Debate #2

It was the calm morning of Friday, December 12, 2008 and the students were slowly finding their way into the class of room 204. Today their was a grand debate schedule to commence at approximately 8:30am. The topic up for debate today was whether Hamlet from the play Hamlet  written by William Shakespeare was “crazy” or not. The judges refereeing this debate were Yannick Lee, Nicholas Leblond and Jennifer Ross. The affirmative side, fighting to prove Hamlet was indeed crazy consisted of Micheala Blaser, Mary Collins and Ilayda Williamson. The side countering their argument in favor of Hamlet not being “crazy” consisted of Melissa Watson-Shotton, Kelsey Campbell, and Jessica Barton. The students finally found their places within the court room and the debate was now ready to commence.

To begin this debate the judges announced their rules which included some interesting ones. After the rules of the debate were discussed the judges called upon the Affirmative side to present their argument. The affirmative side came out with the most basic approach to things by announcing loud and clear the Hamlet was indeed “crazy”. The Affirmative side went on to back their opening statement with interesting facts about Hamlet and the way he acts. After completing their opening argument the power then shifted to the negative side to state their argument. Like their opponents the negative side clearly laid out their opinion in saying that some might think Hamlet is crazy but he is not at all. The negative side went on to hit the affirmative side with facts such as he deserved every right for revenge and his mood is just a way of coping with his fathers death. There argument soon came to an end and the two sides prepared their rebuttals.     

During the rebuttals many accusations were thrown around. One of these accusations came from Ms Collins when she declared as use of Hasty Generalization. The reason she called this fallacy was because she felt Kelsey had a lack of facts to support her argument. To this Kelsey responded it was a mere opening statement like a thesis I presented my three arguments we will be discussing in the debate. After the rebuttals a second set of arguments ensued. With these following arguments came more attacks on Hamlet’s sanity and more declarations of fallacies by Ms.Collins. Throughout the finishing arguments the two sides did not show any signs of letting up on the research about Hamlet available to them as we lead into the free for all.

 

            As the free for all began the amount of loudness quickly grew inside the room. Many points such as What’s the point of a hallucination were raised throughout the debate. To counter argue the point raised by the other team they stated that this hallucination was a way for Hamlet to find closure. The battle continued for a solid 10 minutes and no side gave their opponents an inch. After the free for all had finished the debates gave both side a chance to congratulate one another and catch their breaths. When everyone was settled and ready the judges announced the close finish. The judges announce the winner of this debate by only a hair was the negative side.