- The judge is God.
- Why is the God? Why is God?
- Because he decides who wins or loses not my opponent.
Who is your opponent? Who is your opponent?
- He doesn't exist.
- Why does he not exist? Why doesn't he exist?
- Because he is a mute distant voice the truth that I speak. Speak
the truth!
Speak the truth!
Although the United States has promulgated the law to abolish black slaves, the American society is still full of various ideas that discriminate against blacks. So that blacks are isolated by whites, black children can only go to blacks' own schools, and even blacks are legally incomparable with whites.
Mr. Melville Tolson, a black American who has deep attainments in language and rhetoric, especially good at writing poetry and debate, faced these inequalities, he really wanted to do something to change the status quo, so he went underground He called on farmers to organize farmers' unions, and formed a debate team in his spare time. After his careful selection, four very outstanding players stood out. They were Hamilton Burges, Henry Lowe, Samantha and only 14 years old. Year-old James Farmer Jr. Mr. Tolson has a firm belief. He constantly challenges the tradition and touches the old rules of the game. However, his rebellious spirit and unique teaching methods are constantly being questioned by people. The four black debaters finally had the opportunity to debate with the students of Harvard University, the world's highest institution. Not only that, but they successfully refuted the Harvard students and won the debate, which was unique in the history of the United States at that time.
A theme running through the film is the final debate with Harvard, "Is passive resistance a moral weapon to maintain justice?" Make careful laying.
This film starts with the topic of "debate" to express such a meaning, so what is the meaning of debate? What is the role of words? It seems that words are not only ineffective, but sometimes even pale and powerless. Otherwise, when the four black debaters who were eloquent and eloquent on the debate stage saw their compatriots being burned alive, they would not only He didn't dare to speak again, he could only hide in the carriage, he didn't even dare to look, his eyes were full of fear. Maybe they were also thinking about the use of debates such as "Should black people be allowed to enter state universities". If black people are still discriminated against, what can they change?
This question reminds me of what I've been busy with recently. In the past few weeks, I held two rights seminars in the rights and interests department of the institute. To be honest, it was quite difficult to hold each one because no one wanted to participate. But I want to say that it may be that everyone has a problem with the positioning of the Equity Department, because what people want to see now is the actual effect, and it must be effective immediately. Of course, I actually thought so in the past. But I think this seems impossible with today's University Equity Department. So even sometimes I wonder, what's the point of having these symposiums if the students are reluctant to join us? Better not do it. But then I realized that what I want to do now is not to help the students solve many problems immediately, but to give the students a platform or a loudspeaker in the form of a forum on rights and interests, so that they can express their own opinions. Voices, and let their voices be heard by those in power. Although I don’t know if the problem will be solved, I believe that as long as a problem is raised again and again, it will one day be taken seriously by the leaders. This is the power of words. , this is the victory of passive resistance, the meaning of language is not present. While this is very different from debate, it is also a power of discourse.
Seven years after the Harvard debate, in 1942, James Farmer Jr. created the Congress for Racial Equality and became the leader of the civil rights movement that Martin Luther King Jr. In 1961, Samantha Bucco became a lawyer. Melville Tolson became a world-famous poet. He went on to work with the Southern Texas Farmers' Union, which by the end of 1936 had 31,000 members in seven states. For 10 consecutive years, the Wiley College debate team has remained undefeated. These facts also seem to prove that "Words are swords" in the face of such a large number of facts, I think no one dares to deny the power of language, and no one says that "non-violence is a mask worn by passive cooperation to hide its true purpose. : Anarchism".
As early as in ancient Greek times, Socrates often debated with people in the streets in pursuit of truth. I think the reason why language is like a sword and has such great power is not because of anything else, but because it is showing us the truth, Speak the truth! Only those truths have such power. The reason why college debates are boring these days, I think, is because the debaters with elegant posture and rhetoric are not arguing for the truth, they are just arguing for the sake of debate. The American students in the film can There is a free debate on "is capitalism immoral?", but there seem to be too many sensitive topics in our country. We seem to be less confident in this regard, but I think real gold is not afraid of fire, yes The truth is never afraid of any prejudice, because those prejudices will one day be proven wrong.
Recently, I was reading Mill's "On Liberty". When talking about the freedom of thought, Mill believed that falsehood can reveal its falsehood in people's constant refutation, so that people can truly realize the difference between it and the truth. Anything that is truth can be refuted by people's constant refutation, so that people can better understand its truth and strengthen generation after generation. Forget its essence, only inherit its body. I think debate actually has both functions. So I sometimes think that if one day college students can debate the topic of the restricted area, what a wonderful debate it will be! And there will definitely be *** people in that game!
It seems that my writing is not very good, there are a lot of things I don’t know how to express, but this film has a very deep influence on me, and even now I have the urge to participate in the debate and express it as passionately as the four debaters in the film. Your own opinion, your own voice.
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