Education Quote by Sydney Schanberg

There’s a bite in that dismissal that only a working journalist can deliver: not because debate is useless, but because “debate society” implies a game where points matter more than consequences. Schanberg’s line draws a hard border between performative argument and the adult world of power, blood, and accountability. It’s a warning against confusing rhetorical sparring with the job: verifying reality, naming culpability, and staying with a story after the cameras move on.

The phrase “little” does most of the heavy lifting. It shrinks the opponent’s posture into something adolescent, a self-contained club with rules designed to reward cleverness. Then comes the kicker: “That’s high school stuff.” It’s not just an insult; it’s a theory of modern public discourse. Schanberg is calling out a culture that treats politics and media like competitive speech, where the objective is to win the room, not clarify the truth. In that frame, facts become props, and suffering becomes a talking point.

Context matters because Schanberg’s career was forged in environments where being “right” wasn’t a trophy but a risk. Reporting on Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge made clear how lethal euphemism and institutional denial can be. So the intent here is to shut down the comfortable illusion that this is all an exchange of positions. The subtext: if you’re treating it like a debate, you’re already failing the story - and the people trapped inside it.