In New Jersey: The Best and the Glibbest

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Swirling histrionics arise from the most sober-sounding topics, like the one argued in the fifth round: "Armed neutrality is ineffectual at best." Off-the-cuff military analyses? No, Swarthmore's Grant Oliphant and Chris DeMoulin want to argue pop psychology. Speaking first, Oliphant launches an elaborate attack on stoicism, celibacy, alienation and the jut-jawed manner of one of his tournament hosts. Oliphant's rhetorical ripostes ("Will we sentence ourselves to joyless purgatory?") and practiced voice glow with persuasive charm.

But he does not give a particular hoot about the subject. The object is to dazzle with language. "The art of speaking well is being lost," says Oliphant sincerely. "We are preserving that art." To Bob Gilbert, of Princeton, authentic passion is a tactical blunder. "All my worst rounds," he says, "come when I really believe what I'm saying. You get emotional, irrational." "You need arrogance," adds Kidd, a visiting New Zealander known for his sly bluntness. "You've got to be cocky to throw all this b.s. around." One veteran of the circuit admits that the verbal showboating can engender a vague mistrust of fellow debaters offstage, at parties and in dorm rooms.

The debates tend to sound like audi tions for a road company of 7776. Arguments are nearly always flotsam-packed and comically eclectic, skittering from Burger King to Rousseau, from Bruce Springsteen to the Sudetenland. Says Gilbert: "You can't really prepare, so everything becomes important: something your mother once said, a tidbit from sociology class."

The 52 teams have been winnowed to four for the semifinals, and Oliphant derides his Yale opponents' argument that drug abuse proves society's failure to adapt to change. "We are still waiting for their clear evidence of social breakdown," he says, "and all we get is 'drugs.' " "I wish we would get drugs," chirps an audience member. There is laughter and desk bashing. Yale's Brian Peterson tries anecdote. "I can't adapt to Reagan," he says, "I can't adapt to the fact that my federal scholarship money is gone and..."

"Welfare parasite!" comes the cry from somewhere, and again laughter splatters the debate. The gibes are mostly among friends. "What I truly value about the circuit," says Smith, "is meeting the different people." A quarter of the competitors are women (although only one will finish near the top here). Are there romantic gambols? "What?" asks an incredulous Peter Shearer of Princeton. "You think I just do this for the logic?"