Thursday, July 22, 2010
The Great Debaters
Respond to the film. Use you knowledge of argument and two forms: classical and Rogerian to analyze the debater's strategy similar to the way we analyzed student essays yesterday in class. Talk about the type of argument and the appeals. Reduce at least one argument to its standard form and talk about the validity or soundness of the elements. Talk about the role of humor, the drama of the moment --it was theatre. Talk about the presenatation and the material helped the team command the attention of the audience (even those persons listening on radio) and elsewhere, and ultimately win the final match at Harvard.
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In the movie the great debaters in the debate against Harvard University the team used personal experience along with past examples to persuade their audience. One of the past examples they used was Gandhi’s non violent protest was a form of moral justice while the mass murder of hundreds of protesters by the authorities was not. They appeal to the audience mentioning that there were innocent men women and children murdered in the authority’s use of justice whole no one was killed in Gandhi’s protest. They go on to mention in their final argument that they had witnessed a lynching of a Negro in their home state of Texas. James farmer uses phrases that vividly describe this incident to appeal to the audience, phrases like, hung from a tree, set on fire, the fear in my teammate’s eyes, and our noses pressed to the floorboard. The use of descriptive words made his argument strong and gave him the advantage against his opponent which led to his victory.
ReplyDeleteWiley College’s debate team, a Black college from Texas competed for the first time with Harvard University’s debate team. Highly distinguished judges, audience, and through the radio, the nation, witnessed the memorable competition. James Farmer argued his first affirmative; “Civil disobedience is a moral weapon in the fight for justice.” He followed with the story in India during 1919 when 10,000 people gathered to protest the tyranny of British rule. In response, the general commanded his troops to fire into the crowd killing 379 people, men, women, and children, which the general justified as a moral lesson. In contrast, he acquainted the audience with Ghandi’s non-violence movement, causing his arrest. He was released and called it a moral victory. Ending his argument, James says, “Dyer’s lesson or Ghandi’s victory? You choose.” This reminded me of one of the fallacies, false dilemma, either or. The Harvard team’s counterargument was that civil disobedience is not moral because it’s non-violent. According to the speaker, “Fighting for your country with violence can be deeply moral…” He opened his argument with the war from 1914 to 1918. He gave numbers of the men at war, numbers of hours, and numbers of casualties, which was over 8 million. He stated that the war’s slaughter was insurmountably greater than what happened in India. He concedes by saying that nothing was moral about it, but further says that it stopped Germany from enslaving all of Europe. Samantha refutes Harvard’s claim that civil disobedience true face was anarchy. She does this by informing the audience that Ghandi believed that lawbreakers must accept the legal consequences for their actions and asked if that sounded like anarchy. She humored the audience by relating one of Ghandi’s beliefs that one must always act with love and respect for one’s opponent, “even if they are Harvard debaters.” She roused the audience when she informed them that civil disobedience was an American concept and that Ghandi drew his inspiration from Henry David Thoreau, who was a Harvard graduate. The Harvard team also humored the audience. He then continued with sharing a personal story about his father who lost his partner and best friend in the line of duty. He strongly ended with “Nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral, no matter what name we give it,” and received a standing ovation. James proceeded with a personal story of his own, opening with, “In Texas…they lynch Negroes.” He shared the incident when he and his teammates was chased by a lynch mob after viewing a man strung up by his neck and set on fire. He conceded with his opponent’s statement regarding the rule of law and refutes that by stating, “But there is no rule of law in the Jim Crow South…” Before ending, he used a quote from St. Augustine, “An unjust law is no law at all.” Then stating that he had a right, even a duty to resist with violence or civil disobedience, and strongly ended with “You should pray I choose the latter. Both teams appealed to pathos. They delivered their arguments with emotional quality. Their tones and body language strengthened their presentations. The questions within their arguments engaged their audience.
ReplyDeleteIn this movie, Wiley college's debate team had an excellent job against Harvard debate team. They used their personal experience to spport their argument.
ReplyDeleteI think that the driving force for them to beat Harvard team is the beleif for themselves. This driving force helped Wiley college debate team to have a good presentation. Professor Tolson taught his students the belief that they could use these competitive debates for more than personal glory. He also taught his students the power of reason and words and forged a debating juggernaut, able to go head to head and mind to mind, against any team in the country. He said, "We do what we have to do so we can do what we want to do." This statement lead Wiley college dabate team to victory.
In the film, The Great Debaters, some arguments that were presented during the Harvard debate are: Ghandi, a supporter of civil disobedience, is not an anarchist, civil disobedience is not unpatriotic, majority rule results in the tyranny of the majority, civil disobedience should be used against unjust laws.
ReplyDeleteHarvard College appealed to pathos when one of its debaters brought up an incident in which his father's friend was gunned down. Wiley College appealed to pathos as well as ethos when Jr. brought up the incident with the lynch mob. He points out that not all laws are just and that laws did not bring justice to the murder he witnessed. This appeals to a person's ethics because it's clearly not moral to have laws that protect a person based on their skin color. Jr. appealed to emotions when he ended his argument saying, "violence or civil disobedience, you better pray I choose the latter".
Premise 1: Governmental regulations holds people accountable for their actions.
Premise 2: Anarchists do not believe in any governmental regulations.
Premise 3: Ghandi believed that people should be accountable for their actions
Therefore Ghandi is not an anarchist.