Tournament turns Palace Theater into hotbed of rhetoric

Four sophomores traded jabs and counterpunches – all of the verbal variety – during the final round of the Colgate Debate Tournament held Thursday night at the downtown Palace Theater.

The spirited discussion sparked applause, an occasional whoop, and a few questions from the nearly 50 students in attendance.

The debate, sponsored by Colgate’s Harry C. Behler Debate Society, involved two teams of two students each. The teams – Mikey Carrington and John Drymon on one side and David Aldrich and Steven Segall  on the other – had emerged victorious from a series of preliminary rounds held last weekend at Persson Hall.

The organizers had solicited students to take part in the tournament and held practice sessions to explain the format.

The tournament followed the rules of parliamentary debate, which mimic those in the House of Commons in England where rhetoric and passion, and an occasional hiss and shout, can sometimes win the day over hard, cold facts.

It is a free-wheeling exercise in which there is little time to prepare and participants must  react to their opponents’ charges and arguments in a quick and coherent manner.

On Thursday night, the teams were presented with this situation: The pope lapsed into a coma. He had a vision that essentially threw all of his beliefs and the basic tenets of the Catholic Church into question. Should he reveal this, or keep up appearances and pretend nothing has happened?

After a coin flip, it was determined that Carrington and Drymon would represent the “government” side of this issue and argue that yes, it would be morally permissible for the pope to lie.

Drymon said there would be widespread “existential despair” if the bedrock beliefs of the Catholic Church were put in doubt. It would be imperative for the pope to lie to retain stability throughout the world and to maintain the hopes and beliefs of millions of people who follow the church’s teachings.

Carrington, acting as prime minister, said the collapse of the church would create a worldwide economic upheaval along with a crisis of faith. The pope should lie for the “greater glory of the world.”

Rubbish, said the opposition.

Aldrich and Segall said the pope should merely resign, and tell people he can no longer continue as their leader. The pontiff allowing people to continue placing their faith in a flawed doctrine or having them pray to the wrong god  would be unforgivable, they argued.

“Eternal damnation is far worse than economic upheaval,” said Segall.

Each side spoke three times before the matter was turned over to the judges – Alan Cooper, assistant professor of history, and Patrick Kabat ‘06 and Elias Shakkour ’06, co-presidents of the debate society.

The verdict: The opposition team of Aldrich and Segall won the day, and the $500 prize.

Shakkour explained that while both sides had some flaws in their arguments, the government team had “dropped more points” and didn’t refute the opposition’s arguments in a decisive way.

For instance, the government team said there had never been a papal resignation, and for the pope to resign would be unprecedented and strike a crippling blow to the church. It was pointed out that there was a resignation in 1294, when Pope Celestine V stepped down. A few students in the audience stepped up the microphones to point out some other errors of fact, and to help set the record straight.

Overall, Cooper said both sides performed very well and conducted  “a good passionate debate.”

It’s a terrific exercise he said, because “it’s hard to argue about hard things,” and the ability to think on one’s feet and present a persuasive argument is critical in so many things the students will be doing in their lives and careers.