ROB
The counter role of the ballot is to determine who did the better debating—anything else is
self-serving and arbitrary. Both of the role of the ballot warrants are just reasons their case
is good, not justifications to arbitrarily exclude our offense which is what they want.
OFF—K
Presenting the 1AC’s value as dependent on the recognition of the critic reduces the
revolutionary nature of the act—fails to produce meaningful change and draws
them into the oppressive gaze of the academy ---vote Negative to decline affirmation
Phillips 99 – Dr. Kendall R. Phillips, Professor of Communication at Central Missouri State University,
PhD in Speech Communication from Pennsylvania State University, MA in Speech Communication from
Central Missouri State University, BS in Psychology and Sociology from Southwest Baptist University,
“Rhetoric, Resistance, and Criticism: A Response to Sloop and Ono”, Philosophy & Rhetoric, Volume
32, Number 1, p. 96-101
My concern with this movement centers around an issue that Sloop and Ono seem to take as a given, namely, the role
of the critic. On one hand, calling for the systematic investigation of existing marginalized discourses is a natural extension both of critical rhetoric (see
McKerrow 1989, 1991) and of the general ideological turn in criticism (see Wander 1983). On the other hand, the ease of transition from criticism
in the service of resistance to criticism of resistance may obscure the need to address some fundamental
issues regarding the general function of rhetorical criticism in an uncertain and contentious world. Beyond
licensing the critic to engage in political struggle, Sloop and Ono advocate the pursuit of covert resistant discourses. Such a move not
only stretches our understanding of rhetoric and criticism, but also alters significantly the relationship
between critic and out- law. Critical interrogation of dominant discursive practices in the service of
political/cultural reform is supplanted in favor of positioning covert out- law communities as objects of
investigation. Invited to seek out subversive discourses, the critic is positioned as the active agent of
change and the out-law discourse becomes merely instrumental. Rather than academic criticism acting
in service of everyday acts of resistance, everyday acts of resistance are put into the service of academic
criticism. Rhetorical resistance That we are "caught within conflicting logics of justice that are culturally struggled over" (Sloop and Ono 1997, 50) and that
rhetoric is employed in these struggles seems an uncontroversial statement. Despite the theoretical miasma surrounding judgment, Sloop and Ono accurately note, the
material process of rendering judgments (and of disputing the logics of litigation) continues in the world of actually practiced discourse. In the materially contested
world, rhetoric is utilized both by those seeking to secure the grounds of dominant judgment and by those seeking to undermine or supplant dominant cultural logics
with some out-law notion of justice. The distinction between these two cultural groups, "in-law" and out- law, however, deserves some consideration prior to any
discussion of the role of the critic as implied in the out-law discourse project. The discourse of the dominant or those within the bounds of superordinate logics of
litigation is reminiscent of Michel De Certeau's (1984) strategic discourse. For De Certeau, strategies are utilized by those who have authority by virtue of their proper
position. Strategies exploit the institutionally guaranteed background consensus by which power relations (and litigations) are maintained and advanced. In contrast,
tactics are utilized by those having no proper place of authority within the discursive economy who must seek opportunities whereby the discourse of the dominant
might be undermined and contested. To extend Sloop and Ono's definition, out-law discourses are those that can (and, by their analysis, do) take advantage of
situations (e.g., race riots) to disrupt the regularity of dominant cultural groups. The ongoing struggle between strategically instituted cultural dominants and the "outlaw always lurk[ing] in the distance" (66) is acknowledged, even celebrated, by Sloop and Ono. What their acknowledgment fails to provide, however, is a clear need
for critical intervention. Indeed, quite the reverse is presented: It is the critic (particularly the left-leaning critic) who needs out-law discourse. While the struggles over
justice, equality, and freedom have gone on, the left-leaning critics are those who have theoretically excluded themselves from the disputes. The study of out-law discourses, then, provides a means to reinvigorate the intellectual and re-institute (academic) leftist thinking into popular political struggles (53-54). Thus, Sloop and
