The state of debate, college division

Regardless of the mixed reviews, the debate between John McCain and Barack Obama was of Lincoln-Douglas caliber compared to what's going on on many college campuses. The Chronicle of Higher Education this week has an extraordinary story on how the debate world has descended into fights between coaches and judges -- including a mooning, captured for posterity on YouTube -- and instances in which debaters ignore the topics at hand to rail against the inherent racism of debate competitions. Often, these are winning tactics.

This excellent, brief (1:40) narrated video, which includes a SFW mooning and a few NSFW curses, offers a window into the bizarre world of debate today -- a world apart from that which existed in the days of William F. Buckley. (It even makes the Buckley-Vidal TV slurfests look, by comparison, civil.)

Disclosure/self-promotion: I have a piece in the Chronicle Review, the books & opinion section of the paper, on the insurgent subfield of philosophy known as "X-Phi," or experimental philosophy.

UPDATE: Here's the link to the full article on the bizarre state of college debate.