"From a passenger ship, everyone can see a messy hair and long bearded man, on a small island who is shouting and desperately waving his hands.'Who is it?' a passenger asks the captain.'I have no idea,' says the captain, 'this is the fifth time we have passed here, and this time, he is easily provoked by emotions.'""In candidate debates in Indonesia, why does the General Election Commission [Indonesians call it as KPU] set a limit on the duration of debates?" said sunflower while noticing a winged hourglass as a literal depiction of the Latin phrase 'tempus fugit'—time flies. "The time limit of the debate, including speech limits for individual candidate, limiting on the opportunities to speak, or limiting on the total length of debate on a question. As you already know, in a public forum debate, individuals give short (2-4 minute) speeches that are interspersed with 1-3 minute 'Crossfire' sections, questions and answers between opposed debaters. The winner is determined by a judge who also serves as a referee (timing sections, penalizing incivility, etc).Debates are an effective way to inform and involve voters in the political process. The two most important resources to use, while planning a debate, are communication and organization. Moderators are chosen based on their experience and nonpartisanship. They should also have a reasonable level of general knowledge about the issues under discussion. Please keep in mind that the moderator sets the tone of the debate. A more effective moderator will produce an interesting and informative debate. Above all, moderators should be professional and fair. Length of debate shall be between 60 and 120 minutes, depending on the number of candidates in the debate. Ensure that the debate does not exceed the allotted two-hour time limit and that no breaks should take place during the debates. In the competitive arena, time matters. In presidential debates, the candidates are given little time to make a lasting impression. So, the emphasis in the debate, apart from the time limit, is also the hidden 'value' of debate.Debate is one of the oldest activities of civilization. Calm, orderly debate, in which speakers argue for acceptance of various answers to a given question, is an obvious feature of modern parliaments and congresses. But it also had its place even in the deliberations of ancient kings, who maintained councils of nobles to give them advice. When the nobles disagreed, they were allowed to debate their proposals before the king, who acted as the final judge in choosing one plan of action.In modern democratic societies, the right to debate is a priceless asset. It enables any citizen to propose a better plan of action than the one that the ruling power sets forth. If the speaker can convince enough citizens that the new idea is a better one, then the speaker can change the policy of the city, county, state, or even nation.You may not be particularly conscious of the fact that debate occurs in every walk of life, not only in congresses or in academic environment. Actually, every situation in which you are asked to compare alternatives is one that forces you to debate the merits of those alternatives. Sometimes you will do the debating within yourself, as when you must decide whether to attend college. Sometimes the debating is done in your presence by others, with you as the judge, as in the case of rival sales presentations, each of which asks you to buy their particular product. Often we fail to recognize the debate situation because only one person is speaking to us—the single salesperson in a store, for instance—but usually that person reveals the true nature of the debate by acting as if there were actually a third person present with you.Arguments are the most basic building blocks of debate. Understanding what makes arguments work distinguishes successful debaters from their less successful colleagues, and creates advantages for even the most experienced and precocious debaters. Arguments are like automobiles: If you understand how they work, you are likely to get more service out of them, understand what went wrong when they break down, and fix the problem before your next outing.Debates proceed orally, at a relatively quick pace. Debaters do not have enough time to apply the detailed argument analysis techniques in the average debate and argumentation text. What matters most about argument theory to the average debater is simply this: to differentiates a bad argument from a good argument.Argument is distinct from debate. An argument is an attempt to influence someone else in some direction. Usually, this direction is a matter of belief, adherence, or action. Some arguments are about facts. These arguments deal with facts or definitions in controversy and attempt to get the listener to believe in certain facts. Other arguments are about values. These arguments try to persuade the listener to adhere to particular value systems; alternately, they may use given value systems to persuade the listener to accept certain states of affairs as consistent with their values. Finally, some arguments are about policies. These arguments attempt to influence the listener in matters of policy or courses of action. In real life as in debate, however, these distinctions are far from clear. For example, questions of policy always involve questions of fact and value, even if these associations are always made implicitly.Debate is the infrastructure for the presentation of many and various arguments, all of which can and usually do serve distinct and disparate functions throughout the course of a debate. Of course, in debate as in life, not all arguments are created equally. That is, some are more successful than others. The immediately relevant question for debaters is how to make successful arguments and how to make these successful arguments work in debates.An argument is more than a claim. While a claim asserts that something is so, an argument attempts to prove why that thing is so. Debate is not a science. It has only a familial relationship to the practice of formal logic of the type used in classical mathematics or scientific proof. It is important to remember that proof in debate and argumentation is not like proof in mathematics or formal logic. So, The simplest definition of debate is that it is the formalized enactment of argumentation. The word 'formalized' is a key distinction between having an argument and engaging in a debate. For something to be formal it must have structure.We think with our brains. We have no choice. It may seem that certain politicians think with other parts of their anatomy, but they too think with their brains, says George Lakoff. Why does this matter for politics? Because all thought is physical. Thought is carried out by neural circuits in the brain. We can only understand what our brains allow us to understand. The deepest of those neural structures are relatively fixed. They don’t change readily or easily. And we are mostly unconscious of their activity and impact. In fact, about 98 percent of what our brains are doing is below the level of consciousness. As a result, we may not know all, or even most, of what in our brains determines our deepest moral, social, and political beliefs. And yet we act on the basis of those largely unconscious beliefs. What goes on in people’s brains matters. The most important brain structures for our politics, can be studied from the perspective of the mind, they are called 'frames.'Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world. As a result, they shape the goals we seek, the plans we make, the way we act, and what counts as a good or bad outcome of our actions.You can’t see or hear frames. They are part of what we cognitive scientists call the cognitive unconscious—structures in our brains that we cannot consciously access, but know by their consequences. What we call 'common sense' is made up of unconscious, automatic, effortless inferences that follow from our unconscious frames. We also know frames through language. All words are defined relative to conceptual frames. When you hear a word, its frame is activated in our brain. Yes, in our brain, even when we negate a frame, we activate the frame. If I tell you, 'Don’t think of an elephant!,' you’ll think of an elephant. Not only does negating a frame activate that frame, but the more it is activated, the stronger it gets. The moral for political discourse is clear: When you argue against someone on the other side using their language and their frames, you are activating their frames, strengthening their frames in those who hear you, and undermining your own views. For progressives, this means avoiding the use of conservative language and the frames that the language activates. It means that you should say what you believe using your language, not theirs.In politics, our frames shape our social policies and the institutions we form to carry out policies. To change our frames is to change all of this, social change is reframing. When we successfully reframe public discourse, we change the way the public sees the world. We change what counts as common sense. Because language activates frames, new language is required for new frames. Thinking differently requires speaking differently.Reframing is not easy or simple. It is not a matter of finding some magic words. Frames are ideas, not slogans. Reframing is more a matter of accessing what we and like-minded others already believe unconsciously, making it conscious, and repeating it till it enters normal public discourse. It is an ongoing process. It requires repetition and focus and dedication.To achieve social change, reframing requires a change in public discourse, and that requires a communication system. Reframing without a system of communication accomplishes nothing. Reframing is about honesty and integrity. It is the opposite of spin and manipulation. It is about bringing to consciousness the deepest of our beliefs and our modes of understanding. It is about learning to express what we really believe in a way that will allow those who share our beliefs to understand what they most deeply believe and to act on those beliefs.Framing is also about understanding those we disagree with most. When a political leader puts forth a policy or suggests how we should act, the implicit assumption is that the policy or action is right, not wrong. No political leader says, 'Here’s what you should do. Do it because it is wrong—pure evil, but do it.' No political leader puts forth policies on the grounds that the policies don’t matter. Political prescriptions are assumed to be right. The problem is that different political leaders have different ideas about what is right. So, all politics is moral, but not everybody operates from the same view of morality. Moreover, much of moral belief is unconscious. We are often not even aware of our own most deeply held moral views. It is vital—for us, for our country—that we understand the values on which this country was founded. Pancasila is not just a slogan to make the father happy, but rather to understand the 'values' contained in it. If we are to keep on democracy, we must learn to articulate those values loud and clear.
Debate also has its value, according to Jon M. Ericson, James J. Murphy, and Raymond Bud Zeuschner, the advantages of debate for you coincide exactly with the virtues of an ideal debater: first, the ability to collect and organize ideas. A successful debate speaker is one who can absorb vast amounts of material and select from it those items that are the best to use in a particular debate.Second, the ability to subordinate ideas. A debater will hear about forty-¤ve hundred to ¤ve thousand words from the opponents during a typical single round of debate. Together with a colleague, this debater will deliver an additional forty-five hundred to five thousand words. Only by sorting out the major ideas from the minor ones can any speaker hope to make sense of this flood of words.Third, the ability to evaluate evidence. Skill in gleaning the most important evidence is a hallmark of an intelligent speaker. Not every statement, quotation, statistic, or idea in a debate is worth the trouble of refutation.Fourth, the ability to see logical connections. Aristotle once pointed out that the ability to see what is similar among dissimilar things is a mark of genius. The great mass of data presented during most debates causes confusion among the hearers; therefore the speakers who can identify the relationship between items help to clarify the debate for the audience and thus improve their own chances of success.Fifth, the ability to think and speak in outline terms. Clarity is essential in a debate (and in any good communication, for that matter), during which the clash of ideas often confuses an audience. The debaters must have not only a perfectly clear mental outline of their entire case but also the ability to communicate the sense of that outline to the audience.Sixth, the ability to speak convincingly. An awareness of what an audience expects—what it takes to convince that particular audience—is absolutely essential, both in debate and in other types of speaking.Seventh, the ability to adapt. Since a debate is a fluid situation, constantly changing as new ideas are introduced by various speakers, it places a premium on readiness of reply. In practice, this readiness means that you must be not only well organized, logical, analytic, and convincing but also able to react to new ideas quickly..Debate is a tool for resolving disagreements and bringing us together as a society. Debate is an incredibly important skill that can help build confidence, train people to think quickly on their feet, and become strong advocates for what they believe, says Jarrod Atchison. Debating is a competitive activity, but it’s also a way of learning, exchanging ideas, and gaining an understanding of other people’s perspectives. That understanding furnishes the basis for making better choices.The importance of the distinction between argumentation and debatebecomes clear in the context of debate as a method of decision making. Imagine, a leader must make decisions quickly within limited time. It would be very risky if the leader had to postpone his decision just because he relied on a consultant, then discuss it over a cup of coffee. Of course, we don't want to have a leader who is slow to think.By the way, I was given enough time to talk, so, let's continue our talk, in the next talk, okay? Bi 'idznillah."Then the sunflower sang,Ih abang jahat, aku tuh cinta berat[You are a bad guy, but I really love you]Sini dong dekat-dekat, ku pegang erat-erat *)[Come here, come close, I'll hold you tight]
Citations & References:
- George Lakoff, Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, 2014, Chelsea Green Publishing
- Jon M. Ericson, James J. Murphy & Raymond Bud Zeuschner, The Debater's Guide, 2003, Southern Illinois University Press
- John Meany & Kate Shuster, Art, Argument and Advocacy: Mastering Parliamentary Debate, 2002, International Debate Education Association
- Jarrod Atchison, The Art of Debate, 2017, The Great Course
*) "Ih Abang Jahat" written by Ecko Show
