The Truth About Competitive Debate: Musings of a Former Debater

Back when I was in high school, when I didn’t yet know about neoliberalism, decolonization, imperialism or anything coherent about politics, economics, or philosophy, I did what any other desperately ambitious and highly strung type-A student thought would look impressive on their university applications. I became a debater.

I joined my school’s debate club and hopped from one debate conference to another. From a Global Young Leaders Conference to Model Congress and Model United Nations, I grew slowly familiar with the various formulas and contours—the formalities, hierarchies, and glaring arbitrariness—of it all. One day, I finally won Best Delegate.

But by the time my fifth competition rolled around, my heart wasn’t in it anymore. Instead of arguing, I stayed quiet. I didn’t take the floor, pass a resolution, nor read the primers. I just sat in my seat for hours and hours on end, eyes blank, disinterested, registering every voice as white noise and wondering what the hell I was doing there.

After that, I quit competitive debating for good.

The Fancy-Schmancy World of Debate

Fancy. This was my first impression of my first debate competition. High school students slipped into form-fitting suit jackets, slacks, and dresses, and debated in sweeping colleges and intimidating conference halls. We dressed seriously and debated seriously about serious topics in serious halls. Nothing can prepare you for how inadequate you’d feel.

I remember being 15 and surrounded by 17 to 18 year olds debating about national sovereignty. To make up for my lack of knowledge, I introduced myself as a 16-year-old. Anyone could clearly see I was just a kid who was way out of her depths though. I had trouble staying calm the whole time I was there.

I attended my second conference more than a year later, which was equally painful and awkward. I’d just read Wikipedia pages for information while the others discussed borders, international sanctions, and whatever jokes there were to be made about communism. I was stumped. Nothing can prepare you for how deficient you’d feel.

I couldn’t figure out how people my age could get so invested and be so knowledgeable about governance and policy-making. I couldn’t figure out how they immediately knew what to say in response to another person’s arguments. I kept doing research on the spot and typing out bullet points every time I wanted to say something, but often by the time I was finally ready, another delegate had already motioned to take the floor.

I didn’t know what kept me going. I was being stubborn; I didn’t want to quit. Instead, by my third conference, I decided to fight back.

I knew that the only way I could be confident was if I had a solid understanding of the issues at hand. So, I dedicated weeks to research, read, and self-study about global politics and international relations as best as I could, throwing all my schoolwork and hobbies out the window. Having the knowledge has never failed to make me feel a little less inadequate about myself, and it didn’t fail here.

But I quickly learned that getting good at the game and flourishing in competitive debate take way more—or way less, depending on how you see it—than just solid research.

The Primacy of Performance

Looking back, I find it quite absurd how the game expects high school students to know the complexities of real-world issues—issues which I, as a third-year university student now, still don’t have the means to comprehensively answer—and then in an average of two minutes make their arguments. My mistake, however, was that I’d assumed this is what competitive debate was looking for in the first place.

As another MUN graduate put it, “Issues are complicated, more so the issues of international diplomacy, and if all you have are short bursts of 120 seconds, then rhetoric takes precedence over facts.”

So, I may be good in writing and doing research, but not in pulling off linguistic gymnastics, exhibiting a charismatic personality, or speaking with calmness and conviction, which are what really mattered in competitive debate. What mattered was how confidently and coherently one can bullshit their way through nuanced issues.

I can’t necessarily blame debaters here because, like most problems in the world, the failing lies in structure. Because of time constraints, delegates are forced to speak quickly, vote quickly, and write resolutions quickly. There’s little time for research, fact-checking, and talking through the nuances of real-world implications.

The truth about competitive debate is that it incentivizes performance more than it does critical thinking. It’s odd that the more I stuck to the facts, the more I got bogged down by them, and the less appealing my solutions and arguments sounded. They’re also less entertaining; fighting facts with facts is less exciting than fighting arguments with arguments or ideas with ideas.

And so, facts become this bland and boring liability. In theory, delegates can’t selectively present facts to suit their arguments, much less create facts as they go along. But in practice they can. Of course, other delegates can ask the chairperson to fact-check but in my experience, this was only done on occasions when a delegate has said something very unbelievable. Otherwise, no one’s the wiser.

Once, I was assigned to Mexico and submitted a resolution in the indigenous peoples committee. I was at the podium fielding questions when another debater asked why I, as the delegate of Mexico, was advancing indigenous rights if Mexico is notorious for committing genocide against indigenous peoples.