Ono's project incorporates three types of rhetoric: the rhetoric of the in-law, presumably the traditional object of critical attention; the rhetoric of the out-law, the study
of which may transform our understanding of judgment as well as reinvigorate leftist democratic critiques; and the rhetoric of the critics who, having lost their
political po- tency, can exploit the discourse of the out-law to promote ideological struggles. It is to this critical rhetoric that I now turn. Resistance criticism Sloop and
Ono (1997) clearly state the relationship they envision between the rhetorical critic and out-law discourse: "Ultimately, we will argue that the role of critical
rhetoricians is to produce 'materialist conceptions of judgment,' using out-law judgments to disrupt dominant logics of judgment" (54; emphasis added). Here the critic
seeks out vernacular discourse (60), focuses on the methods and values embodied in these communities (62), listens to and evaluates the out-law community (62-63),
and chooses appropriate discourses for the purpose of disrupting dominant practices (63). Essentially, it is the critic who seeks out marginalized discourses and returns
them to the center for the purpose of provoking dominant cultural groups (63). Despite acknowledging the efficacy of out-law discourses, Sloop and Ono assume that
the critiques generated and presented by the out-law community have only minimal effect. The irony, and indeed arrogance, of this assumption is evident when they
claim: "There are cases, however, when, without the prompting of academic critics, out-law discourses serve local purposes at times and at others resonate within
dominant discourses, disrupting sedimented ways of thinking, transforming dominant forms of judgment" (60; emphasis added). Sloop and Ono seem to suggest that
such locally generated critiques are the exception, whereas the political efficacy of the academic critic is the rule. This seems an odd claim, given that the justification
for their out-law discourse project is the lack of politically viable academic critique and the perceived potency of out-law conceptions of judgment. Their
suggestion that out-law communities are in need of the academic critic contradicts not only the already
disruptive nature of existing out-law discourses (the grounds for using out-law discourse), but also the impotence of contemporary critical
discourse (the warrant for studying out-law discourse). By this I do not mean that the critiques and theories generated by academically instituted intellectuals have not
been incorporated into subversive discourses. Just as out-law discourses inevitably mount critiques of dominant logics, so, too, the perspectives on rhetoric and
criticism generated by academics are used in resistance movements. Feminist critiques of patriarchy, queer theories of homophobia, postcolonial interrogations of race
have found their way into the service of resistant groups. The key distinction I wish to make is that the existence of criticism (academic or self-generated) in resistance
does not necessitate Sloop and Ono's move to a criticism of resistance. What Sloop and Ono fail to offer is an adequate argument for
"taking public speaking out of the streets and studying it in the classroom, for treating it less as an
expression of protest" (Wander 1983, 3) and more as an object for analysis and reproduction within
thepolitical economy of the academy. Philip Wander made a similar charge against Herbert Wicheln's early critical project, and this concern
should remain at the forefront of any discussion aimed at expanding the scope and function of criticism. Sloop and Ono offer numerous
directives for the critic without addressing whether the critic should be examining out-law
discourses in the first place. While it is too early to suggest any definitive answer to the question of criticism of resistance, some preliminary
arguments as to why critics should not pursue out-law discourses can be offered: (1) Hidden out-law discourses may have good reasons
to stay hidden. Sloop and Ono specifically instruct us that "the logic of the out-law must constantly be searched for, brought forth" (66) and used to disrupt
dominant practices. But are we to believe that all out-law discourses are prepared to mount such a challenge to the dominant cultural logic? Or, indeed,
that the members of out-law communities are prepared to be brought into the arena of public surveillance
in the service of reconstituting logics of litigation? It seems highly unlikely that all divergent cultural groups have developed equally, or that all members of these
groups share Sloop and Ono's "imperial impulse" (51) to promote their conceptions and practices of justice. (2) Academic critical discourse is not transparent. Here I
allude to the overall problem of translation (see Foucault 1994; Lyotard 1988; Lyotard and Thebaud 1985; Zabus 1995) as an extension of the previous concern.
