Why debating still matters
A team of teenagers from England have just won this year’s World Schools Debating Championship. But what relevance do skills more often associated with ancient Greece – or public school – have in today’s world?
The current political scene might have been radically different if Remain had had Diodotus on its side: if you could persuade an assembly of Athenians bent on retribution to spare the lives of a group of rebels, then you could probably best Boris Johnson. The Mytilenian debate of 427BC is perhaps one of the ancient world’s best examples of an argument with something vital at stake: following an unsuccessful insurrection in the city of Mytilene, the Athenians had voted to put to death not only the uprising’s leaders, but all Mytilenian men, and to enslave its women and children. Fears that this judgment erred on the side of harshness led to a second debate, with Diodotus arguing for clemency, and Cleon, “the most violent man at Athens”, opposing him.
Cleon’s point was that justice must prevail in the face of the deliberate malice of the Mytilenians, and that a show of weakness by the imperial government was potentially disastrous; better, he said, to enforce bad laws than to shilly-shally around with good ones. And what, he asked his audience to imagine, would the rebels do if they were in the Athenians’ shoes?
None of this daunted Diodotus, whose counter-argument began with a paean to the power of debate: “The good citizen,” he insisted, “ought to triumph not by frightening his opponents, but by beating them fairly in argument.” And beat Cleon he did, in a series of detailed appeals to his audience, setting out his belief in how Athens’ long-term interests would best be served. The vote was close, but Diodotus won the day. The Mytileneans were spared.
Fast-forward two-and-a-half millennia – past the sight of Johnson and Michael Gove, both presidents of the Oxford Union in the late 1980s, practising in its august chamber for later life – to Stuttgart in July 2016, where Team England beat Canada in the final of theWorld Schools Debating Championship in a debate about states’ responsibilities towards refugees. Like all good teenagers, the five members of the team (which is funded and supported by theEnglish Speaking Union, who also provide coaching) regularly found time to relax – rapping along to the soundtrack ofHamilton the musical was a favourite activity – but their focus and determination was undeniable.
Their victory allows us to pose a question, or indeed a topic for debate: what is the value and relevance of this kind of debate in the contemporary world, where the word itself has come to be associated more with politicians slugging it out on TV than a honed, elegant rhetorical skill? Whichever side you’re on, it’s hard to see Owen Smith or Jeremy Corbyn as latterday Athenians;their first debate in Cardiff on Thursday night revealed some substantial, outward-looking argument, but also an awful lot of cagey positioning and irritable repudiation of the other’s views, record and ability. And parliamentary debates rarely reach a level we might happily call Ciceronian.
And yet the art of debate involves mastering skills of obvious intrinsic value: the confidence to speak in public, and make sense; the construction of a logical argument; the ability to read an audience’s reactions; and, perhaps most importantly, the willingness to hear others’ arguments, and to respond to them. For Rosa Thomas, one of Team England’s members, being brought face to face with the reality of other debaters’ lives was particularly memorable: “It makes you more aware of your national assumptions,” she says. “For example, that there is a national health service. But you can’t rely on this with an international audience. Also, you are aware that when talking about other countries, there will be individuals from those places in the audience. It makes you think about using more nuanced examples – I remember thinking this during the semi-final, when I used the Israel-Palestine conflict as an example, and seeing some members of the Israel team in the audience.”
If a perception of this kind of competitive debating as old-fashioned and the preserve of public schools and university societies goes unchallenged, then we lose a great deal. Robert Sharpe of the worldwide writers’ association English PEN sees charges of elitism as a shame, because “the skills one learns through a good debate are crucial for modern life. Political events continue to remind us of the importance of persuasive arguments and good oratory that appeal not only to our rational side, but our emotional side too.” He also thinks the ability to see the other side is particularly important. “The essence of free speech is that we allow people with whom we disagree to speak. Wrongheaded views will be aired. But free speech means no one gets the last word. We can – and indeed, we should – use our own right to free speech to challenge expression we think is unpleasant or wrong. To do this we need to be equipped to argue in public. Debating competitions are a fantastic way to teach this important skill to young people.” Later this year, English PEN will join the Chamber Debate in the House of Lords, in which students from state schools across the country will discuss the issue of free speech.
The discussion of the possible limits and limitations of free speech recurs on an almost constant basis across social media, and perhaps nowhere so starkly as on Twitter, where those disagreeing with one another rail at anyone who will listen – and indeed, anyone who won’t. Twitter’s problem is its encouragement of the individual’s “broadcast mode”, where the superficial appearance of a conversation is, in fact, two or more people simply stating and restating their views with ever-intensifying fury. Nothing real is at stake: the exchange can be abandoned at any point. Hacked off with someone? Block them. Too shy to block? Mute (the word is telling).
But the powerful thing Twitter has going for it is that there is no barrier to entry if you have access to the internet. To take part in a debate, you have to be allowed through the front door in the first place; it’s striking, if not surprising, that Ife Grillo is the only state-educated member of the English debating team. His path to Stuttgart began when he joinedDebate Mate, an organisation founded to encourage children from less privileged backgrounds to learn. Meg Hillier, MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch, which contains Grillo’s school, the Bridge Academy, makes the point that his success is particularly exciting because “it shows that Hackney schools are not just about exam results and rote learning, they’re about teaching wider life skills. The ability to speak well is something that’s useful throughout the employment process.” Hillier also thinks the idea of a generation plugged into social media, not listening to one another, is unduly pessimistic: “I was at a debate on the EU referendum the other day, and it was full of talented, bright young people making their case very reasonably. I told them we could probably learn from them in parliament.”
