Monday night I gave a talk to Cornell Law School’s American Constitution Society about the history and development of Presidential Debates. I thought I had shared this already, but it looks like I forgot to post the thing I was originally writing about it.
It’s a good thing too – these debates are well beyond our wildest dreams for low quality examples of political discourse. It’s not that fun to be living through the end of empire after all.
I gave my talk focusing on the idea that Presidential debates are not good because they represent all of the worst ideas about debate through American history: That debate should be exceptional, that it should be balanced, and that it is something we strive for that drives our country forward. Nothing about any of those assumptions is true. For the majority of debate history in the United States, we have been extraordinarily bad at it.
Here’s the lecture; let me know what you think about it. I do wonder if the conclusion has any relevance at all now considering how bad the debate was and how bad the remaining 2 will probably be.
Comments
2 responses to “The Presidential Debates in the Context of How Bad We Are at having Debates at Any Kind”
So nice to be able to “sit” in one of your lectures again, Steve! It would have been so interesting if our debate class was this semester…
I’m not sure if I agree with Minow’s idea that there will either be poor debates or no debates. I might be an optimist, but I think we have room for improvement if everyone would cooperate (unfortunately certain candidates don’t). In our class, we talked about how debates should give an idea of how candidates would perform. I personally think the Braintrust style of debate would be an informative new alternative for this, I’m honestly shocked no one is giving it recognition (you do bring up a good point that it’d take a great effort to initiate). I think your FPVA concept is excellent, and I think it’d surely add to the productivity/value of presidential debates. Thanks for this recording!
So nice to be able to “sit” in one of your lectures again, Steve! It would have been so interesting if our debate class was this semester…
I’m not sure if I agree with Minow’s idea that there will either be poor debates or no debates. I might be an optimist, but I think we have room for improvement if everyone would cooperate (unfortunately certain candidates don’t). In our class, we talked about how debates should give an idea of how candidates would perform. I personally think the Braintrust style of debate would be an informative new alternative for this, I’m honestly shocked no one is giving it recognition (you do bring up a good point that it’d take a great effort to initiate). I think your FPVA concept is excellent, and I think it’d surely add to the productivity/value of presidential debates. Thanks for this recording!