2022 Polis IA Art Competition

Please welcome to the stage, number 723, Latin Beats! the announcer’s voice bellowed through my ears as my heart pounded. Foot throbbing, I prepared for my performance. Dismissing this setback as just another I would endure, I stepped on stage, and would not step off until two years later, when what I thought was a small bruise became a permanent fracture and four torn ligaments. Provided with all the tools necessary to succeed, my unyielding, privileged spirit had convinced itself that I could fight through anything and control this outcome, like the rest. However, for the first time, I could not control my future, and that terrified me. Falling from the stage propelled me into an uncertainty which, although frightening at first, forced me to grow out of complacency and into a new person.

Three years later, I found my new stage in front of a sticker-covered, wobbly debate stand. Although the pressure still mounts before I step up for my performance, so much more has changed. Initially, I joined debate in an effort to grasp at the edges of my fleeting identity as a competitive dancer. You see, debate was originally a way for me to combine my academic interests with my competitive personality. Over the past three years, however, debate has transformed my personality rather than preserve it.  

As an intellectual game which relies on learned knowledge to rebut unpredictable arguments, debate requires that I prepare for discussing various theories and topics which had never crossed my mind before I joined the activity. After reading philosophers like Zizek and Sjoberg, I began to question my personal biases, realizing that the loss of control I experienced in dance was new to me only because of the privileged environment I was born into. Lessons like these formed cracks in the foundation of my formerly unwavering beliefs and changed the entirety of my world view. 

Formerly known as the conservative middle school student who was unafraid to challenge her liberal teachers on every potential issue, I slowly began to shift my political stance. For fifteen years, my point of view was shaped exclusively by my parents’ views and the impassioned speeches of Fox News hosts. However, debate forced me to read various analyses of the inequities which plague our education and healthcare systems, the frightening reality of climate change, and the importance of immigration in our country. Faced with a plethora of evidence on both sides, I made a decision to shift left in my political views. That is not to say the transition was easy; rather, my views on hot-button issues have escalated tensions between my parents and me to a boiling point. Though my parents perceive my views as a manifestation of my “rebellious teenager” phase, they fail to recognize that I respect their arguments and use them to scrutinize my own beliefs. Debate has taught me that every opportunity is a learning opportunity, no matter the context.

In college, however, I’ve found that it is difficult to have well-rounded, constructive conversations with my peers about hot-button issues. “Cancel culture” discourages discourse and encourages political partisans to retreat into the comfort of circles of people who agree with them, at the expense of our democracy. And the Duke campus bubble is just a microcosm of broader trends promoting a fractured American public and Congressional gridlock. In our increasingly polarized moment, what can we do to improve?

If my intellectual transition was any evidence, choosing to be curious, understanding, and forgiving in order to promote learning and pursue better solutions to complex problems is a choice that anyone can make. If you had asked my liberal middle school history teacher, with whom I regularly had debates, what my perspective on politics is today, I doubt he would have an accurate guess. As people, we should be allowed to make mistakes and grow from them, especially when it comes to having productive political discussions. I am extremely lucky that my parents have afforded me their support and patience as my political beliefs change. I made mistakes, but those mistakes have enabled me to better engage with their ideas to come to a well-rounded conclusion about complex topics. As college students and the next generation of world leaders, it is our job to reform how political discourse is conducted. We should debate and discuss, not compete to win.

While I would have viewed my inability to conquer an injury three years ago as a defeat, it was actually that failure which made me grow most as a person. Thanks to debate, I begin each day with an open mind, ready to scrutinize my innate beliefs about the world, learn from others, and apply these lessons to my actions. While engaging respectfully with ideologically diverse peers, I hope to discover the best solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. Stepping back, I recognize that what I once saw as my devolution from dancer to debater was actually my evolution from a narrow-minded, self-centered competitor, to a curious scholar and activist who is committed to searching for harmony.