The Great Debate

Debate class satire; written in stilted prose for optimal effect.

“You’ll never sink this boat! Come on! You call this a storm? . . . It’s time for a showdown—you and me! I’m right here! Come and get me! AHAHAHAHA!” -- Lt. Dan, Forrest Gump

~---~

Outside the classroom door puerile pubescents could be seen striding and clunking through the consistently drab corridors, as they did every day at precisely this time. Basking in the aura of mediocrity which permeated their school, and for which public schools are renown, the boors engaged in trivial banter, all the while striving to beat the bell. Had they the capacity, they might've been proud of their monumentally valuable multitasking abilities, one of the few qualities their society of quantity and mass-production valued.

Inside the brightly lit room of Debate Class, desks were displaced from their usual locations and arranged to form an oblique circle, after which ritual everyone took a seat.

The Atonic Leader began, “Today’s topic is abortion: should it be permitted or should it not?”[1] The Atonic Leader read a sample of typical, dubious political positions on the issue. These were ingested with the utmost gravity, for of course everyone recognized the authoritative fiat of politics and legality. Could there be any other meaningful universe of discourse? None outlined by this semester's syllabus, and so none comprehensible to the classroom cattle.

Eager hands now rose. Speaking privilege arbitrarily was granted to the third—the PMS-ing Dabbler. This ethnically scattered young woman—notorious for her insolent individualism and for her adroitness in delivering long-winded, emotionally persuasive monologues and anecdotes—unfortunately lacked a lick of critical-thinking ability, and was prone to spouting off the most amateurish arguments, soundbites and observations.

“The fetus is part of the woman’s body,” she began. “It’s up to the woman to decide what she does with her body. If she wants to get an abortion, that’s her choice. It’s a personal decision. So . . . yeah . . . that’s what I think.”

Had she understood transitive identity, it’s just possible she never would have made so hackneyed—so non-unique—an argument.[2]

Hands shot up once more, and so-called pro-lifers got the opportunity to reply with the usual lackluster drivel, simultaneously committing every logical fallacy their teacher never taught them. “I don’t think logic and fallacies are what I want you to learn,” she had told them when put on the spot -- a not-so tacit concession that she didn't care if they learned how to reason effectively.

The PMS-ing Dabbler, longing to reply to the comments made on her argument, and her raised arm resolutely tired of being ignored, lowered it in vexation and blurted out a characteristic observation.

“This is all opinion.”

Eventually the little pink mic found its way to the Beheaded Chicken. When the banal banter died down, she began to speak loudly, in a tone of self-righteous braggadocio that was . . . enigmatically characteristic of a beheaded chicken. “If abortion is outlawed, people are still going to have abortions done. Only it won’t be safe. They’ll be forced to resort to having back alley abortions and they’ll contact [sic] all sorts of diseases.”

Even to the most quasi of psuedo-intellectuals her argument was laughable, ably summed up with, “If they’re going to kill their children anyway, we should at least make it safe for them!” But alas, no direct replies came forth from the pro-life camp, who sought instead to beg the question and engage in vapid machismo-oriented humor.

When at last the time came that she received a thoughtful reply, she, too, was forced to stop and consider a moment, to contemplate . . . ponder -- though, sadly, not for too long. For it was then that she recieved the revelation to end all revelations: arguments made by men contain y-chromosomes! Now the Beheaded Chicken unpacked the ultimate rebuttal: “You’re a man, you have no place to say that. This is a woman’s issue!”

The pro-lifers, most vocal of which were male, joked together some more, poking fun at the Beheaded Chicken. They had no actual response, though admittedly none was needed.

“I can’t believe these a******s!” the Beheaded Chicken bellowed to no one in particular. She rose from her chair and headed for the door. “You do not want me to reply to you f*****g jerks. My God, you just DON’T.” She fled the classroom and slammed the door directly her rear was clear . . . in a manner that was, again, peculiarly like a beheaded chicken.

Due to classroom indiscretion, the mic found its way once more to the PMS-ing Dabbler.

