Debates can be deceptive if you don't know the facts. Ever wondered why debates are so upsetting? Who won? And why? We've all been in a debate and couldn't grasp our heads around the logic of those whom we debate. I want to provide a guide to how people debate and why so that, not only can you do better in your own debates, but most importantly you can determine the rhetoric behind someone else's debating strategies.
First of all, the lack of sources is the first sign of someone with a weak argument. Not always does this prove true but with the amount of information readily available in our world, it's easy to prove or disprove something. To better understand the examples I will lay out, let's make debater number 1 be the successful debater, and we will call him Steve. Debater number 2 will be the failing debater and we will call him Frank. S for success and Steve, F for failure and Frank. Compare each to debaters you know of or put yourself in their shoes. If Steve is using sources to prove his point, Frank will often do one thing: attack the source instead of the argument being made. Now a source definitely needs to be reliable but Frank's defaming evidence typically consists of his own opinions of the source, or will be measured by unrelated measuring tools such as the number of views on the webpage article, the number of followers of the person being quoted, or the sources lack of eloquent writing abilities. I was once in a debate about capitalism versus socialism on Facebook where I cited three sources as to why socialism doesn't work in practice. Frank's response was something to the effect of "you're not even using peer-reviewed articles, I can't trust those." Though that was a true statement, it held no relevance, and my source was sound and verifiable. The reason why focusing too much on the validity of sources is detrimental to Frank is because the best way to debate is to support your claim, or defame your opponents, and this is neither. Frank should rather come up with sources to oppose Steve's sources, or support his own stance instead, yet because he can't, he focuses on trivial matters.
Frank may also attack Steve for using sources, just based off of the fact he is using sources. This may sound ridiculous but it happens. The most recent time I have seen this was in a debate where Dinesh D'Souza was debating Cenk Uyger. Cenk said that using statistics was a Republican's way of covering up the facts. The reason why Cenk or Frank will make these claims isn't because they don't believe the statistics or the source, but because they don't have any sources themselves. They feel like they brought a knife to a gun fight and that they want Steve to drop his gun to make it more fair, or to put them on level playing ground. At least that's the claim, but really they don't own a gun. Probably because they are a liberal.
Another thing Frank often will do is "laugh it off", or make a joke about Steve, or Steve's claim in order to show that he doesn't seemed bothered by the evidence against him or his argument. While this isn't a good debating technique by any means, it seems to work. Donald Trump did it in every Republican debate, and Hillary Clinton does it in her debates as well, but most recently in her debate against Trump she was found to laugh after almost every damning thing that Trump said. Now Steve may laugh at what Frank says sometimes as well, but he will follow it up with evidence to disprove Frank's claim. To see how Donald Trump is a master of psychological tactics like this, check out a video by Charisma on Command here.
Next, they make sweeping generalizations. It's based of the notion that if a small group is a certain way, the larger group must be as well. These are the times in which you must first ask yourself if you fit into that generalization, and second, fact check. If you don't relate to the generalization made such as a statistic about "all females" when you are a male, look it up. Generalizations I would dare say are more often true than they are not, but what Frank will do is make his "small group" as small as one or two people, and then throw the word "everybody" into his claim. Frank has a friend who thinks that South Park is educational. Frank then tells you that everyone, or at least most people find South Park to be educational. Well I've never seen South Park so I don't fit in his generalization but I'm for sure going to fact check that!
Another tactic Frank might use is causality. This is the claim that when there exists a correlation it must be causation. We learn in school that correlation is not causation, yet too often we see assumptions being made. For example, it is a fact that over the years, America has gotten fatter. The average body mass index of humans here has been increasing for years. In the same time period, the number of satellites and radio/cell phone towers has also increased; therefore, satellites and radio towers cause obesity. Now this example is a bit far-fetched but this is another case in which you must fact check what Frank says. Just because two things happen simultaneously, or in similar situations does not mean they are related. Frank often makes these claims due to the lack of resources. Like my brother always says, 93% of statistics are made up.
My last point is really a continuation of the first point, which is, instead of discrediting the claim or the source, Frank will attack Steve. He will result to name calling, previous stances on previous debate topics, and attacks on Steve's validity as a human, again being measured by uncredible tools. "Steve, I have 4 times as many followers on Twitter as you." "Steve, last topic you supported Blackberry phones, and we know how that went. This debate is going the same way." Is it though? Now a lot of you will point the finger at Donald Trump, which is definitely a tactic he resorts to, but in a heated debate, almost everyone succumbs. Hillary Clinton in her most recent debate against Trump called him crazy, a racist, a sexist, a birther, etc. This is not typically as a hateful act but rather a last ditch attempt to make you think less of their opponent as a person, and as a reliable source themselves so that you won't value or hear their opinion.
Now I am by no means the perfect example of avoiding these things but I do my best to make sure what I say is reliable, verifiable, accurate, and not misleading. The important thing about debating is to not be so focused on "winning" but rather on accurately portraying your opinions, making your claims, or supporting your argument to the best of your ability.
Don't let Frank trick you.
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