Fine, who debated in the 1960s, has watched debate evolve from persuasive oratory to rapid-fire argumentation. Debate today is a highly specialized and technical activity with its own subculture and virtually indecipherable vernacular. It's about quality argumentation. It's a way of putting some discipline and organization to argument. It's extremely competitive and very technical.
People speak quickly as fast as humanly possible.
The fast speeches at an average rate of hundreds of words each minute are the hallmark of modern debate. According to Fine, debaters realized in the 1970s that if they piled more and more arguments on their opponents, they could force them to ignore some of the arguments omissions that could then be exploited to great effect. Deatherage pointed to the success former debaters have experienced in law and politics as evidence of its educational value. Besides public events like the Great Debate Program, NU debaters have attempted to reach out to Chicago-area high schools. If we could get debate in every inner-city high school, we would have done so much at least for the best students.