On the evening of November 8, 2018, the sixth round of the 2018 “Zhengde Cup” Graduate Debate Competition of Nanjing Normal University was held at 205 Xuezheng Building, Xianlin Campus. The topic of this debate was “The advantages of art commercialization outweigh the disadvantages/ The disadvantages outweigh the benefits. The square is from the Buddhist Department of the Marxist Academy, and the opposite is the Yu Xi team of the Teachers Education College. In the end, Cao Shasha, the second debater of the Yushu team of the teachers' college, won the "Best Debater", and the Orthodox Buddha team won the victory of this debate. 

 The debate was divided into four parts: opening an argument, round of  defense, a free debate, and a summary. First of all, during the opening of the argument, the first debater of the pros gave the three-minute elaboration. After the elaboration, the fourth debater Bian yue from cons put forward questions against the pros from two main sides : whether the  "the economic benefits of art commodification is the driving force of the artist" and "art commodification can bring the art closer to the public ". Then the first debater of cons Pei Ninghui discussed from the aspect of whether the real development of art can be the standard for measuring the advantages and disadvantages of art commercialization, and provided a bunch of examples to demonstrate that art commodification does more harm than good. This was the end of the first part of the debate.

 

Then comes the attacking and defending section, the second debater from the pros raised questions against the counter debater Cao Shasha. After that, the second debater argued that "whether the art is priceless or not, the original intention of the artist to engage in artistic activities is to obtain benefits or other and whether the commercialization of art equals the "marked price" against the pros. Immediately after that, the third debater of the cons Xu Juan asked questions against the pros. Finally, both of the two sides made great  efforts to explain their arguments in the four rounds of mutual questions, which was very exciting and fascinating. 

Next is the most intense session of free debate. The two sides express their own opinions from the aspects of "the quality of art commodification is mixed, the popularity of the stars is the result of commodification, whether the sale of ticket of the movie or the concert  is the embodiment of art commodification". Views and ideas bump into each other, debaters race against time, which brings the audience a wonderful five minutes. Thus, the game has entered a period of fevorization.

 The fourth part is the conclusion. Firstly, the fourth debater from the cons briefly summarizes the relevant issues in the first three rounds. She points out that the pros exaggerate the influence of material on art creation, and then reiterates their own viewpoint,that is the disadvantages  of art commercialization outweigh the benefits. Afterwards, the fourth debater from the pros makes a statement and the debate ended after the statement was completed.

Finally, the audience asked questions, and the three judges made comments. The two sides of the debate debated the arguments and continued to show their views and positions alternatively. They showed their own style and positive spirit. We hope that each debate team can fully prepare for the next game, play their own strength and achieve good results! (Teacher Education College: Graphic / Chi Jingyao )