On Tuesday night, the Boston University College of Communication hosted its annual Great Debate. The question in discussion was whether Israelis or Palestinians are to blame in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
What each side actually said on the matter seems irrelevant at this point, considering the question itself was completely and utterly unproductive in nature. This debate is highly publicized as a serious event at BU every year, and as such, the topic should be centered around intelligent discussion.
Debate should not be an exercise in pointing fingers; rather, it should foster conversation and bring up multifaceted points surrounding an issue. Discussing who is to blame for the Israeli-Palestine conflict seems not only completely useless but also somewhat childish in the setting of a public forum.
Instead, the focus of a debate about Israel and Palestine should be proposing options for solutions to the conflict. It preserves the topic of discussion but opens the debate up to the possibility that people would come away from the night with new perspectives and useful ideas for the future.
In past years, the Great Debate debate has featured topics such as whether or not the war in Afghanistan was worth fighting or whether corporate money affected the integrity of political campaigns. These topics took relevant issues and allowed room for expansion and extrapolation of ideas in a controlled setting. This year’s debate, however, merely took advantage of a highly contentious issue without promoting a productive outcome.
This shameful approach to debate reflects poorly on COM and the university as a whole. The question sends a message to the audience that more or less tells them they should choose a side and then proceed to point fingers at the opposition. It fosters neither conversation nor awareness about the actual controversial issues involved. Playing the blame game only serves to polarize people for sensationalism’s sake, and that sort of incendiary talk has no place in a formal setting. Debaters should save their pointed fingers for the bar or the coffee shop, not the so-called “Great” Debate.
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