Back in the days of Roman Empire, thousands of people would get together to watch gladiators duke it out to the death. Screams of joy echoed in the stadium as blood and gore flew in al directions.
You will almost never see that in LD.
Things have tamed considerably. While I may feel like picking up a bronze sword and hacking at an opponent, the almighty eyebrow of the judge must never be raised, (not to mention the legal and media entanglements). What actually happens is that every Saturday, and some Fridays, highschool students involved in their school's Drama, Speech, and Debate team drag themselves out of bed way to early in morning, and go to various schools where they argue, wax poetic, or act out a play. I am involved in Lincoln/Douglas Debate so I argue. There are four rounds in the average LD tournament. We don't get to pick what we argue about, or even what side we'll be on. There is a "resolution" for every two months. The resolution is a sentence. For instance, the 1999 State Championships resolution was "Human genetic engineering is justified". Debaters prepare one speech for, and one speech against (or atleast, we're supposed to, some of us are slackers and prefer to wing it). With few exceptions, a debater will fight on each side of the resolution two times during a tournament. The debaters are told what side they'll be on minutes before they enter the round. That debater then holds on to that belief (ie. genetic engineering is good) for the next fifty minutes with all the tenacity of a pitbull ripping at the seat of your pants. The Affirmative is the debater agreeing with the resolution. The debater not agreeing with resolution is called the Negative.
In the room, there are (in the average round) only three people. Two debaters, and a judge. The judge is a coach, teacher, parent, ex-debater etc... who volunteers to spend their Saturdays listening to a debate rounds and determine who is the better debater.
A round always starts with the Affirmative. She gets up, and has six minutes to give her speech. You'd be surprised how short a time six minutes is, and yet how much one can squeeze into it. The Negative is then given three minutes to ask the Aff (Affirmative) questions that will (hopefully) make her seem like a twit. This is the actual argumentation portion of debate. Then, the Neg (Negative) is given seven minutes with which to give a speech and perform what is known as a rebuttal. In his rebuttal, he will list all the points the Aff made and show how all of them are bone- headed, and his are brilliant. (No malisciouness there, of course! These are simple the technical terms we use! =0) ) The Aff then gets three minutes of cross-ex, asking him questions and makeing him look like an even bigger twit than she is. (You'd be surprised how many twits disguise themselves as debaters.) Then, the Aff gets a three minutes rebuttal, repairing whatever damage the Neg made, and blasting the Negative's arguments. After that come's the Neg's four minute rebuttal, and then the final rebuttal, two minutes, is done by the Aff. Thus a speech, cross-ex, and two rebuttal are alloted to each debater.
While all this is going on, the judge sits and watches. During the round, he may not be addressed. And yet, the entire argument is meant to persuade him. The Aff can't persuade the Neg, his opinion is assigned to him, and vice-versa. The judge does give time signals, holding up as many fingers as there are minutes left, so that a six minute speech doesn't "accidentally" take half and hour. The judge also listens. He listens to each debater, and then rights down who he thinks sounded to the most logical, believeable, and eloquent. It is he who decides the round. For those fifty minutes, he's a god (or she's a goddess).
One added note. I can picture, as I write this, an enthusiastic, outspoken kid dreaming of weilding the flaming sword of truth in debate, only to be disappointed at the "you are assigned your opinion" bit. Debate is not easy. And it's not there to validate your own opinions. There are support groups for that type of thing. There are two sides to every argument. And we find them. Oh boy do we find them! So, you've got to be willing to listen to both sides (or fake it really well) if you are ever going to do debate.
