Jack Brown ‘23
Staff Editor
We have lost a lot due to COVID. Snow days, mask-less hospital visits, and the belief that at our core human beings are rational animals are all permanent victims of the pandemic. Luckily, the passionate, pointless debate that the legal education system was built on has thrived in spite of the pandemic and will be here for generations to come.
While mandatory Canvas message boards and the ever growing UVA Law Reddit page have played a role in keeping debate between young ideologues alive, GroupMe is the main vehicle preserving this practice in the face of rapid societal change. Every post in any section, organization, or class chat brings with it the potential to spark a deluge of impassioned theses about the evils of an event or group of students.
In the pre-plague world, such debates would often be confined to disorganized Bar Review arguments or the occasional moment of Con Law uncongeniality. Whatever lighthearted roasts people might make about a ridiculous take would be made in whispers with their friends or as knowing side glances to the person sitting next to them. Even in the rare moments when someone would call someone else out, it would either be in front of a professor they wouldn’t want to disappoint or in a packed venue where the witty retort would get drowned out by the K-JDs belting out the lyrics of whatever song the bar was playing.
While it was good for its time, the community wanted more. They wanted arguments to be able to explode at any time and be unconstrained by social norms. And they wanted a captive audience for their disagreements. And they wanted the most extreme voices to have a platform to express their displeasure. And thanks to the pandemic, they got GroupMe.
Obviously, group chats of all shapes and sizes existed before COVID flipped everything upside down. But never before had they been so indispensable to the social dynamic. Combined with the increasingly polarized political climate, the stage was set for the ultimate debate forum. One that was poised to leap into action any time a FedSoc section rep had the terrifying task of plugging their next speaking event.
America was built on this kind of discourse: the debates between Anti-Federalists and Federalists during the ratification of the American Constitution were conducted in a similar forum, as the different speakers sent in their passionate essays to newspapers to help the general public understand each side's merits. Great thinkers were able to freely articulate their positions in print and know that their arguments would be seen by a wider impressionable audience.
The modern day American Constitution Society vs. FedSoc debates have many similarities to rhetorical battles that took place in the newspapers of early America. There are incredible thinkers on both sides, there is a wide audience waiting to have their viewpoints changed by a paragraph furiously typed out on an iPhone, and both groups take their time to respect and thoughtfully respond to the concerns of the other position.
And of course, there are many improvements to the traditional form of debate. For one thing, everyone can throw their opinion into the ring now. While historically, debates of this caliber have only been between a handful of respectful opponents, in GroupMe brawls you can have hundreds of voices clambering over one another to make the definitive point on whatever issue the majority of people in there are hopelessly undecided on.
On top of this freedom to participate, you have the greatest feature of any social media service: the ability to “like” certain posts. Now, instead of arguing for some policy outcome, participants in a debate can live off the sweet dopamine release that comes from the notification that someone “liked” what they said. This gives them the incentive to craft the best kind of arguments: short, succinct ones that strongly speak to people’s emotions.
We saw all of these wonderful aspects of GroupMe debates come to a head in the recent 2L discussion about a Federalist Society speaker. For weeks, the halls of the Law School echoed with students buzzing about the eye-opening discussion they had the privilege of witnessing. No doubt that the screenshots of this momentous event will be shared for years to come, and that all the students who spent so much effort on their messages came away from the experience intellectually fulfilled.
While many things will change as we turn the page on the COVID pandemic, the people have spoken and will make sure to keep this perfect platform for debate alive and well far into the future. For whenever there is an opportunity for a pointless argument, you know law students will be there to blow it up to unreasonable heights.
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jwb4bb@virginia.edu