To the PMS-ing Dabbler, it was obvious that aesthetics determined humanity. She said, “Look, the zygote is not a human being, okay? Have you seen pictures of what it looks like in the uterus? I mean, it looks like a tadpole. Come on.” (It never occurred to her, but the PMS-ing Dabbler could not say exactly what the zygote/fetus is. Despite the fact that it has a unique set of human, rather than canine or feline, DNA, the PMS-ing Dabbler ineffably knew it must be something else.) Fully consonant with the mindset of her functionalistic society, she proceeded to set out the criteria for personhood®: “It can’t feel pain, it doesn’t breath, it can’t reason; it doesn’t even have brain waves. It’s not human. It’s dependent on the mother, and she has the right to get rid of it.” Of course, being exactly the sort of conclusion a dabbler would draw, it came as no surprise that it was wrong. Anyone genuinely informed on the abortion debate knows that the fetus is human life.[3]

Nowadays self-styled “pro-choice” advocates (the ones who aren’t dabblers) argue that, though human, the fetus isn’t a person. And, notwithstanding the fact that most abortions occur at nine weeks in utero, when the fetus unquestionably does exhibit signs of neurological activity, she and her boorish, mono-dimensional society of drama-mongers, dignity-evaders and unwarily aspiring automatons unwittingly insinuated the illicit and intellectually offensive notion that it is intelligent to entertain the idea of a human non-person—as if such a thing were possible. Like others of her school, she sought to define a person by his or her functioning—the sort of operational definition used in science and experimentation—without understanding the flagrant inadequacy of such a definition in the philosophically-informed world (wherever that went). The fallacy of her argument was, in real politik, quite elementary: she confused being with function; she confused what a thing is with what a thing does. Assuredly, that comes as no surprise; for the culture whose thoughts she had swallowed hook-line-and-sinker is nothing more than a morally fogged, philosophically impotent, anti-intellectual Mass of humanity—the b*****d child of 200 years worth of American degeneration. Indeed, the fact that the practice of abortion continues today is firm testament to that.

But of course, none of the pro-lifers could rebut arguments of the caliber she carried in her arsenal; and they knew it. So, with no shortage of hand-waving, and with soundbites incessantly being bandied about, the debate went on its ill-driven course, till—nothing resolved—it fizzled out several minutes later, as the bell rangity rang rang.

Everyone got up and left.

They left from another mind-expanding day of Debate Class . . .

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[1] The Atonic Leader does not necessarily belong to a single gender group, and so will never be referred to by the pronouns “he” or “she,” or any other gender-specific term, for that matter.
[2] If A is a part of B, and C is a part of A, then C is a part of B. In the case at hand, let A be fetus, let B be woman’s body and let C be penis—and watch the facetious absurdity that follows.
[3] As noted previously, its DNA is human, not walrus or Siamese.

Reviews

[Brian Osterhouse]

Insert any argument and that's the format taken by the masses. Mindless recitation of rhetoric. I once heard a strong unique question posed to pro-lifers which unfortunately met with a subject no rebuttal. 'Though you claim to be pro life your actions don't necessarily fit your claim. You get them birthed true, but then wash your hands of them. Fail to educate. Fail to provide for their well-being. Get 'em out and then get 'em to jail or war. Why does your pro-life stance change after birth?'

[J. Elsie]

the boors engaged in trivial banter -- || Aha! "boors" - I just learned a new word, oh yeah! :) *happy dance*and they’ll contact all sorts of diseases.” -- || Did you mean "contract"? Or is the character that dumb? lol. "contact" works here too, really, but I think of contracting diseases,,, not contacting diseases.. and wait, I don't actually think of CONTRACTING diseases, as In I WANT TO, just. oh. nevermind. :)this is exactly the sort conclusion a dabbler -- || Missing an "of" in there.||||||Interesting, Intriguing, Mocking story. Were you ever in debate, out of curiousity? I have no idea how old you are. Anyhoo, I was in debate through high-school. We actually never got the opportunity to have these sorts of open forum debates. We always stayed on the National Forensic League's chosen topic of the year... year one: education,,, year two: privacy acts,,, year three: Weapons of mass destruction --which coincidentally was the year the World Trade Center was attacked and guess which class we watched them go down in? You got it, dude, Debate. Man that was messed up! I wish we had gotten the chance to do more open forum discussion. I think I knew a PMS-ing Dabbler and a Beheaded Chicken...seriously. Maybe more than one of each category. I wonder what category I fit into? :)I wonder also if you are interested in the tiring-topic of Abortion. In college I did a lot of research and a speech on partial-birth abortion,, which is disturbing to say the least. If you've never heard of it, read up, I'll bet it will make you shiver.Thanks for sharing this humorous and yet-so-true-life piece.Best wishes always,jenn

[Ilene M.W. Lush]

ok...laughed out loud at the PMSing Dabbler... and here 'I don't think logic and fallacies are what I want you to learn,' she had told them -- which amounted to a not-so tacit concession that, in her debate class, she didn?t want them to learn how to reason effectively. and then it took a serious twist. and i will leave that debate on your content for to others, as I imagine it could spark severalwell written, and i was drawn in to the senario. quite professional and charming in a way. i think this would be well used to illustrate several issues. sincerelyileneps: i am glad i read the description.