Critical discourse cannot become the medium of commensurability for divergent language games. Are we to believe that the "use" of out-law dis- course by critics to
disrupt dominant practices can fail to do violence to these diverse/divergent logics? Are out-law discourses merely tools to be exploited and discarded in the pursuit of
returning leftist academic dis- course to the center? (3) Perhaps the academic translation of out-law discourse could be true to the internal logic of the out-law
community. And, perhaps the re-presentation of out-law logic within the academic community will bestow a
degree of legitimacy on the out-law community. Nonetheless, the effect of legitimizing out-law discourse
is unknown and potentially destructive. In an effort to siphon the political energy of out-law discourse
into academic practice, we may ultimately destroy the dissatisfaction that serves as a cathexis for these
out-law discourses. It seems possible that academic recognition might take the placeof struggle for material
opportunities (see Fraser 1997). But, will academic legitimation create any material changes in the conditions
of out-law communities? I mean to suggest, not that it is better to allow the out-law community to suffer for its cause, but rather that incorporating the
struggle into an (admittedly) impotent academic critique does not offer a prima facie alternative. (4) Criticism of resistance denies the practical and theoretical
importance of opportunity. Returning to De Certeau's notion of tactics, the crucial element of these discursive moves is their use of opportunity to disrupt the proper
authority of the dominant. The kairos of intervention provides the key to undermining "in-law" discourses. But when is the "right moment in time" for the academic
reproduction of out-law discourse? Mapping the points of resistance (ala Foucault and Biesecker) entails interrogating "in-law" discourses for their incongruities and
contradictions, not turning the academic gaze upon those communities waiting for an opportunity. Out-laws do not lurk in the forefront (66), hoping to be exposed by
academic critics; they wait for the right moment for their disruption. Rhetoricians can provide rhetorical instructions for seeking opportunities and for exploiting these
opportunities (literally making the culturally weaker argument the stronger), but this does not justify interrogating (intervening in) the cultural logics of the
marginalized. The concerns raised here are not designed to dismiss Sloop and Ono's provocative essay. The divergent critical logic they outline deserves careful
consideration within the critical community, and it is my hope that the concerns I raise may help to further problematize the relationship between resistance and
rhetorical criticism. Rhetorical criticism As I have suggested, my purpose is to use the provocative nature of Sloop and Ono's project to extend disputes regarding the
ends of rhetorical criticism. Diverging perspectives on the ends of criticism have been categorized by Barbara Warnick (1992) as falling along four general lines:
artist, analyst, audience, and advocate. Leah Ceccarelli (1997) discerns similar categories around the aesthetic, epistemic, and political ends of rhetorical criticism. The
out-law discourse project presents clear ties to the notion of critic as advocate. For Sloop and Ono, the critic is an interested party,
discerning (and at times disputing) the underlying values and forces contained within a discourse. Additionally,
however, the out-law discourse critic is an analyst focusing on the hidden, aberrant texts of the out-law and
"rendering] an incoherent or esoteric text comprehensible" (Warnick 1992, 233). Now, I am not suggesting that a critic must
serve only one function or that the roles of advocate and analyst are mutually exclusive; rather, these entanglings of power (political ends) and
knowledge (epistemic ends) are inevitable. My concern is that we not neglect the complexity of these entanglements. Turning covert outlaw discourses into objects of our analyses runs the risk of subjecting them both to the gaze of the
dominant and to the power relations of the academy. As the works of Michel Foucault (especially 1979, 1980) aptly illustrate,
practices presented as extending such noble goals as emancipation and humanity may endow institutions of confinement and objectification. Any justification for
studying out-law dis- course because doing so may extend our political usefulness in the pursuit of emancipatory goals must not obscure the already existing power
relations authorizing such studies. Our attempts to extend our domains of knowledge and expertise (authority) must not be pursued unreflexively.
Off—T
Interpretation: Debaters may only garner offense from the hypothetical
implementation of the resolution or from responses to non topical arguments. To
clarify, teams should be topical.
Violation – the aff is not topical
Prefer our interpretation and vote NEG- 4 reasons
1] Clash – The res forces debaters to debate multiple perspectives with a stasis point
for preparation. If we could talk about anything, each team would retreat to the
corner of academia that makes them feel most comfortable. Defending and
answering proposals against a well-researched opponent is beneficial regardless of
the truth value of those proposals.
2] Institutional engagement – debate is imperfect, but only our interpretation can
harness legal education to understand the law’s strategic reversibility that help us
contest violent structures. This is the best link from debate to real social justice.
3] Topical Version of Affirmative solves
4] Fairness – They can specialize in 1 area of literature for 4 years which gives them
a huge edge over people switching topics every 2 months and means they can win
every round with a good enough t prepout.
Fairness has to be an impact—American Heritage Broward would probably be
pissed if you threw out your flow and voted for us on gut feeling alone
DTD to set norms and disincentive the practice. Use competing interps – topicality is
question of models of debate which they should justify. They can’t weigh the case—
the shell proves it was either unethical or impossible to test—no rvis because it
forces us to collapse on T making it high risk. Reject impact turns to T, exclusions
are inevitable given we have 45 minutes so its best to draw those exclusions along
reciprocal lines to ensure a role for the aff
The K
Vote neg on presumption –
A) Nothing spills over – there’s no connection between the ballot and chancing
people’s attitudes. You encourage more teams to read framework which turns your
offense and prevents the alteration of mindsets.
