The vuvuzelas should be banned from the FIFA World Cup.

Also, I'd like to reassure him that I am indeed male, and so at no point was offended during his round :) Without further ado, I will go straight into my counter-rebuttal and re-inforcement of my arguments. Before I get onto my main counter-rebuttals, there's just a minor point - at one point, my opponent says: "If the people are doing something important enough that they can't be distracted, then they could simply turn the tv off. " This misunderstands the point I was making there. The "important thing" I was referring to, was them being entertained by the football match. If this enjoyment is curtailed by the incessant bee-hive that are vuvuzelas, then that is something that cannot be avoided by the person wanting to watch the match. --- Going beyond the subjectivity of "entertaining" --- I agree, to a point, with my opponent when he says that what constitutes "entertaining" is subjective. This does not, however, demolish my point, which is that the widespread use of the vuvuzela is directly detrimental to any attempt of variety in entertainment. The monotonal sound, louder than many others (see below), serves to drown out other chants, cheers and crowd entertainment. If the disruptive event were physical - draping a banner that blocked the crowd's view of the stadium, or physically attacking people who are perceived as being a nuisance, for instance - then there'd be no debate: the action would be banned. But how is this psychological / tonal disruption different in any relevant sense? It isn't, and so the vuvuzelas should be banned. --- Vuvuzelas result in unique harms that are not also applicable to mere chanting and cheering --- My opponent argued that: "[I] say that vuvuzelas are distracting for the players. The reasons [I] gave are not specific to vuvuzelas though. These reasons can also apply to loud screaming and chanting. .. .The people are the problem, not the vuvuzelas. " To this, I say two things. 1) Footballers and broadcasters - as shown in my first round - have complained about vuvuzelas being distracting both on and off the field, when they have never said such things about mere chanting and cheering. Even when complaints about specific instances are made, they never result in calls for chanting in matches to be banned altogether. They clearly, therefore perceive there to be a massive difference between mere chanting and vuvuzelas. My opponent, to be successful in his argumentation here, would have to show how people so close to the noise could be so drastically wrong. He would also need to refute the following, related, point: 2) There is a big difference in loudness between chanting and the vuvuzelas. Chanting comes in at 75-110 decibels, depending on the ferocity of the chants. [1] Vuvuzelas, on the other hand, come in quite easily at 127 decibels. [2] Notice that the Guinness World Record for the loudest scream by a crowd (when deliberately trying to break the record - also when indoors, which echoes the sound in a way that outdoor football pitches don't) - which can therefore be taken as the very peak of a crowd's vocal chords - is only a few decibels higher than this latter figure, at 131.6 decibels [3]. The fact that vuvuzelas reach this high decibel-level without a problem indicates just how different the two phenomena are. They are not comparable, meaning that - contrary to my opponent's assertion - people alone aren't the problem, the vuvuzelas are. --- When we can ban "items of tradition" --- My opponent makes the claim that: "[My] argument about banning a South African tradition, just because it is televised around the world is ridiculous. " He also says that: "There is no right or wrong way to celebrate (as long as nobody gets hurt). .. " 1. It would seem as if my opponent is focusing on physical harm. What about the psychological harm caused to the players who have to listen to the deafening noise for 90 minutes? The tactical harm caused to players who can't communicate with each other? My opponent shrugs this off as something that affects everyone, and that those who can't get past it "don't deserve to win". But such a new, deafening and unusual experience is bound to be off-putting to many of the international players: only those who also happened to be present at the Confederations Cup, or are African nations, will likely have heard the sound before. This is not fair on those players. Furthermore, if players are unable to communicate effectively on the pitch due to the noise, they are left at a tactical disadvantage and are forced to rely more on luck than they would otherwise have to. Even if both sides of the field are equally affected, football is not meant to be a game of luck; it is a game of skill. This is why their basic inability to hear each other on the pitch is detrimental to a good game. 2. There are physical harms with the vuvuzelas, the most obvious being noise pollution and hearing damage. The arguments I made earlier, about the comparative loudness of the vuvuzelas, apply here also. --- Why countries host the World Cup --- My opponent claims, in his main substantive argument, that countries host the World Cup to showcase their culture - and therefore they should be allowed to keep their vuvuzelas. I challenge my opponent to provide examples of this. Surely the real reason why countries bid for the World Cup is in an attempt to boost the national economy through an influx of tourism, including maybe bolstering their standing on the world stage This latter reason - which can be exampled by China/Beijing with the 2008 Olympics, for instance - is perhaps closest to the purported reason being examined. Given their apartheid past, this might also apply to South Africa. But there is a big difference between bolstering the nation on the world stage, and facilitation of individual "football culture". The former involves a political decision to boost international opinion through the medium of sport, whilst the latter is a quirk of certain footballing fans within Africa. The two are certainly not the same, nor even comparable. Also, notice that this is not the African World Cup. This is the World Cup, which just so happens this year to be held in Africa. So even if we were to believe the idea that the fans' activities somehow constitutes "African culture", the fans have no right to force this culture onto a worldwide tournament. This is not non-Africans trying to "Europeanise" the tournament, nor anyone trying to say that "European culture is better", for this is not even a question of individual culture. Also, remember that Europe is not the only continent in the world apart from Africa, and not even the only continent complaining about the vuvuzelas - to mention only one example, the ESPN commentators I linked to in my first round, after all, are Americans. Basically, if the vuvuzela were not so disruptive, there wouldn't be any problem with it. But it is, so there is a problem. It should therefore be banned. --- Conclusion --- Vuvuzelas are disruptive to fans, players and broadcasters. It dampens the otherwise rich variety of entertainment available to fans at the stadium, and audible to fans watching at home, and is directly detrimental to the players' ability to play the game well. Furthermore, World Cups are not meant to showcase an individual country's culture, nor are they taken by the host country as doing so. As such, vuvuzelas being as disruptive as they are, they should be banned from the World Cup. Sources: [1] . http://www.acoustics.org... [2] . http://www.google.com... [3] . http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com... . http://www.youtube.com...