Good resolutions are like gold: shiny, dense, ductile, malleable, and represented by the symbol Au. (Aurum? But I hardly even know him!)
Have a resolution you think we should debate? Suggest it at one of our meetings! If you can't come, or think you'll forget by then, send it to the Scriba.
What we haven't used (yet):
- Resolved: If you poke a hole in the condom, you're the father.
- Resolved: Seduction is for animals.
- Resolved: Seduction junction, what's yo' fucktion?
- Resolved: I am VERY aroused.
- Resolved: I am VERY seduced.
- Resolved: I am VERY animal.
- Resolved: If you have sex, the unicorn will get you.
- Resolved: Incest is fun for the whole family.
- Resolved: There is nothing manlier than gay sex.
- Resolved: I appreciate a sizable posterior and I find myself on this matter quite unable to prevaricate.
- Resolved: I'm not trying to be an asshole, really!
- Resolved: They don't think it be like it is but it do
Resolution Archive
The following is a reverse chronological order listing of resolutions debated by the Philolexian Society:
Fall 2018
- Resolved: Almonds are wood. Passed
- Resolved: I'm proud of you, son. (Geezer Night) Failed
- Resolved: Man is a featherless biped. Failed
- Resolved: Let's unpack that. Failed
- Resolved: Ma'am I'm here to fix your pipes. Failed
- Resolved: I have earned these organs. Failed
- Resolved: God is flat. Failed
- Resolved: There's something up. Passed
- Resolved: Your first time is always bad. Passed
Spring 2017
- Resolved: Robocop would make a pretty good pope. Passed
- Resolved: Banana Republic is a better name for a child than a clothing store. Passed
- Resolved: In the context of cereal, milk is a sauce. Failed
- Resolved: Plato is a hoax invented by Socrates to be the ultimate hype man and spec is in on it and actively covering this up. Failed
- Resolved: I'm the most dateable person in this room. Passed
- Resolved: Soft shell tacos are better than hard shell tacos. Passed
- Resolved: You cannot teach an old dog the meaning of its own mortality. Passed
- Resolved: If you die in Canada you die in real life.
Fall 2016
Spring 2016
- Resolved: Bracket Stump Speech Resolution Generator
- Resolved: Air quotes are "suspicious" Passed
- Resolved: Bring back Feudalism Passed
- Resolved: Hermit crabs are the most sociable of sea creatures Passed
- Resolved: Twitter v. Bird Failed
- Resolved: Dirigibles: Enough is enough! Passed
- Resolved: Dinosaurs are a fraud Failed
- Resolved: Not all knowledge is worth having Passed
- Resolved: We are all entitled to three chickens Failed
- Resolved: The bigger problem is that we are all stranded in the vacuum of space Passed
- Resolved: Cards Against Humanity Stump Speech Passed
- Resolved: Ignoring problems long enough makes them go away Failed
- Resolved: Bromance is dead Passed
- Resolved: Our jokes define our reality Passed
- Resolved: Friends are a crutch for the weak Passed
- Resolved: Shhh...Shhh...it's capitalism Passed
- Resolved: Killing one bird with one stone should be enough for anyone Passed
- Resolved: If fingers are lil' dicks your hands grow and fondle for themselves, dicks are big ol' middle fingers that your torso uses to show the world how it really feels. Passed
- Resolved: Librarians vs. Libertarians Passed
- Resolved: You thought it was paint but it ain't Failed
- Resolved: Retirement is for quitters Passed
Fall 2015
- Resolved: Being cool is better than being happy Failed
Spring 2015
- Resolved: The Fall of the Soviet Union was a Hoax.
- Resolved: Replace Congress with a Ouija Board.
- Resolved: Marriage is a Sacred Bond Between a Man…and the Sea.
- Resolved: It Is Not Okay to Be an Astronaut.
- Resolved: Everything the Light Touches Should Be Mine.
- Beat Poetry Night!
- Resolved: SeaCaptainDate.com Stump Speech.
- Resolved: Revenge Can Be Spectacular.
- Resolved: Batman Is the Modern Day Hamlet.