B) Debate – none of their evidence is specific to it – sets a high threshold for
solvency and ignores how communicative norms operate.
Ritter ‘13 (JD from U Texas Law (Michael J., “Overcoming The Fiction of “Social Change Through Debate”: What’s To Learn from
2pac’s Changes?,” National Journal of Speech and Debate, Vol. 2, Issue 1)
The structure of competitive interscholastic debate renders any message communicated in a debate round virtually
incapable of creating any social change, either in the debate community or in general society. And to the
extent that the fiction of social change through debate can be proven or disproven through empirical studies
or surveys, academics instead have analyzed debate with nonapplicable rhetorical theory that fails to account
for the unique aspects of competitive interscholastic debate. Rather, the current debate relating to activism and
competitive interscholastic debate concerns the following: “What is the best model to promote social change?” But a
more fundamental question that must be addressed first is: “Can debate cause social change?” Despite over two
decades of opportunity to conduct and publish empirical studies or surveys, academic proponents of the fiction that debate can
create social change have chosen not to prove this fundamental assumption, which—as this article argues—is
merely a fiction that is harmful in most, if not all, respects. The position that competitive interscholastic debate
can create social change is more properly characterized as a fiction than an argument. A fiction is an invented or fabricated idea
purporting to be factual but is not provable by any human senses or rational thinking capability or is unproven by
valid statistical studies. An argument, most basically, consists of a claim and some support for why the claim is true. If the support for the
claim is false or its relation to the claim is illogical, then we can deduce that the particular argument does not help in ascertaining whether the
claim is true. Interscholastic competitive debate is premised upon the assumption that debate is argumentation. Because fictions are necessarily
not true or cannot be proven true by any means of argumentation, the competitive interscholastic debate community should be
incredibly critical of those fictions and adopt them only if they promote the activity and its purposes.
That moots the value of their performance –
Changing political subjectivity can’t solve, they underestimate the flexibility of the
state
Asef Bayat 13, Sociology Prof @ University of Illinois, Life As Politics: How Ordinary People Change
the Middle East, pp. 41-45
The dearth of conventional collective action— in par tic u lar, contentious protests among the subaltern groups (the poor,
peasants, and women) in the developing countries, together with a disillusionment with dominant socialist parties, pushed many radical
observers to “discover” and highlight different types of activism, however small- scale, local, or even individualistic. Such a
quest, meanwhile, both contributed to and benefi ted from the upsurge of theoretical perspectives, during the 1980s, associated with
poststructuralism that made micropolitics and “everyday resistance” a popular idea. James Scott’s departure, during
the 1980s, from a structuralist position in studying the behavior of the peasantry in Asia to a more ethnographic method of focusing on individual
reactions of peasants contributed considerably to this paradigm shift .27 In the meantime, Foucault’s “decentered” notion of power, together with
a revival of neo- Gramscian politics of culture (hegemony), served as a key theoretical backing for micropolitics, and thus the “re sis tance”
perspective. The notion of “re sis tance” came to stress that power and counterpower were not in binary opposition, but in a decoupled, complex,
ambivalent, and perpetual “dance of control.”28 It based itself on the Foucauldian idea that “wherever there is power there is re sis tance,”
although the latter consisted largely of small- scale, everyday, tiny activities that the agents could aff ord to articulate given their po liti cal
constraints. Such a perception of re sis tance penetrated not only peasant studies, but a variety of fi elds, including labor studies, identity politics,
ethnicity, women’s studies, education, and studies of the urban subaltern. Thus, multiple researchers discussed how relating stories about miracles
“gives voice to pop u lar re sis tance”29; how disenfranchised women resisted patriarchy by relating folktales and songs or by pretending to be
possessed or crazy;30 how reviving extended family among the urban pop u lar classes represented an “avenue of po liti cal participation.”31 The
relationships between the Filipino bar girls and western men were discussed not simply in terms of total domination, but in a complex and
contingent fashion;32 and the veiling of the Muslim working woman has been represented not in simple terms of submission, but in ambivalent
terms of protest and co- optation— hence, an “accommodating protest.”33 Indeed, on occasions, both veiling and unveiling were simultaneously
considered as a symbol of re sis tance. Undoubtedly, such an attempt to grant agency to the subjects that until then were depicted as “passive
poor,” “submissive women,” “apo liti cal peasant,” and “oppressed worker” was a positive development. The re sis tance paradigm helps to
uncover the complexity of power relations in society in general, and the politics of the subaltern in par tic u lar. It tells us that we may not expect
a universalized form of struggle; that totalizing pictures oft en distort variations in people’s perceptions about change; that local should be
recognized as a signifi cant site of struggle as well as a unit of analysis; that or ga nized collective action may not be possible everywhere, and
thus alternative forms of struggles must be discovered and acknowledged; that or ganized protest as such may not necessarily be privileged in the
situations where suppression rules. The value of a more fl exible, small- scale, and unbureaucratic activism should, therefore, be
