I’ve been thinking about socialism quite a lot recently, and it’s occurred to me that, while there are many fine lefty-liberal minds at school, the time we spend philosophising is largely wasted. Why? Because it’s spent in Debating Society, tearing down, rather than building, arguments.
The adversarial debating format is a great way to test who’s the better orator. Done well, it’s great theatre. But it isn’t efficient at producing original thought and ideas. Yes, some occasionally come out (by original I here mean points we as a group haven’t thought of yet, but the argument applies to true originality too), but I daresay they’d come out more often if we didn’t devote so much time to the lower-level points required of debating. Pragmatic points can be important in , say, parliamentary debate; but as a society which aspires to higher-level, philosophical thinking, why don’t we cut to the chase?
Another issue is that, while the large majority of us share essentially the same views, the format forces us to take opposite sides. Devil’s advocacy itself isn’t a problem, but combined with the requirement for stubborn tenacity and refusal to concede anything, it leads to dull, unoriginal ping-pong on points that would long ago have been conceded in an informal discussion.
Adversarial debate is bad enough in philosophical discussion, but in court it endangers justice. All too often, especially in jury trials, rather than those before harder-to-influence judges or magistrates, quality of advocacy takes importance which should be given solely to evidence. Top barristers don’t win more cases just because they know the law better – their success is due at least in part to the fact that they are better orators. I’m undecided on the French investigative magistrate system, but in this respect it has advantages – a judge is less swayed by oratory than a jury, and anyway more importance is given to the evidence than its presentation.
Adversarial debate has its purporses — in Parliament it is useful for bringing up the pragmatic points that need to be considered in lawmaking, and I have intentionally gone too far in my condemnation of the adversarial format in order to provoke discussion (I almost said debate). So comment, and tell me why I’m wrong, but do so constructively.
