Week 15: Debate Reflection

Debate Reflection

It is difficult for me to go to who won in these things as there is so much gained simply from reading and listening to perspectives.  It was nice to have four in this last project and to see how deeply everyone delved. Nevertheless, we are asked to reflect on who won and why. I will start with the first exchange. 

While Team 1 presented some excellent arguments, I feel we in Team 2 presented the stronger debate case in the Climate Change v Global Pandemic related to U.S. power. Team 1’s most powerful arguments lay in United States’ political ignorance of the threat altogether.  They made great points related to the natural dynamics and the threat those pose to the U.S. economy.  Where they were not as strong is related to Dan McDevitt’s question to the group. I do not feel they made a particularly powerful case as to how this would have been unique to the United States and its relative power on the global stage. I also felt there was missed opportunity in barely brushing on the failure of the United States to take the lead in the renewables market even as China is expanding this industry at an incredible pace. I do think  climate change is by far the greatest threat humanity, as a whole, faces today.  Annihilation of the human species (among others), aside, as a nation, we stand to lose economic and political power in the very near term by not capitalizing on significant mitigation efforts in the development of renewables, the fastest growing energy sources now on the planet.  That the incoming administration and Congress have thumbed their noses at this is remarkable in the worst possible sense of the word.

I believe Team 2 was strong in our primary arguments introduced in Rebuttal 1 and expounded on in Rebuttal 2: the immediacy and breadth of pandemic; the extreme to which mitigation resources could be impacted by a super-flu virus as opposed to those we have seen in recent history; failures in current U.S. response readiness; economic impacts; and concerns related to isolationist response. Where I thought Team 1 did not, but might have come back with a smack-down rebuttal lay in Kyra’s question regarding the likelihood of “the big one.” We tried to prepare for that one, but I am not sure we have good data on whether we are imminently in for that virus with the lethal effect of Ebola or HIV at its outset but the infectivity properties of Influenza.  

 Moving on to the Team 3 and Team 4 debate related to Inequality v a Change in World order, Team 3 had strong arguments in presenting the misguided and self-defeating shift looming toward isolationist and nationalistic policies in an increasingly globalized world.  I felt they effectively positioned this as having driven mechanisms in globalization compounding income inequality and, subsequently reducing faith globally in democratic institutions.  Their case related to social breakdown and its potential to reduce U.S. power is also quite good.   I am not sure the health argument stands up to scrutiny as nations that have not had particularly good records in maintaining a healthy citizenry have still managed to be powerful (China and Russia, for instance).  I agree with their rebuttal statement that their position was not significantly challenged but was rather augmented to some extent by Team 4’s first rebuttal because they were speaking to the root of the “change in the world order” problem.  They make some particularly salient arguments in distinguishing sources of nationalism and isolationism, arguing it is not these things in and of themselves that create the threat to U.S. power, but the motivations underlying those today.

   

Team 4 presented strong points related to rules-based institutions and the interdependence of nations as being integral to the strength of the United States as a global power. Absent allies and affordable resources we would be diminished as both an economic and political leader.  Their historical references related to isolationism in the second rebuttal were also excellent. They made some good arguments that inequality has been present throughout history and posited the nature of American politics would eventually reset, though these points were not argued quite as strongly as their others, and to a certain degree, weaken a component of their own argument regarding change in the world order.  For this reason alone, I believe Team 3 had some advantage in the debate.

Again, though, it was about the argument. This debate exercise, as the last, challenged us to think differently. In both sets of debate this week, the contest was “won” in my opinion by the positions I would have argued against given preference. They were all important issues and I walk away happy to have learned much from the arguments presented by my fellow students on all four teams this week – and in every exchange throughout the semester.