- Resolved: All Straights Are Dire.
- Resolved: Resolutions created by Mr. Kirkenspock's resolution generator.
Fall 2014
- Resolved: NSOP wasn't that bad.
- Resolved: There is an objectively best sandwich.
- Resolved: Ronald Reagan was a demi-god.
- Resolved: Marriage is for the weak.
- Resolved: End women's suffrage.
- Resolved: Taylor Swift v. Jonathan Swift
- Resolved: They can't send us ALL to detention.
- Resolved: You should take candy from strangers.
- Resolved: Fuck that one guy.
- The 29th Alfred Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest
- Professor Tea with Kate Zambreno
- Resolved: Parental Advice Stump Speech.
- Resolved: Human colonies on other planets— Yes? No? What kind?
Spring 2014
- Resolved: We all need to stop trying so hard.
- Resolved: Somebody should do something about all the Problems.
- Resolved: America means never having to say you're sorry.
- Resolved: Wordplay is better than foreplay.
- Resolved: Social media is our greatest contribution to society.
- Resolved: ... Hedonism is too exhausting (sigh).
- Resolved: Being cool is better than being happy.
Spring 2013
- Resolved: We all need to stop trying so hard. failed
- Resolved: Somebody should do something about all the problems. passed
- Resolved: Social ties are only useful for garnering power. failed
- Resolved: The NSA would make the best boyfriend. failed
- Resolved: America means never having to say you're sorry. failed
- Resolved: Wordplay is better than foreplay. passed
- Resolved: Social Media is our generation's greatest contribution to history. failed
- Resolved: Science isn't real. passed
- Resolved: Jenny Holzer Stump Speech. passed
- Resolved: Hedonism is too exhausting. failed
- Resolved: If life were a horror movie, I would be the first to die. passed
- Resolved: Being cool is better than being happy.
Fall 2013
- Resolved: Finders keepers applies to everything. failed
- Resolved: Space Jam is a modern retelling of the Bible. passed
- Resolved: We live in a dystopian future. passed
- Resolved: Replace the Core with YA Lit. passed
- Resolved: We only experience love because art tells us about it. failed
- Resolved: America is for wimps. passed
- Resolved: Goldman Sachs Elevator Twitter Stump Speech! passed
- Resolved: Nothing good ever comes from an -ism failed
- Resolved: Human communication is ruining social media. passed
- Resolved: Halloween brings out our true selves. passed
- Resolved: America is like a metaphor. failed
- The 28th Alfred Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest
- Resolved: Puns not guns. passed
- Resolved: It's not real unless we remember it. failed
Fall 2012
- Resolved: The Supreme Court should decide cases through trial by combat.
- Resolved: The laws of nature do not apply to humans.
- Resolved: Reality is a con run by white people.
- Resolved: Art is the root of all suffering.
- Resolved: It’s too late for Earth; we need to flee into space.
- Resolved: If it can’t be bought, it’s not worth having.
- Resolved: Technology can never increase human happiness.
- Resolved: Suffering is preferable to boredom.
- Resolved: Only obey good laws.
- Resolved: Fuck the polis.
- Resolved: Kanye West quotes stump speech.
- Resolved: Superman is the American Jesus.
Spring 2012
- Resolved: Occupation is the greatest American pastime.
- Resolved: Any problem can be resolved by pretending it doesn’t exist.
- Resolved: Trophy husband is a legitimate career aspiration.
- Resolved: Dinosaurs are better than ghosts.
- Resolved: Republican Primary stump speech.
- Resolved: Replace the Euro with seashells.
- Resolved: “They do it in the Bible” is a legitimate excuse for our moral failings.
- Resolved: There is nothing wrong with heterosexuality.
- Resolved: Art is good.
- Resolved: I have the best face.
- Resolved: Everyone is better off naked.
- Resolved: If you eat it, it is food.
- Resolved: Video games prepare people for healthy social interaction.
- Resolved: Tradition is useless.
Fall 2011
- Resolved: Children's television shows reflect the darkness of the human soul.
- Resolved: Babies have no value.
- Resolved: No good deed goes unpunished.
