Debate Club: The Hidden Truth
BY MADELEINE BECK & NAOMI MORCOS
When the debate club comes to mind, surely the first thing that comes to mind is a calm, peaceful, and quite frankly boring meeting of people talking about boring topics; the price of milk, for example. (If this is your favourite conversation topic, get a hobby or something). However, Ubique reporters have to investigate everything (if we don’t, Bridget will come for us) (I’m just joking, Bridget, we really like you, but please don’t come for us in our sleep), and so our intrepid reporters (it’s us, we’re the same people) did the only thing we could: we investigated. And let me tell you, peaceful and calm are the last words I would use to describe the debating club.
As someone who has never been to a debate club in their life, I was definitely expecting something a lot more… ordered. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the truth. My co-writer informed me that the club would run a little differently, considering the typical leader of debate, Spencer O’Connor, was sick. The lunchtime meeting started off mildly, as the members of the debate club hotly ‘debated’ if the comparison of four-piece and two-piece toasters were a valid thing to debate, with particular attention paid to whether dashes were necessary between the words ‘two’ and ‘piece’.
However, due to some communication difficulties, two of the talented debaters, Lucas Yang and Naomi Morcos, were sent down to the assistant principal’s office to make an announcement. However, after ten minutes had passed, everyone (myself included) was baffled. Where was the announcement, along with our debaters? Had they been kidnapped? Had another fire broken out, and the poor, lonely debate club been forgotten? A quick phone call revealed the truth: the students who had been at Uni High for nearly four years had gotten lost on their way to the office. The office must walk past twice a day, every day. Yes, somehow these supposedly capable year 10 students had gotten lost on the way to one of the most noticeable locations in the school. After another five minutes, an announcement was finally broadcast, followed shortly by our two debaters bursting into 320, panting and exhausted (miraculously, they had not gotten lost on the way). The two tried to explain their shameful behaviour, claiming that they had to ‘chase down the assistant principal’. (Like, quite literally, chase her down the hall.) Soon, more members made their way to 320 along with the true topic of today’s debate, suggested by Catherine Wang: ‘Can money buy happiness?’
A contentious topic indeed, for before long all the debaters were yelling passionately, some gesturing to Mark Zuckerberg’s smiling face as irrefutable evidence that money was the font of all happiness, while others arguing that things such as love and friendship could never be bought, and money would simply undermine these sources of joy. For half an hour, the debate raged on, point after point brought up before being mercilessly refuted. I do not believe words can describe the sheer amount of fury and passion these arguments held (a pity, seeing all I seem to do these days is write, so I should have a sufficient vocabulary by now), so I shall leave a quote, made in the heat of a verbal battle, from Naomi Morcos, esteemed debater and co-writer of this article, to sum up this club that is nothing like it outwardly seems: “Anarchy!”. Yes, you heard it here first. The debate club is not a club for the dull or faint of heart. It is, in fact, the number one club for fiery argument, and… you guessed it, anarchy.
*DISCLAMER* ACCORDING TO RELIABLE DEBATERS, IT ISN’T ALWAYS THIS CHAOTIC, HOWEVER I HAVE SEEN NO EVIDENCE POINTING TO THIS