> Attacking the structure of someone's argument only works in high school debate club
That's very much not true. For one thing, academic debate in high school has pretty much the same criteria as it does in a high school. But more importantly:
> where you need to actually engage with the substance of their argument
Fallacies are, without exceptions, weaknesses in the substance of an argument, or places where it fails to engage with the substance of the argument it is offered against. Identifying them is very useful if you are in a context (like, say, high school or collegiate debate, or, say, a court room) where that arguments engage with each other's substance is critical. Now, in most cases you will leverage the weakness revealed by having identified the fallacy rather than just pointing it out by name, but especially when the audience is familiar with them and the argument is in writing, naming them makes a convenient counterargument macro, as each fallacy is a compact name for a defect in the argument in serving it's purpose.
That's very much not true. For one thing, academic debate in high school has pretty much the same criteria as it does in a high school. But more importantly:
> where you need to actually engage with the substance of their argument
Fallacies are, without exceptions, weaknesses in the substance of an argument, or places where it fails to engage with the substance of the argument it is offered against. Identifying them is very useful if you are in a context (like, say, high school or collegiate debate, or, say, a court room) where that arguments engage with each other's substance is critical. Now, in most cases you will leverage the weakness revealed by having identified the fallacy rather than just pointing it out by name, but especially when the audience is familiar with them and the argument is in writing, naming them makes a convenient counterargument macro, as each fallacy is a compact name for a defect in the argument in serving it's purpose.