you're the problem

in middle school, and for a short time in high school, i did public forum and lincoln douglas debate (albeit not very well). 

there were two kinds of judges - “flow” and “lay”. 

flow judges were those who understood the nuance of this debate form. competitive debate is weird - people talk fast, unnecessarily (in my opinion) opine about metaethics or other non-substantive positions, and generally make some fairly confusing arguments. flow judges understood this weirdness and evaluated it appropriately.

lay judges were the ones who dropped off their kid at the oratory competition next door and were doing this because they were forced to volunteer. usually they were somewhat attentive, but they lacked a meaningful understanding of the debate form. this meant they were easily swayed by smooth talking rather than the substance of each debater’s arguments.

it’s very frustrating as a debater to prepare for many months and create intricate arguments with whole books of responses for every conceivable counterargument, all to lose to someone who “spoke better” than you. lay judges were nearly unanimously disliked, and tournaments or circuits (e.g., NSDA) that promoted this form of speech-oriented debate were looked down upon.

there was an important moment for me after losing a debate in eighth grade because of a lay judge when i reevaluated my perspective on all of this. it was easy to get mad at these judges, but it was an inevitable obstacle in this competition. in fact, it was a fundamental part of the debate form - we weren’t really being evaluated on our ability to win each argument in a holistic sense, but in our ability to convince the judge of our position. this was an important perspective-shift - you work towards convincing a person, not winning an argument. 

this perspective extends far past just competitive debate - every person you speak to about anything will have a different evaluative framework, and internalizing and shaping how you speak towards others’ frameworks is the only way to convince people of contentious things. for instance, if you’re a biologist explaining evolution to a child, you can’t start with carbon dating and the fossil record - you have to start at the level they understand. this gap in foundational understanding, the “inferential distance”, necessitates completely different framing when talking about evolution with a child as compared to a fellow biologist. 

in life, there will always be lay judges. you’ll have to communicate with many people that don’t understand (or sometimes even care about) what you have to say. in fact, some people you have to contend with will be quite unsophisticated and ill-informed. it is in these case that it’s especially important that you deeply think about how you communicate. ideas aren’t evaluated in a vacuum; they’re filtered through your listener’s frame of understanding, sophistication, interest, and many other factors. and if your listener isn’t convinced by what you say, it isn’t their problem. it’s yours.