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Resolved:  "When they conflict, respect for cultural sensitivity ought to be valued above commercial use of free speech."

 Topic Analysis -- The First Look

When I first took a look at this resolution, I thought that it seemed fairly trivial.  The topic of debate was not about privacy or justice, but whether the use of an advertisement or the like might offend someone.  In addition, it seemed as if one of the examples of such a conflict would have to be the Taco Bell Chihuahua.  But then I realized that this topic is actually more relevant to our lives than something like confidential sources and the first amendment or the balance between liberty and equality.  And it does not simply deal whether a person should be offended, but under what circumstances it is permissible to offend someone, if it is permissible at all.

Affirmative

Since most of the resolutions I have read so far seem to make sense, I have often thought that it would be easier to debate of the side of the affirmative.  Of course, that is usually not the case, and I certainly do not think that the affirmative will be the easier side with this resolution.  Because the aff must uphold respect against free speech, it would probably be easiest to use the value of respect, defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as “Willingness to show consideration or appreciation”.  I have not thought about this very deeply, but I suppose that the main affirmative argument would be that it is best not to offend people, especially potential consumers, when it is not necessary.  Many people take pride in their roots, their culture.  So why do companies feel the need to make fun of that heritage just to sell their product?  If the company is actually profiting from the offensive ad, then people probably enjoy or buy into the stereotypes promulgated by that ad.  Chances are, the group being stereotyped by the ad is probably receiving enough flak as it is without the additional jokes made by the commercial.  Perhaps even worse is that some people will actually believe what the falsities spread by the ad or use it to harass the offended group.  Imagine if the commercial was enough to provoke hate crimes.  It’s not very likely, but possible.  A more probable scenario would be that the offended person might simply be annoyed at every allusion to the controversial material.

Negative     

One of the tools of the side of the negative could be our obsession with being politically correct and the rising sentiment against it.  A good example for the neg might be an example of political correctness gone overboard.  As the negative, the debater must ask where the line is to be drawn.  If we are constantly afraid of offending people, nothing will get done.  Many important ideological movements have been important in that they have gone against someone’s way of thinking.  If we stifle this, what motivation for change will be left?  Anything and everything will end up offending somebody.  RAID ant-killers might anger entomologists while “Got milk?” commercial might anger vegans.  Tide commercials might even anger users of Whisk, even though they are both made by Proctor & Gamble.  Part of the commercial may be the fact that the stereotype employed is so far away from the real world that people think it is funny.  The ads are not trying to offend the cultural sensibilities of other people.  For every person it offends, the company is losing possible consumers.  The best value for the negative would probably be “freedom of speech”.

 

Tim Suen ‘01