Welcome back to A Man Should Know, a weekly column from Elliot Ackerman about how today’s lost boys can become tomorrow’s good men. This week, Elliot unpacks what it takes to form a thoughtful opinion—and why curiosity beats certainty every time.
Last year, our son surprised us by announcing he wanted to join the school debate team. His extracurricular interests had always been centered in sports, but he thought learning how to win an argument would be fun. My wife debated in school, yet, to help our son prepare, we both set about learning the current tournament protocols. Each debate is structured around a resolution. And each team prepares to argue for the resolution—via the “Prop team”—or against it—via the “Opp team.”
As they do not know which side they will be assigned, all debaters prepare speeches for both the Prop and Opp sides in advance of the tournament. The somewhat esoteric proposition for our son’s first tournament was: Credit cards are a force for good.
