Video transcript
CT - Coaching secondary debating - 06. Using mechanisms to explain arguments

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HUGH BARTLEY: Good day, everyone. I hope you're doing well. My name's Hugh. Back when I was at school, I won a bunch of debating competitions, and now I work as a debating coach. Today we're going to be talking about mechanisms.

What is a mechanism? Well, normally, we think about it in the world of industry, in mechanics-- how something changes something. So let's say I'm operating a machine and I press the button, and then the machine whirs it into life and produces something. And so the mechanism is made pressing the button and the moving caught in the machine.

We might also think of a mechanism in science. So let's say you have a beaker of a chemical and then you pour a second chemical into that beaker, and there's a reaction. The mechanism is you pouring the chemical and, if you want to be really detailed about it, the molecules bonding and combining and creating a reaction.

So a mechanism is essentially how something goes from something to something else-- how something goes from X to Y, how a change happens, and why that change happens. Mechanisms are important in mechanics and important in science, but they're also really important in debating. In fact, good and well-explained mechanisms win debates.

What do I mean by this? Well, all debates, when you really get down to it, are about change. They're about some sort of change in the world, right? And all of these topics we've phrased something like, that we should change something or stop doing something or do something differently.

Every debate involves some sort of deliberate change. And the affirmative says this change will create really good outcomes, while the negative says this change will create really bad outcomes. So let's say that the topic is that the government should heavily tax junk food. The affirmative says, the change that this makes is that people get really healthy, and that's great. And the negative says, no, people will be really unhappy and poor, and that's terrible.

But if the debate was just the affirmative and the negative shouting their outcomes back at each other, we wouldn't really have much of a debate, will we? And so the best debates are those that don't just-- each side don't just have each side asserting what's going to happen with the topic, but teams that win debates are those that show how their outcomes happen or why their outcomes happen. And any answer to those questions-- how does this outcome happen or why does it happen-- is a mechanism. So mechanism explains how we get from a deliberate change in the topic of a debate to the alleged outcomes of that change.

So let's say we go back to that earlier topic that we should heavily tax junk food. The affirmative explains the change like this. Their mechanism goes like this. When we raise tax on junk food, the price of potato chips goes up. When people go to Woolworths and they go to the chip aisle, they see that the price of chips is really high, and they think, oh, this is too much of a high price for me to pay for this.

And so then they go to the next aisle and they find rice crackers and bananas, and they buy those instead of the chips because they're much more affordable. Then they go home and they eat those rice crackers and bananas. And instead of-- and because they ate those instead of the chips, they're much more healthy, they gain less weight, and they have more nutrients inside their body. And so they live longer and healthier lives. And that's how mechanism is, right?

In this example, if it were not for the high price of the chips dissuading consumers from buying the chips, those people would have otherwise eaten those chips and been unhealthy. But because the price was high because of the tax imposed on it, the consumers were dissuaded from buying it and thus they were healthier. So the mechanism here is the high price dissuades the consumers from buying the chips. And so that's a very simple mechanism how this topic produced this change.

The more detailed and the more convincing your mechanism is, the more likely you are to win a debate and the more likely the adjudicator is to believe the outcomes you claim happens at the end of that mechanism. So the more you explain the effect of the tax hike and the price rise, the more likely the adjudicator is to believe the healthier people.

So you might be wondering at this stage, well, OK that's all very well and good. Mechanisms are useful. But how do I actually explain one? There are two ways.

The first way is by doing what I did just before and by explaining it in terms of a narrative. So go through your argument step by step. This thing leads to that thing and that thing leads to a third thing and then this happens and that happens.

So the consumer goes to the supermarket to the chip aisle. The tax raised the price, and then they buy a different thing. And I want you to show exactly where the topic changes the outcome at the end of that chain of events. So in the example I gave, it's in the chip aisle. That was where the two stories diverged.

So it was all the same while they were going into the supermarket and to the chip aisle. As soon as they saw the price, different outcomes happened. And so you can explain each of your mechanisms with that step-by-step narrative approach. Often that can be very detailed and persuasive.