- Resolved: Let justice be done though the world perish.
- Resolved: Lowered expectations save lives.
- Resolved: Time is a thing of the past.
- Resolved: Helping the elderly prolongs their suffering.
- Resolved: Rap lyrics stump speech.
- Resolved: Romantic comedies provide useful dating advice.
- Resolved: Too much of a good thing is wonderful.
- Resolved: Humans have had their chance, let robots have a shot.
- Resolved: The Christmas Miracle is more miraculous than the Hanukkah Miracle.
Spring 2011
- Resolved: Capitalism is unnatural.
- Resolved: Education is wasted on the rich.
- Resolved: Revenge is always justified.
- Resolved: The internet has permanently stunted human development.
- Resolved: Everyone needs a nemesis.
- Resolved: Words have lost their power.
- Resolved: It is better to die with dignity than to live with shame.
- Resolved: Nostalgia was better back in the day.
- Resolved: With no power comes no responsibility.
- Resolved: Stump speech—Julie Andrews edition.
- Resolved: The moon should belong to America.
- Resolved: Everything good will kill you.
- Resolved: Facts are inconvenient.
- Resolved: Immortality is undesirable.
Fall 2010
Spring 2010
- Resolved: If you're not offending someone, you're doing it wrong. Passed
- Resolved: The best marriage is an arranged marriage. Passed
- Resolved: Children are essentially worthless. Passed
- Resolved: Science kills dreams. Failed
- Resolved: Where words fail, fists prevail. Passed
- Resolved: Humanity is the least successful species on Earth. (Geezer Night) Failed
- Resolved: There is a God, He's just not that into you. Passed
- Resolved: Friends don't let friends have sex. Failed
- Resolved: The only alternative to boredom is insanity.
- Resolved: 19th century child labor made the world what it is today. Failed
- Resolved: Modern technology is interfering with human communication. Failed
Fall 2009
- Resolved: Shame is the most important emotion. Failed
- Resolved: An Ivy League education is only good for making other people feel stupid. Failed
- Resolved: The South will rise again. Failed
- Resolved: If I can't see it, it doesn't exist. Failed
- Resolved: An overreaction is a better reaction. (Geezer Night) Passed
- Resolved: Things will never get better. Failed
- Resolved: I will fight a gorilla. Passed
- Resolved: Death Panels are the American way. Failed
- Resolved: It won't ruin the friendship. Passed
- Resolved: Mo' money, mo' problems. Passed
Spring 2009
- Resolved: Postmodernism is behind the times
- Resolved: Fashion is not art
- Resolved: Animal rights come at the expense of human needs
- Resolved: Baby boomers are the worst generation ever (Geezer Night)
- Resolved: First-year housing should be shittier
- Resolved: The Holy Land should be returned to the British Empire
- Resolved: Writing about music is like dancing about architecture
- Resolved: I like my toast like I like my women
- Resolved: The meaning of life is irrelevant
- Resolved: Abortion is gay
- Resolved: If you stop hoping and dreaming, Obama will die
Fall 2008
- Resolved: Gay marriage isn't wrong, all marriage is wrong.
- Resolved: What alcohol cannot fix is not a problem.
- Resolved: College students are above the law.
- Resolved: An addiction to elegance is a virtue, not a vice.
- Resolved: Children's stories shouldn't end happily ever after. (Geezer Night)
- Resolved: You're a commodity on the sex market, and your price is going down.
- Resolved: Social science is to science as tofu is to food.
- Resolved: The laws of science are unconstitutional.
- Resolved: Carmen Sandiego is a positive female role model.
- Resolved: Refrigerators make crime inevitable.
- Resolved: Natural selection is over. We won!
Spring 2008
- Resolved: The easy way is always the best way.
- Resolved: Shooting people is bad.
- Resolved: Pope v. Bear
- Resolved: Bring back prohibition.
- Resolved: All literature should be choose-your-own-adventure.
- Resolved: Perspective solves everything. (Geezer Night)
- Resolved: We only want what's bad for us.
- Resolved: Murderers are an essential part of our ecosystem.
- Resolved: Penguins deserve to fly.
