THW embrace a life of mindless consumerism - poll result and moderator's report

To consume or not to consume: That is not the question – In the previous debate of last days the motion that This House would embrace mindless consumerism was debated whereat both the proposing and opposing team did not question consumerism itself nor its general positive impact on economy. Never the less we underwent a very differentiated as well as vital and emotional argumentation.  The main clash points of both teams entwined around on both the definition of “mindless” itself and the different extents of consumerism. Since we just confronted you with just our best debating masters, the judge can rather emphasize on constructive criticism than on sentimentalism in his following opinion. (Continues below the fold…)

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Opening speeches. Whereas the proposing team has chosen a tasty example to transmit the motion, the opposing team jumped directly into different explanations. Both teams took indeed use of a common point to defend or claim the motion – “happiness” – but none of the sides bothered to explain the correlation or back it with evidence. The same is counting for the very important expression “need” – even if many arguments for explaining mindless consumerism were set in relation to a need of a good, this point was not elaborated at all. Since both sides had their strong and weak points, winning the match could not be let alone to the facts but especially to the line of argument. The opposing started better, clearer and more direct, with defining the motion but failed afterwards to keep focused on the actual topic. On the other hand, the proposing team took longer to find their target but managed better to keep it – even if they minimized their one’s strength a little by promoting the next speaker who will “not stick to a low level argumentation about ice creams”, they did not do the fault of an error in reasoning like the second team did in first claiming that “mindless means ‘lacking intelligence or good sense’” and referring later to people buying in “the sales season”, which means that they did not do it without reflection. Due to more consistency and focus in the argument (the opposition seemed a) oscillating between consumerism and materialism without nearer explanations and b) added to their “mindless” arguments “being able to afford” and “responsibility” ones which showed missing connection) the first point is slimly awarded to the Proposition.

Rebuttal speeches. For the rebuttal both teams decided to slip into different roles – Epicurus versus a Bonobo. The latter started off being committed to his character - but after a short while, he changed back to an anonymous speaker. This one raised an interesting new argument by asking consumers to be more responsible to prevent their mindlessness by their own attitudes. Unfortunately the argumentation “we are not questioning about consumerism” was not in line with the first opposing side who did blame this itself “Consumerism [...] promotes overwork, personal stress, debts, and most importantly, an increase in economic disparity.” With these points the second writer of lap two was not able to outplay the foregoing proposing character of a disinterred philosopher who still pursues happiness. This one succeeded firstly in the argumentation on the link between happiness and (mindless) consumerism, which was a often glanced point for both teams. Even if some of the examples would not have been bad, he did connect the most arguments as well in his own speech as to those in the others in a good way. In contrast, the opposing side’s persona was not able to stand him since their use was a little undedicated and – “by the way does[…] have any intellect”, as Jane Goddall and Co. can confirm.  Additionally Epicurus tried to query some worthy arguments from the opposing side (e.g. the sale season one, s.a.) and played overall a much more credible role. The point goes to him, smirking about one of his last jokes “trust me, there is absolutely no use to be buried with money”.

Closing speeches. In this part, both teams have chosen again a special character who shall help promoting the position – whereby the usage is in both cases not overwhelming convincing, since the role is missing endurance. Both teams summarize the biggest clash points of their previous speakers. Here the third opposing speech took a rather forgiving path by giving to many agreements to his opponent. He ends placably by concede that they “have nothing against consumerism as long as you consume according your funds.” Apart from the fact that this concession does not really represent further argumentation, it made the arguments before of Nietzsche who is working for the proposition much more interesting. Even if he actually had a low start with repeating a lot of his previous zombie-teammate, he could score with tackling weak arguments – e.g. “he opposition argued that this happiness is ephemeral, but it is happiness anyway” – as well as with his naturalistic arguments on Amish people and grocery shopping and gave a practical summary of the crucial and coherent meaning of mindless – “actually you have already embraced it without realizing it (that’s why it is mindless by the way, not because it is stupid)”. Although his dernière could have been better without the last cone of ice-cream, he could convince the nonparty judge that “the only bad thing about mindless consumerism is its pejorative connotation, thus, if you thought you had been sensible to the opposition’s argumentation earlier, remember that convictions are prisons, it is not too late to escape.”

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