But a more advanced and sometimes more useful way of explaining your mechanisms is to have multiple mechanisms proving the one argument and then explaining them in terms of a list. So instead of having to write a story for every mechanism, you can just say, there are four ways in which taxing junk food makes people healthier. Number one, like I explained above, the high price imposed by the tax pushes people to buy other food instead of junk food, which is now a lot cheaper.

Number two, even if people are determined to buy junk food, they'll do it less often or they will buy a smaller quantity because it's now more expensive. And so the intake of junk food will go down. Mechanism number three, producers of junk food now say that their price is weirdly high and they're going to advertise it less and instead advertise their more healthier food. That promotes people to see the healthier food, and they're more likely to then go and buy it and be healthier in that instance.

Mechanism number four, people will learn over time that foods that are cheaper are probably healthier for them than those that are really high because they've had a tax imposed on them. And so there will be a signal effect to that tax that persuades people to buy more healthier food. And so that's four reasons why a tax on junk food is likely to lead to healthier people.

You're wondering, OK, where does this fit in my argument? The answer is when you're doing your argument with the PEEL structure-- so Point, Explain, Example, Link-- you would do it in the Explain section so that you explain-- essentially explaining how you get the change in your topic. It really is just the mechanism or mechanisms of your argument. You can either do that as a narrative or you can do it as a list of multiple mechanisms.

This also works for rebuttal as well. So if you're on a debate and the other team says an idea saying, oh, taxing junk food is going to make people unhealthier-- I'm sorry, it'll make them unhappier because they can't afford as much delicious food, and they'll be really upset about that. You can respond with mechanisms why the reverse is likely to be true.

So people will actually be happier when this tax is imposed. One, because they will be forced to eat less junk food, and they'll probably feel less guilty about it. Two, because being healthy makes you happy-- because you can go and exercise for longer, play with your kids for longer, visit the doctor less. It's going to make you happier.

And number three, people now that they can't afford unhealthy food will go looking for new healthy food that tastes nice-- things like, I don't know, oranges, and that's going to make them happy discovering those new foods. And so you can use mechanisms in rebuttal as well to completely squash the other team's arguments.

OK, so we've learned about mechanisms then. And mechanism is how X becomes Y-- how and why a change happens in a debate. And the best mechanisms are the ones that are the most detailed and persuasive. One last advance debate tip. When you're in prep or in the debate trying to think of mechanisms why your argument is likely to produce the change that you want, often mechanisms come from motivations of people in the debate.

So think about the stakeholders, the people affected by the debate, and think about what they care about, be it money or reputation or are they fearful or hopeful of something. Do they want to help other people? And based on those negative motivations, they're likely to change the way they behave in a certain way, and that change often kick starts the mechanism in your debate.

So if you're having trouble thinking of mechanisms, think about what do the people involved in this debate care about and that will they change their behaviour? If so, how? Fantastic. So those are mechanisms.

I want to now, lastly, introduce you to a game where we can practise our new knowledge of mechanisms. This game is called 'Why, why, why.' I want every kid in your class to line up in a line or a circle or something, and I want the first student in that line to suggest a change in the world. It can be anything-- something stupid or something very serious, like everyone should have to buy a dog, or high school students should learn a subject about politics, or Australia should invade New Zealand.

So the first person suggests a change. The second person in the line suggests a possible outcome of that change. So after everyone purchases a dog, they become upset. After kids learn about politics, they all go and join protests every weekend. Or after Australia invades New Zealand, Donald Trump deploys nuclear weapons to Australia.

So we've got a change. We've got an outcome of that change. And then I want every student after that to give one reason or one mechanism why that change will produce that outcome. So in this example about dogs, the first student says, everyone buys a dog. That's the change.

Second student says, OK, everyone will now be really unhappy and upset. Each student after that goes, well, it's too much effort to take care of the dog, so people are then going to be stressed by about taking care of it, and then they'll be unhappy. All right? Great reason.