I was put on the spot about something I’d failed to know. Either I’d overlooked it in my research or the person asking was bluffing. Nonetheless, I had no way of knowing at that moment because I was away from my laptop and was only given one minute to respond. People can make up facts as they go along and pray that no one keeps a stockpile of facts in their brains to contradict them.

In the end I said, “The delegate of Mexico would like to do better.” I didn’t actually also know if Mexico wanted to do better, but no one contradicted me and that seemed like the diplomatic bullshit thing to say.

Questionable Ethics of Debate

Debating is just a game. But what happens when winning a game depends on your ability to become the authoritative figure on the real-world oppression that marginalized groups face?

In school and in classroom settings, we discuss oppression and talk about marginalized groups, who are often absent in the room, in an attempt to better understand society. But in competitive debate, we discuss the oppression of marginalized groups in the hopes of scoring points for some game. Debaters don’t aim to learn; they aim to be right. And in this case, they aim to be right about oppression they probably don’t and will never face.

As Irish author Sally Rooney, who was also at one point the number one competitive debater in all of Europe, said,

I’m not an indigenous person nor was anybody in the indigenous peoples committee. We couldn’t possibly know what indigenous peoples actually want in terms of policies and programs—but that didn’t deter us teenagers from speaking for them. In fact, my resolution at the time depended on it. Victory depended on it.

I would be remiss if I didn’t say this accurately reflects real-world politics though. Because in reality, it is often the most marginalized who are not able to have a voice in the very discussions that directly impact them. Competitive debate seems to be an accurate representation of how wealthy and well-educated people argue over what to do with the poor while barring poor people themselves from entering the discussion to promote their own interests.

This is the reality I couldn’t suspend from my mind during my final debate conference. Debate suddenly seemed very empty to me. I couldn’t see how speaking on behalf of others just to win a trophy would make me happy.

A Popularity Contest

I thought competitive debate was first and foremost a learning opportunity, but I quickly realized that it’s first and foremost a social event—and a very hierarchical one at that.

To quote Rooney again, “[Debate] is, at every level, a hierarchically organized activity. The more successful you are, the more people will stand around listening to you…”

In my experience, debaters who speak up the most are indeed the most popular ones. Everyone forms a circle around them and listens to whatever opinions and jokes they have to share. Plus points if you’re well-known in the debate circuit and if you’re buddies with the chairpeople.

Conversely, you feel like a total loser if you speak up the least—at least, that’s what I felt in my initial conferences. It’s the way I hung around the periphery of those circles everyone forms around successful debaters. It’s the way other delegates looked at me dismissively. And worst of all, I can’t even blame them. Success in competitive debate in part meant aligning yourself with the most successful debaters.

So, the truth about competitive debate is that it’s one part public speaking and one part popularity contest. The truth about competitive debate is that it’s fueled by social ruthlessness.

The day I won Best Delegate, the people in my committee formed a circle around me and kept listening to my opinions and solutions, and I felt like I could command the whole room. I couldn’t believe it. It was the exact opposite of what I’d experienced in debate thus far.

It feels very shitty to be at the bottom of the pole, but what a rush it was to finally be at the top.

Just a game

I was never naturally good at debate, though I tried hard to be at one point. I quit because debate ultimately felt like an empty game to me, as we argued about issues on their surface levels and debated heatedly about groups we gave ourselves the authority to speak on behalf of.

In this small bubble of the world, students are incentivized to be right, to have their arguments be right, instead of discussing the nuances of complex issues and working through the real-world implications of the proposed taxes, subsidies, incentives, and sanctions we keep throwing around in our resolutions.

Facts and counter-arguments are thrown at you constantly in this game, and you have to do your best—not to necessarily listen to their concerns—but to assert that you’re right despite those facts and counter-arguments. Because once you admit a weakness in your argument or resolution, then it’s game over for you.

What gets emphasized in competitive debate then is not collaboration, but who wins and who loses. Turning governance and policy-making into a zero-sum game is also exactly what’s wrong with politics today. Politicians refuse to vote for the policies and legislations advanced by other political parties because doing so would mean that they lose and the other parties win. The same group-think is reinforced in competitive debate.

Don’t get me wrong though, thriving in competitive debate is incredibly hard. But it’s also just a game at the end of the day. My mistake was I’d envisioned it to be something more momentous and profound than it actually is.