acknowledged.34 These are some of the issues that critiques of poststructuralist advocates of “re sis tance” ignore.35 Yet a number of
conceptual and political problems also emerge from this paradigm. The immediate trouble is how to conceptualize re sis
tance, and its relation to power, domination, and submission. James Scott seems to be clear about what he means by the term: Class re sis tance
includes any act(s) by member(s) of a subordinate class that is or are intended either to mitigate or deny claims (for example, rents, taxes,
prestige) made on that class by superordinate classes (for example, landlords, large farmers, the state) or to advance its own claims (for example,
work, land, charity, respect) vis-à- vis these superordinate classes.36 [emphasis added] However, the phrase “any act” blocks
delineating between qualitatively diverse forms of activitiesthat Scott lists. Are we not to distinguish
between large- scale collective action and individual acts, say, of tax dodging? Do reciting poetry in
private, however subversive- sounding, and engaging in armed struggle have identical value? Should we not expect
unequal aff ectivity and implications from such diff erent acts? Scott was aware of this, and so agreed with those who had made distinctions
between diff erent types of resistance— for example, “real re sis tance” refers to “or ga nized, systematic, pre- planned or selfl ess practices with
revolutionary consequences,” and “token re sis tance” points to unor ga nized incidental acts without any revolutionary consequences, and which
are accommodated in the power structure.37 Yet he insisted that the “token re sis tance” is no less real than the “real re sis tance.” Scott’s
followers, however, continued to make further distinctions. Nathan Brown, in studying peasant politics in Egypt, for instance, identifi es three
forms of politics: atomistic (politics of individuals and small groups with obscure content), communal (a group eff ort to disrupt the system, by
slowing down production and the like), and revolt ( just short of revolution to negate the system).38 Beyond this, many resistance writers
tend to confuse an awareness about oppression with acts of resistance against it. The fact that poor women sing
songs about their plight or ridicule men in their private gatherings indicates their understanding of gender dynamics. This does not mean,
however, that they are involved in acts of resistance; neither are the miracle stories of the poor urbanites who
imagine the saints to come and punish the strong. Such an understanding of “resistance” fails to capture
the extremely complex interplay of conflict and consent, and ideas and action, operating within systems of
power. Indeed, the link between consciousness and actionremains a major sociological dilemma.39 Scott makes it
clear that re sis tance is an intentional act. In Weberian tradition, he takes the meaning of action as a crucial element. This intentionality, while
signifi cant in itself, obviously leaves out many types of individual and collective practices whose intended and unintended consequences do not
correspond. In Cairo or Tehran, for example, many poor families illegally tap into electricity and running water from the municipality despite
their awareness of their behavior’s illegality. Yet they do not steal urban ser vices in order to express their defi ance vis-à- vis the authorities.
Rather, they do it because they feel the necessity of those ser vices for a decent life, because they fi nd no other way to acquire them. But these
very mundane acts when continued lead to signifi cant changes in the urban structure, in social policy, and in the actors’ own lives. Hence, the
signifi cance of the unintended consequences of agents’ daily activities. In fact, many authors in the re sis tance paradigm have simply abandoned
intent and meaning, focusing instead eclectically on both intended and unintended practices as manifestations of “re sis tance.” There is still a
further question. Does re sis tance mean defending an already achieved gain (in Scott’s terms, denying claims made by dominant groups over the
subordinate ones) or making fresh demands (to “advance its own claims”), what I like to call “encroachment”? In much of the re sis tance
literature, this distinction is missing. Although one might imagine moments of overlap, the two strategies, however, lead to diff erent po liti cal
consequences; this is so in par tic u lar when we view them in relation to the strategies of dominant power. The issue was so crucial that Lenin
devoted his entire What Is to Be Done? to discussing the implications of these two strategies, albeit in diff erent terms of “economism/trade
unionism” vs. “social demo cratic/party politics.” What ever one may think about a Leninist/vanguardist paradigm, it was one that corresponded
to a par tic u lar theory of the state and power (a capitalist state to be seized by a mass movement led by the working- class party); in addition, it
was clear where this strategy wanted to take the working class (to establish a socialist state). Now, what is the perception of the
state in the “resistance” paradigm? What is the strategic aim in this perspective? Where does the
resistance paradigm want to take its agents/subjects, beyond “prevent[ing] the worst and
promis[ing] something better”?40 Much of the literature of re sis tance is based upon a notion of power that Foucault has
articulated, that power is everywhere, that it “circulates” and is never “localized here and there, never in anybody’s hands.” 41 Such a formulation
is surely instructive in transcending the myth of the powerlessness of the ordinary and in recognizing their agency. Yet this “decentered”
notion of power, shared by many poststructuralist “re sis tance” writers, underestimates state power, notably its class dimension,
since it fails to see that although power circulates, it does so unevenly— in some places it is far
weightier, more concentrated, and “thicker,” so to speak, than in others. In other words, like it or not, the state does
matter, and one needs to take that into account when discussing the potential of urban subaltern activism.
