An intellectual evening
On Thursday evening the Sheffield round of the Institute of Ideas’ (formed from the remnants of the British Communist Party, wahey) Debating Matters competition was held at Silverdale. Despite not being part of the debating teams for Silverdale, I went and took part from the floor. The whole atmosphere of an evening of debating in that way means a lot to me: the challenging of assumptions, the examination of arguments. The cut and thrust of arguments and attacks and defences. There should be so much more of it in our society. Unfortunately the format of this particular debating competition doesn’t allow so much for the cut and thrust and in many ways was not as competitive as the sort of style we have been practising with. In terms of style, most of the other teams were a complete walk over for Silverdale’s teams – many were reading straight off a sheet and none of them stood up! In our debates people are shot down in flames if they remain seated and are shouted at until they stand. Silverdale did not however do well in all areas. There were times when arguments had holes in and speeches did not go entirely to plan. Some of the other teams were also skilled and managed to blow apart aspects of Silverdale’s arguments. But they did well overall. In the end Silverdale did win and we are through the next round in Birmingham (regional).
This particular format places great emphasis on questioning and speeches are relatively short and so the audience play a pivotal role – in some debates they really can dominate. So much is this considered vital that an award is given to the audience member who makes the best contributions from the floor – I received this in conjunction with another, which I was congratulated for. However, the issue with all this is that questions are ‘collected’ for the team to answer together. I really don’t like this because what ends up happening is that it breaks down and a two-way conversations at least partially ensues. I think the reasoning behind it is to give people a chance to think up a response but they are too busy scribbling down questions to be able to do this. In any case, the event was a success and I am pleased that I was there.