The day finally arrived! I had been waiting with expectation this day, and it didn't disappoint me. It was great and my house, the Mackay house, could win some points for the full Interhouses Tournament. Our team was composed by Mingi Park as a first speaker, David Flint as third speaker and me.
For the first debate I was very nervous, because it was against Sommerscales, and they had a great team, but hopefully we won them in the motion "This house would subject young people to night-time curfews". We were against this, so our arguments were based mainly in the Human Rights and that it's counter-productive to have curfews. In one hand, it would be impossible, or too expensive to have a curfew for every youngster, and also, as History has proven, every time you oppress the freedom of the people of a society, the exactly opposite happens. For example, as David said, in the US of the '20s, the government stated that alcohol was illegal from now and on. In 10 years, the alcoholism and smuggling raised in the society.
In the final debate, for the first and second place of the tournament, the motion against Sutherland was "This house believes science is a threat to society". We were also against this, so we based in the evilness of people during all the History and that we can't put limits to ourselves because of our nature. Also, our arguments included things like pollution caused by science, that it enables destruction and that it could be used to control citizens, as in George Orwell's novel, 1984.
This was an amazing experience, and I would like to have debates more often. Hope it repeats next year!
Congratulations for your excellent performance, Sebastián! I also think it was a great experience and everything you've learnt clearly showed in this debate! Both your arguments and the persuasive skills you used were really convincing!
ResponderEliminarCheck out the following link with the recording of your team's performance:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24215890
Share it with your family and friends!
-AC-
Sebastian,
ResponderEliminarYou did very well in this final debate! One of the major areas the debate team has been wanting to improve is style, and in this tournament I think I heard some interesting comments from you that used some techniques such as humor and sarcasm. (Such as when you told the Robertson team that you DID in fact do something they claimed that you did not, but if they weren´t listening... well, that´s OK!) As long as they are appropriate, which your comments were, these are great tools for debating. It doesn´t have to be 100% serious and boring.
Your team had some wonderful arguments, and while you know I normally wouldn´t suggest attempting to prove 6 arguments... it did take the audience by surprise!