College Debate Analysis

On Thursday, February 18th at 4:00 pm I attended my first ever debate at California State University of Northridge, in Manzanita Hall 230. I had always been interested in debate but never came around to diving deeply into the topic. Seeing this class option as I signed up for spring term classes got me excited and interested in learning more about this field, and as I entered the Aronstam Library on Thursday, I felt even more excitement and intrigue because I felt that even though I wasn't debating, my fellow audience members and I were participating and learning. I learned a lot at this event and it was very interesting to see how the two teams worked together and also apart to formulate their ideas, how they state their claims, reasons and values, I also really liked studying their styles of discourse.

The debate topic was, 'political correctness and american sensitivity towards it.' There were two teams, Chinese and American. The Chinese team were the first to present their argument and they had claimed that americans are too sensitive towards political correctness, they stressed specifically to domestic relations in colleges and that campuses should be less sensitive to topics, so they can provide a platform for ideas to grow and for people to learn and that the negativity towards

certain topics and ideas people have is an infringement on freedom of speech. They think people should feel free to talk openly, no matter how crazy the idea is, because talking it out with a person instead of just shunning them and punishing them immediately will cause more harm.
After cross examination, the Americans were up next to state their points, and they believe Americans are not sensitive enough, and gave an example of Donald Trump being so open to say what he wants, even if it may be outlandish yet he gains followers from being so open with his statements and ideas and that other people on top gain attention from these crude claims.

They believe examples like this show the use of the first amendment. The American team kept flip flopping between their claims, at a few points they said americans are not sensitive enough and another they said they had agreed with their opponents, which made their argument incoherent towards the

end.
As the debate proceeded it became more about political correctness on a macro scale referring to mainstream politics, media and freedom of speech then what the Chinese team had first claimed about political correctness on college campuses. I feel as though the debate was very scattered and almost hard to follow. There could have been a lot more structure to the arguments individually and as a whole, when it came to vote I'll be honest, I was very unsure simply due to the fact that both sides were all over the place. The chinese team had a lot of information and I feel was more prepared than the American opponents but the Americans provided more clear explanations and were more simple in the beginning of the debate, but lacked more knowledge in the subject especially due to the fact that their claims were off topic of political correctness and sensitivity in specifics to college campuses and learning, instead they debated about political correctness and sensitivity in americans as a whole.
Over all, I really enjoyed participating in the event and I learned a lot, it got my engines going to knew forms of thought on new topics and helped me understand my stance more on certain topics. This debate reminded me of learning about the positive aspects of disagreement in argumentation because without disagreement there is no discussion or issues to explore and it was interesting to see both sides conversing over their opinions on the subject matter, and even though I might have agreed with both parties it made me evaluate more deeply why one had a better argument and helped me determine my stance on the topic. It also reminded me of values in argument because each team from different cultural, educational backgrounds held different values in relation to the subject and that helped shape their opinions, and helped the audience question, confirm or deny their values on the subject. Ultimately, I enjoyed this debate event and will be happy to attend more in the future.