Those still in need of convincing of the importance of debate as a force for social change should watchThe Great Debaters, in which Denzel Washington stars as Melvin B Tolson, a real-life teacher at the largely black Wiley College in Texas, who in the 1930s coached his debating team in the face of prejudice. And the idea of prejudice within debate is key throughout history: for arguments to be properly heard, one has first to accept that all have the right to make them, and to believe in a commonality of capability, capacity and sensibility.
Think, for example, of the fourth act of The Merchant of Venice, in which the characters gather to determine whether Shylock shall have his pound of flesh from Antonio. As Bassanio pleads with Shylock, Antonio tells him, “I pray you, think you question with the Jew: / You may as well go stand upon the beach / And bid the main flood bate his usual height”; he ends with a declaration that nothing is harder than a Jew’s heart. The point may seem to be simply describing Shylock’s implacability – but the fact that it occurs as Shylock is using logic and reason to rebuff the noblemen creates a link between his capacity for debate and the idea of him as inhumane, beyond empathy. It’s not that Shylock isn’t good enough at winning the argument; it’s that he’s too good.
The slaughter of the Mytileneans, the extraction of a pound of flesh; not all debates have such visceral and bloodthirsty subject matter. But the greatest encounters have altered the course of history: Thomas Huxley and Bishop Wilberforce dissecting the theory of evolutionin Oxford in 1860; the war cabinet debate of 1940 that led to Churchill’s ascendance; Richard Nixon’s sweat-coated appearance against a fit, tanned JFK in the 1960 presidential race.
The elision of the purer forms of debate with politicians seeking advancement is a more recent development – and one we might be ambivalent about inasmuch as it rewards the slick and telegenic. Jeremy Corbyn’s fervent following demonstrates that the electorate is keen for what it sees as authenticity and a lack of spin; others may argue that Corbyn’s plain-speaking is also a persona. I asked Sam Leith, author ofYou Talkin’ to Me? Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama, what he thought.
“It’s tempting to look at modern-day political debates and think what a long way we’ve come from the days of Cicero and Pericles,” he told me. “But it’s worth remembering that the whole game is knowing your audience, and knowing the medium. Nowadays, the main audience for a debate won’t be the people in earshot: the exchange is intended to be, as it were, overheard by hundreds of thousands of people on television and social media. So, of course, people don’t make three-hour-long, perfectly turned speeches intended to be taken in whole: they semaphore emotion, repeat key words, pepper it with catchphrases and soundbites. And that’s what works.”
And what’s his view of a young generation of Ciceros? “Debating in schools seems to teach you things unlearnable in other ways: not only how to construct an argument (and rejig it on the hoof), but how its success depends more than anything on the form of its expression. It teaches you to think on your feet and fight dirty. Plus public speaking is shit-scary, and that’s good for kids.”
If we are to hold our politicians to account – especially as we enter a protracted period of negotiations about our national future – then it is as well to be able to follow the arguments of those in power and expose their inconsistencies. We have just come through an epochal political event that saw the repeated claim by voters that they couldn’t make their way through the thicket of facts, half-facts and rhetoric put before them. Time to say goodbye to that cloud of unknowing: joining the debate is more of a necessity than ever before.
‘It makes you question your own opinions’
Ife Grillo, member of England’s 2016 champion debating team
I did a lot of debating at school before deciding to enter. At first I was skeptical – do I really want to spend my summer debating? But after the first trial I knew I wanted to be in the England team. It took three tries to get a place.
One of the big things I’ve learned is that it’s not just about speaking well – it’s about learning to embrace a wide variety of arguments. The audience should not be able to tell whether you personally believe something. The process forces you to at least respect the other side of an argument and it makes you question your own opinion.
This was particularly the case during one motion, which was “This House believes that the Obama administration’s foreign policy has done more harm than good”. I have always really respected Obama, and he is one of my favourite speakers. I didn’t want to hate him. But I had to think about the perspectives of people in places like Syria and Yemen. When you get up to speak you have to set aside your emotions and put yourself in someone else’s shoes. It’s like acting in that sense.
I used to do a lot of slam poetry in London, too, which helped a lot. The last spoken word I did was in March at the Southbank – a poem called I Stand, about solidarity around the world. Maya Angelou is a big inspiration – she is a speaker who always makes me feel something. I love her poemI Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Another huge help was the fact that Kenza was a phenomenal captain. I think the main reason we won was our teamwork. We knew what made us frustrated or annoyed.
I knew when Rosa was writing, for example, she didn’t like any of us to speak, and I had to respect that. We were really good at coordinating with each other. It was more stressful to be in the audience watching – you have less control. I would be thinking, “Come on! Say that thing we talked about!” By the end I had much more faith that they would do their thing and I was much more relaxed.
This is probably one of the most diverse teams England has had. We all have different backgrounds. Diversity is not just a buzzword – it genuinely brings a lot of value to debating. The more experiences and backgrounds there are, the stronger the team.
Next year I am taking a year out. I’m doing some work for a thinktank and also some debate coaching. I’m not sure what I would like to do after that, but I am thinking of politics. I’m also doing some work with theYouth Select Committee (a British Youth Council initiative supported by the House of Commons), as I am a big believer in getting more young people engaged with politics – particularly now, when there are so many angry young people who feel they are not being listened to.Ife Grillo was speaking to Sarah Whitehead