Lance Mannion: Spinning the debate, but not that debate

I've taken part in only one formal debate.

Junior high.

Mike Shorkey, John Shields, and I going up against Nancy Wakeman, Peggy Pryor, and Christine Cafferelli.

That's Mike and me at our 8th grade graduation. Mike's the kid on the left. John was probably over posing with some girls.

Mike and John went in thinking we were bound to lose. The fix was in. The class would vote on which team won and they figured the vote would be strictly along partisan lines, the boys voting for us, the girls voting for the girls, and there were more girls in the class than boys.

But I was confident. We had the advantage. Boys were smarter than girls. I was willing to admit that this didn't mean that we were smarter than all girls, all the time. But the odds were with us. I figured that at least three girls would be intelligent enough to recognize our innate superiority and honest enough to vote accordingly.

And we were on the side of the angels. The topic was Should Government Workers, Including Police Officers and Fire Fighters Be Allowed to Strike? We were pro. Martin Luther King, Jr and Bobby Kennedy Rfk would have been on our side. I couldn't imagine who'd be on the girls'. In fact, I couldn't even imagine how the girls could argue that any workers did not have the right to withhold their own labor.

Which was my big mistake. It's always the biggest mistake. Not being able to imagine your opponent's arguments. It's hard to think like the other guy, especially when you know the other guy---or girl---is dead wrong. It's even harder to imagine how the other guy---or girl---can believe they're not wrong.

You think they must know they're wrong and all it will take is one key fact deployed at a crucial moment or one especially well-turned phrase and your opponent's knees will buckle, her lip start to tremble, and with a burst of sobbing she'll rush from the podium.

Sure of my cause, certain of my abilities, I set to work preparing. I did my homework, I found quotes from Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, and I worked hard on my speeches, practicing them in front of my family, all of whom were ready to join the Wobblies when I was done.

At that time I hadn't yet learned the phrase Preaching to the choir.

You will also note in the above the exclusive use of the first person singular.

John and Mike who?

Day of the debate came. The format was that each side got to deliver a speech setting forth their argument, followed by rebuttals. Then the floor would be open for questions from the judges---Sister Mary Jacinta and Mr Schick. After which we were allowed to question each other. Then would come our summations.

Although all of us were supposed to be participating in the rebuttals and question and answer, it pretty much came down to a showdown between their egomaniacal smarty pants and our egomaniacal smarty pants.

Nancy Wakeman against me.

I knew we were toast midway through.

I could tell Nancy's points were better phrased than mine and I understood it was because her arguments were more concrete. I heard myself relying too much on airy rhetoric. Trying to sound like Lincoln, I forgot to prepare like Lincoln.

There was one moment when I thought I had her. She used the phrase quid pro quo. Ours was a Catholic School after Vatican II. No Latin in our curriculum. I was sure that nobody in the room besides the teachers knew what it meant. I was sure that Nancy didn't know what it meant. Pompous little pedant, I thought, or would have if I'd known either word. Snooty little show off, is what I did think. She was faking and I was going to call her on it and send her running sobbing from the room.

I smirked.

I remember that smirk. I can still feel it on my face.

"And what, pray tell," I said scornfully, thinking I was mimicking the snotty tone in her voice, "Does quid pro quo mean?"

She told me.

And we were sunk.

Abe_01 I managed to remain at my podium without bursting into tears. But my knees buckled and I was glad it was time for me to sit down. John Shields read our summation. Peggy Pryor read theirs. The quotes from Lincoln I'd written out for John mocked me in my ears. The debate ended and the class voted.

I knew we'd lost but I was stunned by how badly. The vote didn't split along gender lines. At least five boys voted for the girls' team!

Actually, it was six. I found out later one of the girls had voted for our team because she had a crush on John. He was tall and she liked his freckles.

It was winter and after school I went sledding with my pal Joe Jennings. Joe was a quiet guy, not one of the brains of the class, a solid C student, but somehow we all thought of him as being smart, despite his laconic manner and complete lack of interest in schoolwork. I think Joe was probably the first proof I had that whatever it was school was designed to measure and encourage, it was not designed to measure and encourage individual merit and worth. Joe listened to me grouse about the debate after every run. It was a great sledding hill, tall and steep, and the walk back up was tough going. So I had a chance to do a lot of grousing. After about the tenth walk up, Joe decided it was time for him to speak.

"Lance," he said, quietly and sympathetically, "You lost."

He didn't mean, Lance, it's finished, get over it, you can't change history by complaining.

He meant what he said, that we'd lost on the merits. The girls had out-debated us. Nancy Wakeman had out-debated me. Their argument was the more convincing. He didn't think they were right, necessarily, but they made it clear they knew what they were talking about, they countered all our arguments, answered the teachers' questions, and successfully challenged us without our being able to respond.

Plus, he went on, they were calm and thoughtful. I was bouncing up and down all the time and making too many faces and I yelled a lot.

In short, Joe had voted for them!

I sighed, exactly like Charlie Brown sighs after Linus has explained to him how the world is.