the problem or why some issue not yet discussed is important. Finally, it often leads to cynicism in students who experience it and participants realise they can get away with glib, unprepared and ill thought out arguments. Bad arguments are not exposed, good arguments are not expanded, and we are the worse for it. The Union could do some these things- especially through the role of the librarian - and so could other societies on Oxford. More often (but not always), they should abandon the hegemony of the question and answer session and the rigidity of fixed speeches in favour of a more fluid and dialogue based form of debate.
What is the legitimacy of debate? Through debate we create and discover truth. Ultimately we cannot alter the fact that the truth is known, at best, by persuading all others that we are right. As Mill pointed out, that "complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right". Through debate we examine our assumptions and arguments, and gain a better understanding of arguments. Speakers should gain from debate because they are challenged by students. More importantly, students should learn from debate because they take part, put themselves on the line and have to deal with the criticism of others. They have to engage in the communal struggle to find Truth. Parliamentary Debate does not do this enough - often it smothers debate and those with panache and strategy drown the claims of truth with showers of rhetoric. Hence the estrangement of many from debate. My hope is that through the Hive we can institutionalise some of these grand ideals.

Tom Ogg, Oxford, December 2004

Bibliography

• John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, (1859); Penguin Classics 1974. First citation, Chapter 2, p 76; Second, Chapter 2, p 79.
• Michael Gove, Debate is vital for democracy, (2002). The Times, 21 November Correspondence

Tom Ogg

Nuffield College

Oxford

United Kingdom