- Resolved: We are going to run out of reasons to live before we run out of natural resources.
- Resolved: Art cannot be made intentionally.
- Resolved: Having an embarrassing name is worse than having an embarrassing face.
- Resolved: Roofies are for lazy fuckers.
Fall 2007
- Resolved: Blogging is a bigger threat to our society than AIDS.
- Resolved: Encourage stem-cell research to kill babies.
- Resolved: BITCH SET ME UP!
- Resolved: Madness and genius are separated by degrees of success.
- Resolved: Offense taken at art is a sign of weakness on the part of the observer. (Geezer Night)
- Resolved: Ugliness is the result of personal failure.
- Resolved: Vegetarians don't care as much about animals as they say.
- Resolved: Naked People are much hotter than clothed people
- Resolved: Suffering Makes you Legitimate
- Resolved: The detrimental effects of smoking do not outweigh how cool you look doing it.
- Resolved: The 21st Century will be characterized by unceasing boredom.
Spring 2007
- Resolved: If you say it loud, it's true.
- Resolved: Everyone is an asshole when you get to know 'em. (Geezer Night)
- Resolved: Student government is incredibly lame (a recurring special)
- Resolved: The Dead Have It Better Than the Living.
- Resolved: English is the Sexiest Language.
- Resolved: Sacrilege is Subjective
- Resolved: People on Welfare Rarely Fare Well.
- Resolved: Parents have no business raising children.
- Resolved: Monogamy is for Girls
- Resolved: Change comes through the barrel of a gun
- Resolved: Everyone Hates America Because We Are Fat
Fall 2006
- Resolved: Organized sports are a greater threat to society than organized religions.
- Resolved: Legalize marijuana; ban potheads.
- Resolved: Children are our future...unless we stop them now!
- Resolved: Somebody should do something about all the problems.
- Resolved: It's miserable to be middle-class.
- Resolved: Money is wasted on the old. (Geezer Night)
- Resolved: Save us, not the whales.
- Resolved: "Stop being a pussy!" is not offensive
- Resolved: End Male Suffrage.
- Resolved: Most problems solve themselves, given time and wilful ignorance.
- Resolved: Science geeks are sexier than humanities geeks.
- Resolved: Combat global warming by moving the Earth farther from the Sun.
Spring 2006
- Resolved: Google has killed the search for truth
- Resolved: April 20, 2006
- Resolved: April 13, 2006
- Resolved: Progress is measured in large explosions.
- Resolved: Feminism killed chivalry.
- Resolved: Property is theft.
- Resolved: All history is black history.
- Resolved: Let's get back to our roots and work the land.
- Resolved: Humanity has killed natural selection.
- Resolved: The human race will be extinct in our lifetimes.
- Resolved: Words suffocate thought.
- Resolved: Gender equality can only be achieved in deep space.
- Resolved: Ignorance is strength.
Fall 2005
- Resolved: Life will be better under the sea
- Resolved: Everyone has culture... except white people.
- Resolved: Faith is sexier than reason
- Resolved: All history is biography
- Resolved: The people who make interesting art are never interesting. (Geezer Night)
- Resolved: There is no such thing as progress.
- Resolved: The national debt should be lowered through the use of a fast-food tax.
- Resolved: Love is biology masquerading as poetry.
- Resolved: The Supreme Court Should Be Chosen By Lottery.
- Resolved: Inheritance has no place in the capitalist system.
- Resolved: “March of the Penguins” is the harbinger of the coming revolution.
Spring 2005
- Resolved: Death is an Illusion
- Resolved: April 7, 2005
- Resolved: Only the Grammatically Conscious Deserve a Home on the Internet
- Resolved: End the Space Program
- Resolved: There is no reason to do anything
- Resolved: If you stole it, you've earned it.
- Resolved: Conversation is a Dying Art (Geezer Night)
- Resolved: Religion is the Stimulant of the People
- Resolved: February 3, 2005
- Resolved: Shallow is the New Deep
- Resolved: New York City is the True City of Brotherly Love (Special Philomathan visit debate)
Fall 2004
- Resolved: Censorship is the highest form of flattery
- Resolved: Chicks dig scrawny pale guys
- Resolved: Vegans are lower on the food chain
- Resolved: There is no habitat for humanity.
