Debate: 20th of Jan. '14

Today we watched and discussed a video from the WSDC with the motion: "THBT the police should use racial profiling when fighting." Obviously, the debaters I saw in the video are so much better than I am as a debater. It will take some time before I will, if ever, be that good. But watching and discussing the video is a step for me to get there. It helps me understand what are expected for me to be that good in debating. Through the video, I learned that tone and presentation are really important. Body language also is important because it shows what the person is thinking. There are times when some of the debaters in the video portray a "closed" body language. This shows that they were scared of their opponents, which should be true because their opponents were really confident and poised. At the end, their opponents, the affirmative side, won. I learned from the affirmative team that the first speaker should define every single detail in the motion clearly. He or she should also be very confident. The first speaker should really know what he or she is saying and really believe in the mechanism that his or her team has made. The second and third speakers have to present themselves in the same way but they, especially the third speaker, have to rebut effectively against the opponents' arguments. They have to show that the opponents are talking nonsense and they have to defend their stand on the motion. After watching the video, I realized that it somewhat connects to my daily live. When making a decision or conveying an opinion, we have to be consistent. We can't change from one decision to another or one perspective to another because then no decision will be done and people who listen to our opinions will be confused. Nevertheless, this does not apply to TOK since in TOK we have to stay neutral and accept all decisions and perspectives.