Final Debate Group 1 and 2 Evaluation

As Professor Tamara pointed out, the final debate both sides were very respectful of each others positions.  Even though we spent a fair amount of time figuring out how to take each other down, we played nice. One of the key underpinnings of this debate and the entire class stems from our realization of ontological assumptions, and how that translates to the broader fallacy of compartmentalization. We've kept abstract principles in neat little boxes for the sake of communication and the a sake of habituated pedagogy. Moving past compartmentalization is one of those things that we cannot unlearn within one semester in grad-school; it doesn't begin to scratch the surface of how we can unsubscribe from the status quo. I sense that we've all had a hand in breaking down some of those barriers. At the same time, we as a group make significant strides in qualifying our definitions within the readings and interactive activities.

Team 2, at first glance, had sold this idea of the downturn of the American dream as a reason to believe that US power would cease its dominant presence on a global platform. I agree with this point very much from a personal standpoint because it is a causal factor, yet based on prompt it does not have solid grounds when we dealing with other controls for authority. The corrosion of the American Dream argument slowly became a question of which is the broadest network of threats to U.S. power as opposed to the strongestI am not sure how attached team 2 was to that notion considering the shift in argument in the rebuttal statement, but they continued to stand by it. America being able to "adapt and respond to changing conditions" with the diverse communities of "a nation of immigrants" didn't harmonize as nicely with the original claim as it did before. Personally, I do find the American Dream to be a comforting notion and an umbrella term for many tangible aspects of social mobility.

For Team 1, I believe that the credibility of our position held up because we did not rely on nor did we pinpoint GDP as being the sole threat to U.S. authority. The downturn of the U.S. also relates to the lack of financial control of its assets --which is just as encompassing as what team 2 argued for but with more concrete metrics. GDP is merely an indicator when we address personal wealth, joblessness, and near poverty reliance on welfare. Also, we previously admitted that GDP in an of itself is not capacious enough to cover global economic shifts in power. There are other aspects to this conversation such as foreign debt, the handling of the US Fiscal Crisis, responses to raise the debt ceiling, and raising minimum wage. Each of these are but an amalgam of factors that make up what we know to be a loss of economic influence in a global market where financial management is a big deal. All in all, this was a healthy debate. I enjoyed everyone's contributions to class discussion and within the asynchronous material.

Thanks everyone! Take care.