MovieChat Forums > Resolved (2007) Discussion > Just a few thoughts

Just a few thoughts

posted 16 years ago by tjroach
5 replies | jump to latest

I have just a few thoughts about resolved. I was really excited to see the movie since I debated back in high school and felt spreading was a major problem.

1 Debate needs more rules. I understand this might undermine the very foundation of debate in which people need to think on their feet, but what we have now borders on anarchy. Where is the eloquence? Where is clash of ideas? It just seems to be a battle of who has more evidence, not whether there is quality of evidence. Many times people will argue that their evidence is better because it postdates the other teams evidence or you will just read two cards to their one. That seems so robotic and not what debate was supposed to be. I know you have Lincoln/Douglass and Parliamentary, but Oxford debate needs to get back to the stock issues.

2 Debate is not racist. There are many poor white students who cannot afford to compete in debate. We live in a capitalist country and there will always be people who have more money than other people. I think debate people are mostly college educated or soon to be college educated individuals, these are the most open minded and progressive people in our country. You want to see racism, go to the back woods, now there is racism.

3 Debating racism does not expand debate it limits debate. As soon as someone used the word racism in a debate, it becomes the duty of the accused to prove they are not racist. How do you prove that? “Well I have lots of black friends” or “I am 1/600 African American on my mom’ s side.” Either way the actual facts of the issue are sidetracked.

4 I think it was a mistake to direct Richard and Louis to this topic. I understand that racism still exists in this country, but I see this as the boy that cried wolf. By turning every little thing into a race issue, it distracts people from the truly important race issues in America. It makes White America lose empathy since they are constantly told that they are racist and finally belittles how far we have come in America. Despite racism, Richard and Luis are going to college on a full ride. That is the equivalent of giving them thousands of dollars each. I hope someday these brilliant gentlemen will be able to solve the real problems of racism and African American poverty, not argue about trivial things.

[–] ilovetohateyou 15 years ago

The economic situation of poor whites is irrelevant when one labels an institution in America 'racist' because poor whites were never systematically denied wealth on the basis of race.

[–] xxsickxsadxworldxx 15 years ago

Google Irish-Americans you moron.

[–] jjarmin 14 years ago

It seems to me that everything is suddenly irrelevant when someone throws the term 'racist' out like it is some ultimate trump card regardless of the assertion's merit.

TJRoach, I whole heartedly agree with your post. While it is evident that Louis and Richard were very passionate about their positions and quite smart, the debate was limited because the topic of argument became subordinate to "their issues." A couple of the debaters mentioned in the movie that L and R's method can simply descend into everyone just talking about their issues and lacks any formal structure to exchange arguments with any sort of logical congruency. I think L and R (and possibly this has something to do with poor coaching) were confused about their own issues. The debate structure is not a systemic failure nor racist. L and R are angry, because of what they perceive to be an unfair advantage due to socioeconomics. All I can say to that is, "Welcome to life/reality." The laws of chance do not guarantee everyone is born on a level playing field. The laws of chance do not guarantee that all schools will have the funding to support their debate team. The laws of chance do not guarantee that a school will adequately fund their debate even if they have the money to support it. However, the laws of our country guarantee that everyone gets a fair shot at the apple despite their race, religion, creed, color, nationality, or sexual orientation.

[–] mdawgig 14 years ago

This is the post of a person who doesn't truly understand the differences between policy debate and other forms of debate.

1. Rules would only take away from the education that people gain from policy debate. When you're too concerned with falling under so many constraining guidelines, you don't have time to actually discuss the meat of the issue; you lose education that you would gain by having to actually go deep on the issue rather than focusing on being superficial and shallow. If you want appearances and feelings, there's LD debate. If you want deeper education, there's policy debate.

And really? STOCK ISSUES? The 1960's called, it wants it's outdated voting issues back. Seriously. Some of what goes on in debate rounds falls under those: they're simply categories under which deeper debate should occur. However, most of the debate falls under categories that far outstretch simple stock issues, it goes deeper.

2. Policy debate is racist, and anyone who denies it needs to crawl out from under their rock. Policy debate is an institution based on buying evidence, jetting to tournaments, high entry fees, and having multiple assistant coaches. If anyone thinks that most inner-city schools can do this, they're utterly wrong. That's why all of the schools you see at the Tournament of Champions are upper-middle/upper class areas with high tax rates. Does a program necessarily NEED all of these things to run? Absolutely not. Does a program need these things to be competitive? Yes. It's gotten to the point that people who aren't wealthy CANNOT SUCCEED in policy debate.

3. Yes it does. By far, this is the BEST way to change racist institutions. You over-simplified what they were doing - it wasn't just about talking about racism. What the Long Beach team tried to do was lower the barrier to entry; they tried to make it so that teams don't have to rely on an entire affirmative case based on the opinions and publications of experts, rather they should focus on how the topic (and the issues presented) influence the participants. They tried to walk the line, where you can still go deep into the issues on a meta scale (large scale), but also rely on your own knowledge and what those issues actually /mean/. The best way to keep any system the same is to participate willingly. They tried to change it by challenging the system.

4. They weren't "crying wolf," they were examining racism on a scale that THEY could access: they couldn't talk about nation-wide racism because they weren't experts in that. They knew racism in debate, and that is what they could talk about most effectively. They're succeeding now BECAUSE they challenged the system. By demeaning their cause, you're perpetuating racism on a personal level. What they were trying to say (which is entirely true) is that if we don't question racism on every level that we can (where we can access it), it will continue because we turn a blind eye to it rather than confronting it. Don't trivialize it because you don't understand it.

[–] thebigmouth 14 years ago

This is the post of a person who doesn't truly understand the differences between policy debate and other forms of debate.

1. Rules would only take away from the education that people gain from policy debate. When you're too concerned with falling under so many constraining guidelines, you don't have time to actually discuss the meat of the issue; you lose education that you would gain by having to actually go deep on the issue rather than focusing on being superficial and shallow. If you want appearances and feelings, there's LD debate. If you want deeper education, there's policy debate.

And really? STOCK ISSUES? The 1960's called, it wants it's outdated voting issues back. Seriously. Some of what goes on in debate rounds falls under those: they're simply categories under which deeper debate should occur. However, most of the debate falls under categories that far outstretch simple stock issues, it goes deeper.

2. Policy debate is racist, and anyone who denies it needs to crawl out from under their rock. Policy debate is an institution based on buying evidence, jetting to tournaments, high entry fees, and having multiple assistant coaches. If anyone thinks that most inner-city schools can do this, they're utterly wrong. That's why all of the schools you see at the Tournament of Champions are upper-middle/upper class areas with high tax rates. Does a program necessarily NEED all of these things to run? Absolutely not. Does a program need these things to be competitive? Yes. It's gotten to the point that people who aren't wealthy CANNOT SUCCEED in policy debate.

3. Yes it does. By far, this is the BEST way to change racist institutions. You over-simplified what they were doing - it wasn't just about talking about racism. What the Long Beach team tried to do was lower the barrier to entry; they tried to make it so that teams don't have to rely on an entire affirmative case based on the opinions and publications of experts, rather they should focus on how the topic (and the issues presented) influence the participants. They tried to walk the line, where you can still go deep into the issues on a meta scale (large scale), but also rely on your own knowledge and what those issues actually /mean/. The best way to keep any system the same is to participate willingly. They tried to change it by challenging the system.

4. They weren't "crying wolf," they were examining racism on a scale that THEY could access: they couldn't talk about nation-wide racism because they weren't experts in that. They knew racism in debate, and that is what they could talk about most effectively. They're succeeding now BECAUSE they challenged the system. By demeaning their cause, you're perpetuating racism on a personal level. What they were trying to say (which is entirely true) is that if we don't question racism on every level that we can (where we can access it), it will continue because we turn a blind eye to it rather than confronting it. Don't trivialize it because you don't understand it.

mdawgig gets it.

The best way to keep any system the same is to participate willingly. They tried to change it by challenging the system.

This is absolutely true if your goal is to change the system. The problem with Richard and Louis's argument was that they wanted to be rewarded pursuant to the very rules and system they'd just successfully challenged as flawed. It wasn't pure protest -- they wanted to win the round.

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