- Resolved: We need more chlorine in the gene pool
- Resolved: Minimalism is just another word for laziness
- Resolved: Companies love misery
- Resolved: Undergarments are so twentieth century
- Resolved: Instead of killing imaginary monsters, just talk to people.
- Resolved: Social cripples should get disability benefits.
- Resolved: Suicide should be decriminalized.
Resolved: All the Iraqi interim government needs is an orientation week.
Spring 2004
Fall 2003
Only Orientation through October 23, 2003 available
Resolved: We must strike now, while England is weak
- Resolved: October 16, 2003
- Resolved: October 9, 2003
- Resolved: New York City should outlaw cars
- Resolved: Successful plagiarism is creative writing
- Resolved: History is written by the victors, but studied by losers
- Resolved: The Coyote is a Far More Appealing Figure than the Roadrunner... In a Miltonian "Better to Rule in Hell than Serve in Heaven," Tragic, Rebellious Kinda Way.
- Resolved: A jury has no more right to kill you than I do.
- Resolved: The lemmings know something that we don't
Resolutions culled from the Philo flyer archive of Thalia Robakis (Ca. 1999)
- Resolved: Art is bunk
- Resolved: Belief in God makes people do silly things and then yell at each other about it
- Resolved: Mental masturbation is birth control for intellectuals
- Resolved: Intelligence is an illusion; stupidity is all too real
- Resolved: Sometimes it helps to have victims
- Resolved: Old age is not worth sticking around for
Resolutions culled from the Philo flyer archive of Adam Fields (Ca. 1994-1996)
- Resolved: Agnosticism is a form of cowardice
- Resolved: Barbie lives in spiritual impoverishment
- Resolved: Blunders are worse than crimes
- Resolved: Barnard girls are easy
- Resolved: Conversio Virum should be readmitted to Earl Hall
- Resolved: Dammit, we should be learning about dead, white males!
- Resolved: Dr. Seuss should be taught in the Core Curriculum
- Resolved: Fuck art, let's kill
- Resolved: Give us back the Cold War
- Resolved: Happiness is fleeting, pain is real
- Resolved: Hate makes the world go 'round
- Resolved: Hedonism is the highest form of education
- Resolved: History is better than science, and always fucking will be!
- Resolved: Human dignity is worth more than economic progress
- Resolved: If you don't work, you shouldn't eat
- Resolved: If you love somebody, set them on fire
- Resolved: Insanity is no excuse for murder
- Resolved: It's better not to ask
- Resolved: Marriage is just a license to fuck legitimately
- Resolved: More attractive people really are better
- Resolved: Nothing beats tension like killing your neighbors
- Resolved: Of all major religious figures, Buddha would have made the best DJ
- Resolved: Only obey good laws
- Resolved: Paranoia is better than apathy
- Resolved: Republicans are the tools of satan
- Resolved: Revenge is the poor delight of petty minds
- Resolved: Science is more important than the humanities
- Resolved: Self-worship is the only valid religion
- Resolved: Some cultures deserve to perish
- Resolved: Stop marching, get a gun
- Resolved: Student government is amazingly lame
- Resolved: Student government is still, once again, for the fifth smash year, amazingly lame
- Resolved: Student government is still, perpetually, continually, and yet again for the sixth year, amazingly lame (it would appear that this meme, a staple of early April debates, began in April of 1990)
- Resolved: The best form of government is no government at all
- Resolved: The brothel is the touchstone of female empowerment
- Resolved: The path to enlightenment leads directly through the Dorito(R) Aisle
- Resolved: The proposed increase in class size will destroy the College
- Resolved: The struggle to maintain identity is stronger than the desire to assimilate
- Resolved: Tolerance of homosexuality should be taught in NYC schools
- Resolved: Trust is out of style
- Resolved: When in doubt, choose the more complicated solution
- Resolved: Women already have equality
- Resolved: Yield to temptation - it may not come your way again
- Resolved: You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake
