Out of the filter bubble

Andreas Jäger

Whilst other students enjoy the first strong rays of sunshine, they are honing their rhetoric: debaters. That is the correct term for friends of debating. These very people met over the weekend of 28/29 April for the Southern German Debating Championship (SDM) in Würzburg. Sprachrohr was present at the final in the Toscana Hall of the Residenz.

What is debating? "If it were easy to explain, it would be called football," says Thore Andiel. Playing football works largely intuitively; training is only possible during the time when you don't have the ball. Here Andiel, a rhetoric trainer and prize-winner of several debating competitions, draws the bridge to debating: an essential component is listening to your opponent, not so much your own speech. With this quality, the debating sport advertises itself. Because we all run the risk through social media of increasingly leaving our own filter bubble. Contrary to what some might like to admit, our own opinions are constantly reproduced on online channels, whilst opposing views are denied access by the algorithm. So environmentally conscious people are shown videos in which beaches are cleaned, plastic is avoided and trees are planted. Those who, on the other hand, count AfD representatives among their Facebook friends are served up daily horror scenarios of over-foreignisation. And nothing else.

In debating, however, the draw decides which position is taken must – for the duration of the debate. Spoilt for choice? No, that decision is taken from you. Instead, you are forced to engage intensively with a position that does not necessarily correspond to your own. This trains empathy, reflective ability and the capacity to listen to others and enter into dialogue with them. Therefore, "the objective exchange of different positions […] in the contest of opinions is one of the most important principles of democracy," according to Lennart Lokstein, President of the Association of Debating Clubs at Universities e.V. (VDCH) in his welcoming address.

At the Southern German Championship, the finalists, "Streitkultur" from Tübingen on one side and the Debating Club Freiburg on the other, competed against each other. Both clubs belong to their respective university. In debating, two formats are particularly common: the British Parliamentary Style (BPS) and the Open Parliamentary Debate (OPD). The latter was used in the final in Würzburg. There are two teams of three: one takes the role of a fictional "government", the other that of the "opposition". Additionally, there are three non-partisan speakers. Alongside approximately 100 spectators, a student jury and an honorary jury assessed the proceedings. The latter was packed with some prominence: for example, Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews, was among the jurors.

The participants had only 15 minutes to prepare after the topic of the debate was announced, which was somewhat unwieldy: "If a majority in the British House of Commons forms for a withdrawal from Brexit, should this 'withdrawal from withdrawal' take place before the European election?"

And off they went, with government and opposition delivering a back-and-forth of pros and cons in seven-minute speeches each. For someone new to debating competitions, the individual arguments were less interesting. The government pointed out that the British had been insufficiently informed about the possible economic disaster before the Brexit vote and that a withdrawal from Brexit, whilst inconsistent, was the right thing to do, whilst opposition speakers argued strongly that one must accept the will of the people in such a vote if one has already promised direct democracy. Rather, as a neutral observer, one was quite impressed by the eloquence of the competitors. They used what the rhetorical toolkit had to offer: variation in volume and speed, callbacks (referring back to previous speakers), clear expression, confident demeanour and, particularly in the case of Konrad Gütschow, one of the non-partisan speakers, gestures and facial expressions like Gerhard Schröder. "Ums"? Not a trace. So if you find yourself breaking into a cold sweat at the thought of your next PowerPoint presentation rather than feeling sovereignly relaxed, you might want to drop by a training session of the local debating club. There was only a slight lack of humour, so the event did seem somewhat stiff. But that is probably tradition in this speaking sport, which has its roots in the Anglophone world and which prepares competitors for important speeches in the parliaments and plenary halls of the republic in terms of their later careers. The team from Tübingen secured victory and thus guaranteed participation in the all-German championship, which takes place from 30.05 to 02.06 in Heidelberg.

After the awards ceremony, Samuel Scheuer from the winning team "Streitkultur" answered questions from Sprachrohr. He was satisfied with the debate, especially since he had recently spent Erasmus in Scotland and had thus experienced the perennial Brexit issue first-hand. How did he come to debating? "It was love at first sight," explains the politics student. Training works in such a way that someone suggests a topic for debate. Who wins the debate is not so important. Instead, there is a pronounced feedback culture that helps you improve your rhetorical skills. Finally, he answered the question of whether he aspires to a career within politics? "Yes, in ten years you'll see me in Berlin or Brussels!"

Lastly, it should be noted that the organiser of this year's SDM, the Würzburg Debating Club Colloquia Herbipolensia, meets every Thursday at 8 p.m. in Lecture Hall 124 of the New University for training debates and welcomes those interested.

Information: https://www.debattierclub-wuerzburg.de/ or https://www.facebook.com/DebattierclubWue/

Contact: info@debattierclub-wuerzburg.de