We'll go to the next kid. What's your mechanism? People compare their dogs to each other because everyone had one now, and they feel insecure because their friend's dog is better, and that's making them unhappy. OK, great reason.

Next kid, the dogs will eat people's clothes, and they'll be unhappy. Perfect. And so you keep doing that. Think of how many original mechanisms for that change producing that outcome. And when you finally get to someone in the line who can't think of a new mechanism, well, tough luck, unfortunately, that student is eliminated.

And so I want you to keep playing this game, keep going around, until there's only two students left, and they're basically going back and forth with their mechanisms for one of the changes that has been proposed. And when one of those students fails to produce an original mechanism, they're eliminated, and the other wins.

All right, so that's the game 'Why, why, why.' It's a game I want you to play right after watching this video. It's going to teach you how to think of new additional reasons why something-- some sort of change-- is going to produce some sort of outcome. In debates, that's exactly how you win-- by showing that the change in the topic produces the outcome you want rather than the outcome the other team thinks will happen.

TONY DAVEY: So I'm going to make you come back and play 'Why, why, why' with me, and we'll figure out who wins. Instead of having like six students in a row, we'll just take turns, you and I. So what do you reckon, Hugh? You're ready to go?

HUGH BARTLEY: Yup. You're going down.

TONY DAVEY: OK, yeah, sure. Actually, I think that's probably true. But anyway, why don't you go first and suggest our trigger?

HUGH BARTLEY: All right. Our change is going to be that students are now going to be placed in charge of every school in Australia.

TONY DAVEY: OK, nice. OK, the outcome is all of Australia's test scores go down dramatically.

HUGH BARTLEY: OK, first reason why that's true is because students really like having fun, and so they're likely to make the parts of school that are really fun go for a really long time. Like lunch and recess, they're going to be like three hours each, and students are just going to have lots of fun and not do any work.

TONY DAVEY: OK, second reason why that's true is that the most popular kids tend to be the ones who aren't into school work. The kids who are into school work and like learning, they tend to be classified as nerds. And they'll be eager to suck up to and please the less academic kids, which means when it comes time to vote on what the school should be like, it's going to be the less academic kids who set the curriculum. So it's going to be all sport and playing TV and hanging out on TikTok.

HUGH BARTLEY: That's pretty clever. OK, reason number three, students are pretty young. They've only been on earth for like 10 years or so, and so they haven't got much experience in these tests in history. And so they don't have any practice papers to use, and so the students are likely to test badly on the standardised tests because they don't know what's coming.

TONY DAVEY: Sure. OK, number four, I think people underestimate just how much students really, really like their teachers. So they might complain about them occasionally or make fun of them behind their back, but the truth is they really love their teachers, and they are going to be so sad that their teachers now have basically no role and are almost unemployed. So they're not even going to be able to concentrate on their work, so, of course, the test scores are going to go down.

HUGH BARTLEY: OK, well, I'm going to be in a bit of trouble here. Reason number five, all of the other countries around the world will look at Australia and they'll see what chaos has happened when they put students in charge of the school. That will reinforce their faith in disciplining students and make them work really hard, meaning that other countries will perform even better in their own test scores, and Australians will look relatively so much worse.

TONY DAVEY: OK, that definitely makes sense. All right, reason number six, students actually understand better than anybody else what their education should look like, and they will do a great job of setting the curriculum and learning what's important for the future. But the people who mark the tests and the people who judge whether or not Australia is doing well are actually so outdated and so bad at understanding what people will need for their future employment that they will think Australia's test scores have suffered or that Australia's kids aren't getting a good education, and that means that they'll give them bad scores on their tests when, in fact, the students are learning the latest technology and what they really need. I'm calling it, 'If you lose us, you lose us.'

HUGH BARTLEY: [whimpers]

TONY DAVEY: I'm not sure my last one really counts, anyway. That was excellent. Thanks, Hugh. That was brilliant. You guys, remember to go away and play that. And don't just have two people going back and forth. Have everyone in the class have a go.