During class last week my ears sprang up as Mrs. Logan was about to announce the key to winning a debate every time. If you are in control of the framing of the debate and how the questions are phrased then it is undeniable that you would win. At the time this suggestion was not crystal clear to me. I was confused as to how exactly this would work out. At home this idea became apparent to me as my dad was asking me about my dinner “You didn’t eat your asparagus did you?” which, was followed by my mom’s side comment “you have to eat it, why didn’t you?” I actually had eaten all the asparagus and before I had time to answer, these assumptions were made. The way my dad framed the question made it seem as though I did not. By putting an implication in the question, made the suggestion seem like the truth. If my dad phrased the question “did you eat your asparagus?” Then the slate would have been clear of a biased question that wouldn’t trick others into thinking it had to be the truth.
On the scale of a dinner table argument, what they thought did not really have much of an importance, but imagine if an actual question of relative importance was phrased on a large scale. The public could go along wrongfully believing a mistaken point of view, because of the fragment of the question.In general this would always work, except in some cases.
Recently vice Presidential candidate Biden did an interview for an Orlando television station. The interviewer Barbara West asked some probing questions, which gained a significant amount of media attention. Her questions were formatted in a skewed way in which she would not be offering a neutral base for viewers to rightfully judge. Barbara asked if Biden recognized this famous quote, “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.’ That’s from Karl Marx. How is Sen. Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?” By associating Karl Marx to the question she is implanting the idea of communism in the minds of viewers before the viewers can even hear another side. If a question sways one way then that is the same as giving one point of view a platform. If Barbara had been more professional she simply would have asked about Obama’s plan of spreading the wealth. Phrasing the question of a debate or argument can make a win, but in this case Barbara went too far. She was too obvious and her questions did not come off subtle by blatantly comparing Obama to Marx.
Even though formulating a question to win an argument is guaranteed in swaying people, there is still an art in doing it right.Less conscious viewers could have taken those randomly implanted references to Marx to heart and made up their minds before the question was asked. The media attention that this interview received gives me confidence for our nation’s inability to just listen and not question.
