and the elephant there were six blind
men of understand to learning much
inclined who wanted to see the elephant
though all of them were blind that each
by observation might satisfy their mind
so the first approach the elephant and
he touched the elephant’s belly and
pronounced the elephant is like a wall
the second touch the tusks and said I
feel something very round and smooth and
sharp to me this mighty clear the
elephant is very like a spear the third
approach the elephant and took the trunk
in his hands and said the elephant is
like a snake the fourth approached the
elephant took by the leg and said the
elephant is just like a bark of the tree
the first approach the elephant touch
the fan like ears of the elephant and
said of course the elephant is like a
hand fan and the third and the sixth one
touched the tail and said it’s like a
rope and so these six wise men off in
the Sun they debated loud and long each
in the opinions stiff and strong all of
them were right and yet all of them were
wrong all of them were right and yet all
of them were wrong and still they
debated which makes me ask really why do
we debate what is the purpose of this
entire activity this entire endeavor
something that we all can agree to is
that we are surrounded by debates we are
surrounded by arguments we are
surrounded by opinions may it be debates
in the parliament may they be religious
debates
may they be debates over the dinner
table with our own family or may they be
debates which are intellectual in the
Kedah make that happened colleges and
schools or finally our favourite news
are debates we are surrounded by debates
and you must ask why do we debate so it
seems as of now that the purpose of
debating could be argument to argue
could be entertainment to it intend to
conflict whatever the other person is
saying to convince the audience or just
to dominate however these are the
reasons for debating it does not make
much sense to put the best minds in the
country our elected politicians our
religious leaders our smartest
individual scientists reformers into
activities like debating because in some
way they just use this we don’t want
them for entertainment we want them for
something which is productive which
causes welfare which has some meaning
and purpose to it which is constructive
for the society so the question again is
what is debating all about is it again
about the argument the conflict the
dominance or is it about some
constructive endeavor for that answer I
look back to the six blind men who
wanted to see the elephant I look at
religion science philosophy debates
regardless of their nature political
academic what do we see in common the
six blind men want to see the elephant
they seek some truth in essence religion
philosophy science in some way seek
truth all sorts of debates want to come
up to conclusion which is true in some
sense so certainly finding truth seeking
truth is something that is common among
all however something more fundamental
is calm all of them are blind all of
them science religion philosophy all
sorts of debates all of us are limited
by our perception making us blind in
some way or the other if we want to see
an object in its absolute sense we must
realize that it has many faces sadly for
us truth in any form as many faces and
all what we see is just one face and
assume it to be the absolute truth we
touch the elephant
feel its belly claim it to be like the
wall and declare that the elephant is
like a wall if a bill is passed in the
parliament to some of us it may seem
only as a social necessity we might as
well debate that technology is a threat
to traditions but dear friends we all
know that at the end of the day elephant
is not a wall it is also its trunk also
its dusk
also its tail that any bill ever passed
in any Parliament of the world was also
a social affair economic affair
political affair and much more that
traditions in their own cells are as old
as any other human endeavor and former
tradition of their own so what should we
do how do we seek the truth how do we
understand this object under observation
first thing that we can do is to
remember that our perceptions are
limited we know that there is no way to
see it completely there is no way to
completely understand a topic because we
ourselves are limited what we can do is
listen listen not treadle asleep but
skeptically and rationally listen by
judging against the yardstick of logic
and reasoning listen because without
listening to the five other lineman we
will never be able to tell if the
elephant has a tail if it is a tusk or
the trunk therefore this process of
critical listening becomes debating in a
debate as we know it today we have a
motion two parties taking this stance
and trying the best to convince the
audience what is correct the idea is not
to convince the audience the idea is to
explain to them what the two sides of
the argument are in in a courtroom if we
have a quote from debate for example two
lawyers will be taking stances certainly
it is their job to defend their clients
but whom are they arguing debating for
it’s for the judge so that the church
can look into their arguments and try to
figure out what the reality is
so at looking at
that wall that pillar like tree like leg
that trunk that tusk that rope the judge
can see you back a picture which looks a
bit like the elephant
the idea is to know that you cannot
reach the truth and yet make an attempt
to do it that is what I call debating
debating is this process of exploring
the two sides of argument and of
critical listening however there is one
problem today debating is no more
followed in this fashion so how can we
simply make sure that our debates go
more constructive here I have three
simple methods which all of us can adopt
and they are the first one is to cut the
crap now my crap I mean things which go
against the essence of debating things
such as what we see in today’s debate is
the importance given to language
importance given to proper grammar
importance given to exquisite vocabulary
we have now created debating as a
platform for public speaking there only
someone who is very confident and very
comfortable with language and expression
can come up and speak but if you look at
the essence of debating exploring the
truths trying to find out how the
elephant looks like there is no mention
of language this goes against the
essence of it and that is what has made
our debating less fruitful another level
of crap as I would like to call it can
be our personal bias argument by
Authority saying that this certain Nobel
Prize Lord believes in God therefore God
must exist or this certain Nobel Prize
laureate does not believe in God
therefore God does not exist you see
that’s not a rational argument that’s
not judging by the yardstick
that’s not sceptical enough and the
third level of crap is intentional
misrepresentation intentional
misunderstanding creating such instant
misunderstandings in order to just
divert the flow of the debate so that
people can see
not the truth but your truth these are
the things which we if we leave out from
our debates if we cut this scrap we can
make them more constructive so step
number one cut the crap
step number two is to identify what sort
of a debate is it so Aristotle in his
book the rhetoric says that any sort of
a debate topic can be classified into
one of these three
the first one is blame the second one is
choice second one is values and the
third one is choice the first one the
first section blame deals with actions
which have already happened consequence
which is out there and we would like to
identify what is responsible for this
action what is this one what has caused
it such debates happen in our courtrooms
very own right and if I who is the
criminal who will be accused who is
guilty of the crime the second one is
values where you debate and argue human
rights responsibilities attics morals
what ought to be and the final one
choice you try to make decisions for the
future you discuss actions and the
consequences now of course with these
three types of topics three natural
tenses follow for blame we have the past
tense for values we have the present
tense and for choice we have the future
and so for example if this question is
mr. XYZ helped her wife helped his wife
commit euthanasia we see that most of
the arguments in this process will be in
past tense almost all sentences spoken
in favor or against would be in the past
tense if the motion was something like
euthanasia is a human right we would be
having sentences being spoken in the
present tense and if it was something
like euthanasia should be made legal in
India it would again be in future tense
so of course the topic besides the tins
however the converse is also true and it
is very surprising if one person notices
their own style of speaking and the
tense in which they speak they will be
able to see the correlation between the
topic and the tense so if one has a
natural habit to speak in the past tense
most conversations will end not being a
blame game
you want to throw the blame at someone
else now blame games do not help in any
constructive output I’m not saying the
codes are useless but but they do not
create something of value to a society
in the sense that we’d not get a end
result what we would want is to have
debates that talk about choices that we
make and the consequences so in order to
have a fruitful debate to move on from a
blame game to understanding the problem
at hand and how to solve it what we need
to do is change simply change the tense
in which we speak and a third thing is
to never forget that the elephant is not
the wall is that truth has many faces
and what we see is just a shadow on the
wall in order to understand the elephant
in its wholesome perspective what we
need to do is debating but also to
remember that there are many other faces
to it that we are blind at the end of
the day I would like to end with a quote
by David putnik with an infinite myths
lies the eternal truths but who sees it
all Verona has but a thousand eyes in
the 100 you and I only – thank you [Applause]