When I started my year abroad at the US-American East coast I was really thrilled by the idea that Yale, my new alma mater to be, hosted one of the best debating societies in the world. I dreamt away, driven by my winning the German debating championship in Münster: exciting debates with great guest speakers and members of various secret societies in dreary vaults.

I was quickly disappointed when I realized it was not that easy to get a mere impression of how debating is carried out on campus. Two reasons for being disappointed: Firstly, I was not granted admission into the debating society; secondly, debating is divided at Yale University. Anticipating the end of my period at Yale, I would like to share my insight I got during the past two semesters.

Philipp Stiel likes his new alma mater and explains the US American debating culture. (Picture: Private)

The Yale Debate Association (YDA) is the perfect example of the competitive culture faced everywhere in the United States: Be it sports, music or engineering, competition is where the focus is. Debating is seen more like sports activities, hence training and selection are held accordingly.

The YDA accepts about twenty debaters a year – most of them freshmen; graduates like me are not welcome. That is completely in sync with American college culture that knows a strict division between college and graduate schools. This division is regarded as almost sacrosanct; in introductory courses graduates are warned neither to date undergrads nor to even look at them. The question is: Who is a hazard to whom? Back to topic: All this means that debating careers are over by the age of 22. Hardly any grad schools do have their own debating societies. Damn it, nine months are not enough time to found a branch of Streitkultur at Yale!

Many deb socs in the US feature their own professional rhetoric teachers. They are mostly involved with public speaking departments that are more pragmatically oriented than Germany’s only rhetoric department, the Rhetorikseminar in Tübingen. The programme centers not on club nights, but is attended during the day and the student’s choice of courses again centers on the programme – as is the case with the competitive varsity sports programmes. Unfortunately, there are no scholarships for competitive debating though – sorry, my dear debate aspirants from Germany!

Those deb societies with high standards such as Yale may absolutely send their debaters to tournaments every weekend, plus they do have quite a budget – no wonders, it’s the USA. The results are very impressive: The YDA is the most successful debating society in the US and one among the top deb socs in the world – a position they deserve in my humble opinion, at least according to BPS judging criteria.

After I had felt quite disappointed in the beginning about the orientation and seclusion of debating, I was reconciled with the United States: I discovered the Yale Political Union (YPU) which is an exciting and open space for weekly debates on recent political matters.

The YPU is organized in political parties that are oriented towards the political spectrum, for instance Liberal Party, Party of the Left. All in all they have about 200 members (out of 5.000 students), hence the weekly debates are well attended. With three statements each, pro and con speakers give five-minute speeches respectively and have an additional period of ten minutes to answer questions from the audience – renowned guest speaker are granted a little more time.

With this format, the YPU – modeled after the famous Oxford Union – reminded me quite a lot of the format of Tübinger Debatte that brought debating at German universities into being twenty years ago. Being a debate strongly interacting with the audience, it is the target of the format to cultivate political debate and help develop individual forming of opinion. The YPU combines that with competitive success and attracts – like the Oxford Union – many guest speakers from all over the country and hundreds of student audience.

Which part of American debating do I prefer? Well, answering this means going back to my roots as a debater. I must quote Goethe’s Faust: Two souls, alas, are housed within my breast and each will wrestle for the mastery there. Especially as a debater from Streitkultur Tübingen. On the one hand, I love tournaments and rhetoric competition. On the other hand, I am deeply convinced that debating is not an end in itself. Rather it is a means to sharpen your mind in coherent and relevant argumentation, to find your point of view in societal matters and last but not least to learn to market your point of view even in the face of your political opponent and the audience.

Considering this, I’d be flattered to be part of a debating team such as the YDA – but I’m even more so enthused by an exciting YPU debate, a debate that originates in society and interacts with society. Admittedly, debates sometimes suffer from lack of tangible proposals. And speakers suffer from lack of sharp arguments. However, it’s here that debate culture finds its way into society and debates are measured by a real audience – not judges.

Taking into consideration the political development in Germany over the past months, especially in the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg, this is a good chance for university debating: We’re all part of a great culture of competition and coaching. Thanks to the coexistence of formats as BPS and OPD, or open parliamentary debate, we also have managed to establish a debating circuit that is more many-sided, open and audience-oriented than the American one – without losing the deep analysis that is focused on by the BPS criteria.

Still, we have a long way to go and take debate into society – debate not only as debate in the Bundestag (or the parliament), in the media or in boring panel discussions. Rather, it should be carried out in open councils, town hall meetings or settlement talks together with society. I am very confident that the well integrated German university debating community is going to make this way – rather than the American circuit split up into debating culture and competitive debating.

Philipp Stiel / apf

Since fall 2010, Philipp Stiel is studying at Yale University in New Haven, USA. This university is part of the Ivy League, the top universities of the United States. No need to hide for Philipp, himself being a top debater: In 2008, he was awarded the up-and-coming speaker by Deutsche Debattiergesellschaft, the German alumni debating society. The following year he was best speaker of the final at Deutsche Debattiermeisterschaft (DDM), or the German debating championship in Mainz. In 2010, he (together with his team mate Peter Croonenbroeck) won the German language debating championship in Münster where he again was awarded the best speaker of the final. In an interview with Achte Minute shortly after he won the title he thought that the political discourse in Germany was too much oriented towards consent which in his opinion leads to a lack of elaboration of arguments and positions. “That exactly is the target of debate: Identify pros and cons, explain it to the audience, and help the individual develop their own opinion.”