I would like to address the discussion turned debate turned death match that divided our class on Wednesday. I would like to discuss why it turned to ugly so quickly and hopefully prevent that from happening in the future.
I know that a lot of people were absent from class for one reason or another, so allow me to fill you in. We were discussing whether public life influenced private life and vice versa. We approached this situation from several different angels and were sorted into groups based on our understanding of the concept.
I was in the group that believed that our public lives influence our private lives, although I ended up chilling in the middle with Abby towards the end of the discussion. The second group believed that private life influenced our public lives, and the third believed, well to be honest I’m still not entirely clear about what the modern viewpoint was. And I think that was one of the problems that we encountered…
As we opened up discussion, we were supposed to elect a representative or two to speak for the group. I was elected representative because I lost nose-goes, but, my group at least, was a little unclear on the exigence of our topic. That made arguing for it a little difficult because the three categories weren’t definitive. As a class, we tried to collaborate on a common definition for several of the things we were discussing, but we never really succeeded. That also made it difficult to argue because we didn’t interpret the material in the same way.
The representative thing fell through after a few minutes and the floor opened up to the class in general, which also ended up creating a little bit of chaos. It worked well for a few minutes, Austin, for example stood when he spoke, making it clear when he was finished speaking. But as the discussion continued, we kept interrupting one another. To be perfectly honest we allowed our passion (?) for the subject to get the better of us and we weren’t very respectful to one another. I am 100% guilty of this and I’m sorry if I offended anyone. I debated a lot in high school for various classes, and I get really into it, and I just wanted to let you know that it’s nothing personal. I just really enjoy deconstructing and nitpicking arguments. Sometimes I get swept away and do so viciously, and so I am sorry.
I think that, to some extent, we were all guilty of getting caught up in the emotional aspect of the argument. It’s kind of like watching the Vice Presidential debates. If you haven’t done so, they’re hilariously entertaining and full of malarkey. They pretty much go after one another with everything they’ve got, and not nearly as many people watch those debates so they can get away with it more so.
Anyway, for future discussions/debates I think that we should retain a little more propriety and perhaps take more steps to moderate our discussions more effectively. I’m also very sorry to Kyle for having to witness that debacle.
