Hamlet was crazy... or was he?

Debate Report #2



On December 12th, Mary, Michaela and Ilayda argued that he was and while they fought very hard to sway the judges; Jenn Yannick and Nick, they couldn’t quite beat out their opposition. Jessica, Melissa and Kelsey, the negative side, used the sympathetic approach to explain that the Hamlet (or Paul, as he was to be called in this debate) simply had so many traumatic experiences and they simply took a toll on him. Enhancing their negativity to Hamlet’s so-called craziness, Jessica, Melissa and Kelsey all dressed up as the Phantom of the Opera, Elphaba and Zorro. This gave them extra points and aided in their winning of the debate.
During the rebuttal, the affirmative side, especially Mary, called out as many logical fallacies as they could. Probably none of them were missed. There was a hasty generalization when the negative side used the argument of “many people” without statistics from anywhere. They went on to say refute the previous argument made, and that people can still become mentally ill (in this case crazy) when they have had horrible events happen to them or around them. The negative side went on to explain that they were aware that facts had not been given, and that it had merely been a thesis that had been stated--not proof. This was interesting, as most people would deny the fact that there was no real information, or that it was information. The rebuttals from both sides were handled very well.
The affirmative side, in their next argument gave the description of what medical illness was—and what was covered under that definition. This argument was used in what seemed like a bit of begging the question, as that point was used over and over against most of the negative side’s arguments. Many of the different types of mental illnesses were described and it was pointed out how Hamlet fit into many of the categories. However, not all mental illnesses mean that one is crazy. Using many quotes from the play, the negative side went on to explain how the one person in the play who would want to call him crazy, didn’t.
The ghost in the play, argued the affirmative side, was never proved to be real. They argued that it Hamlet really just imagined it in his delirium and that the guards there were just too scared to disagree with him. This became a hot topic to discuss during the rebuttals and the free-for-all. The free-for-all was again dominated mainly by one person, Mary this time. It again also included a lot of yelling. The negative side’s conclusion was quite amusing, but made a good point when Jessica mentioned that Melissa rambled on, as Hamlet did and she definitely is not crazy.