Page 289 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 289
debate as an educational tool:
is polarization a debate side effect? 289
with an educational impact. For example, Johnson and Johnson (1994)
depict a debater as denying “the legitimacy of others’ needs and feel-
ings, and see the situation only from their own perspective” (ibidem:
118) or as “unwilling to make concession to the opponent’s viewpoint,
and close-mindedly refuse to incorporate any of it into their own posi-
tion” (Johnson and Johnson, 2000: 3–22). However, what Johnson and
Johnson point out in these quotations are not debate impacts. They are
talking about the prescribed sets of behaviour characterized by the de-
bating match because of the rules of the match itself, i.e. debate role be-
haviour. In fact, developing an issue from only one’s own point of view,
ignoring others’ perspectives and avoiding making risky concessions
for oneself are legitimate behaviours in debating matches. Nonethe-
less, this does not mean that a debater behaves in this manner, on all
occasions. It would mean coming to the conclusion that a judoka usu-
ally fights people just because in competitions he or she struggles vio-
lently with an opponent.
Confusing procedural effects, i.e. role behaviour, with educational
impacts is mostly committed by cooperative learning supporters. These
supporters sometimes seem to suggest that cooperative types of dialogue
are better than competitive types on the basis that, at the end of the
match, cooperative types of dialogue motivate students to agree instead
of disagreeing. For example, Johnson and Johnson (2000) conclude that
debaters refuse to incorporate any opponent’s point of view into their
own position, and Felton et al. (2009) are of the opinion that, students
in the deliberative condition are more likely to craft arguments that ac-
knowledge opposing viewpoints. However, as pointed out before, these
outcomes must be recognized as debate or deliberative roles rather than
dwelling on their educational impact. Likewise, from an argumentative
point of view, agreement cannot be considered as the criteria of distin-
guishing sound arguments from bad ones. It is always possible for two
parties to reach an agreement using fallacious arguments because reach-
ing an agreement could be a simple, or the expected way, of getting good
marks in school.
A similar misinterpretation seems to be committed by Walton
(1995) when he confuses debate’s accidental features with the essence
of debate or the ideal debate, i.e. debate hypothetical optimum. He de-
clares that, “debaters can score good points and can win over a judge
or audience successfully even while using bad or fallacious arguments”.
However, if debate exhibits some features of the eristic dialogue it does
is polarization a debate side effect? 289
with an educational impact. For example, Johnson and Johnson (1994)
depict a debater as denying “the legitimacy of others’ needs and feel-
ings, and see the situation only from their own perspective” (ibidem:
118) or as “unwilling to make concession to the opponent’s viewpoint,
and close-mindedly refuse to incorporate any of it into their own posi-
tion” (Johnson and Johnson, 2000: 3–22). However, what Johnson and
Johnson point out in these quotations are not debate impacts. They are
talking about the prescribed sets of behaviour characterized by the de-
bating match because of the rules of the match itself, i.e. debate role be-
haviour. In fact, developing an issue from only one’s own point of view,
ignoring others’ perspectives and avoiding making risky concessions
for oneself are legitimate behaviours in debating matches. Nonethe-
less, this does not mean that a debater behaves in this manner, on all
occasions. It would mean coming to the conclusion that a judoka usu-
ally fights people just because in competitions he or she struggles vio-
lently with an opponent.
Confusing procedural effects, i.e. role behaviour, with educational
impacts is mostly committed by cooperative learning supporters. These
supporters sometimes seem to suggest that cooperative types of dialogue
are better than competitive types on the basis that, at the end of the
match, cooperative types of dialogue motivate students to agree instead
of disagreeing. For example, Johnson and Johnson (2000) conclude that
debaters refuse to incorporate any opponent’s point of view into their
own position, and Felton et al. (2009) are of the opinion that, students
in the deliberative condition are more likely to craft arguments that ac-
knowledge opposing viewpoints. However, as pointed out before, these
outcomes must be recognized as debate or deliberative roles rather than
dwelling on their educational impact. Likewise, from an argumentative
point of view, agreement cannot be considered as the criteria of distin-
guishing sound arguments from bad ones. It is always possible for two
parties to reach an agreement using fallacious arguments because reach-
ing an agreement could be a simple, or the expected way, of getting good
marks in school.
A similar misinterpretation seems to be committed by Walton
(1995) when he confuses debate’s accidental features with the essence
of debate or the ideal debate, i.e. debate hypothetical optimum. He de-
clares that, “debaters can score good points and can win over a judge
or audience successfully even while using bad or fallacious arguments”.
However, if debate exhibits some features of the eristic dialogue it does
