The flaws of a group debate.

Large group debates are a cumbersome debacle. The one we held in class recently met the requirements of a cumbersome debacle. The problems with group debates (especially large ones) is that an oligarchy quickly forms. Those in the oligarchy are the ones usually scoring up the word count not neccasarily because they are right or even cerebral but because they are most personably assertive. Proffessor Bogacka gave incentive to the groups by openly declaring extra credit to the one who wins the debate. However, debates are tricky affairs that are often used by educators to clarify arguments and not distinguish which position trumps the other. In both of the groups in our class, they were many that remaiend quiet, cowed almost. There were others who loudly (Myself included) argued their views (murky views). The reason why the views were murky was because we were assigned to believe in positions that we did not have the freedom to choose. How can one believe in a position through arbitrary circumstance (a flip of the coin or the whimsical decision?). It's like telling rabid aboritionists to argue for stem cell research or else they'll lose their households. I suspect that people did not take the debate seriously. Or else they saw at as a redudant excercise to be tolerated but not all celebrated or even considered as applicable to their daily lives. Who won the argument? It's hard to say. There was ample amounts of duplicitious on both sides. Determining the winner is as arbitrary as picking a side. The debate left me unsettled and unsatisified. Why should I care? It's just a limitied excercise, right? These debates are fraught with fallacies and outspoken viewpoints that insist upon themselves to the point where things are right because they sound right. Right? And why does one engage in debates? To gratify ones one ego? And why should an individual be so invested in a frivilious debate? That kind of conduct is loser-ish. The oligarchy usurps the group and points are almost always fallible. Unsatisfactory conclusions and people flinging extrinsic arguments back and forth. Is that a debate? And why type a blog post about it? What function does it serve? Well, this is, ultimatley, a request to the proffessor to either dole out extra credit to both groups or none at all. I proport none at all.