Although Foucault insists that re sis tance is real when it occurs outside of and in de pen dent of the systems of power, the perception of
power that informs the “re sis tance” literature leaves little room for an analysis of the state as a system
of power. It is, therefore, not accidental that a theory of the state and, therefore, an analysis of the possibility of
co- optation, are absent in almost all accounts of “resistance.” Consequently, the cherished acts of resistance
float around aimlessly in an unknown, uncertain, and ambivalent universe of power relations, with the
end result an unsettled, tense accommodation with the existing power arrangement. Lack of a clear
concept of resistance, moreover, often leads writers in this genre to overestimate and read too much into the
acts of the agents. The result is that almost any act of the subjects potentially becomes one of “resistance.”
Determined to discover the “inevitable” acts of resistance, many poststructuralist writers often come to
“replace their subject.”42 While they attempt to challenge the essentialism of such perspectives as “passive poor,” “submissive Muslim
women,” and “inactive masses,” they tend, however, to fall into the trap of essentialism in reverse— by reading too much into ordinary
behaviors, interpreting them as necessarily conscious or contentious acts of defi ance. This is so because they overlook the crucial fact that these
practices occur mostly within the prevailing systems of power. For example, some of the lower class’s activities in the Middle East that some
authors read as “re sis tance,” “intimate politics” of defi ance, or “avenues of participation” may actually contribute to the stability and legitimacy
of the state.43 The fact that people are able to help themselves and extend their networks surely shows their daily activism and struggles.
However, by doing so the actors may hardly win any space from the state (or other sources of power, like
capital and patriarchy)— they are not necessarily challenging domination. In fact, governments often
encourage self- help and local initiatives so long as they do not turn oppositional. They do so in order to shift some of their
burdens of social welfare provision and responsibilities onto the individual citizens. The proliferation of many NGOs in the global South is a
good indicator of this. In short, much of the re sis tance literature confuses what one might consider copingstrategies (when the
survival of the agents is secured at the cost of themselves or that of fellow humans) and effective participation or subversion of
domination. There is a last question. If the poor are always able to resist in many ways (by discourse or actions,
individual or collective, overt or covert) the systems of domination, then what is the need to assist them? If they are
already po litically able citizens, why should we expect the state or any other agency to empower them? Misreading the behavior of
the poor may, in fact, frustrate our moral responsibility toward the vulnerable. As Michael Brown rightly notes,
when you “elevate the small injuries of childhood to the same moral status as suff ering of truly oppressed,” you are committing “a savage
leveling that diminishes rather than intensifi es our sensitivities to injustice.” 44
Attempting to create community change through wins completely backfires and
trades-off with other more effective avenues
Panetta 9 – Dr. Edward Panetta, Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of
Georgia, and Jarrod Atchison, then Director of Debate at Trinity University, “Intercollegiate Debate and
Speech Communication: Issues for the Future”, The Sage Handbook of Rhetorical Studies, Ed. Lunsford,
Rosa, and Eberly, p. 317-334
Debates as Sites of Community Change
The debate community has become more self-reflexive and increasingly invested in attempting to address the problems that have plagued the community from the
start. The degrees to which things are considered problems and the appropriateness of different solutions to the problems have been hotly contested, but some
fundamental issues, such as diversity and accessibility, have received considerable attention in recent years. This section will address the “debate as activism”
perspective that argues that the appropriate site for addressing community problems is individual debates. In contrast to the “debate as innovation” perspective, which
assumes that the activity is an isolated game with educational benefits, proponents of the “debate as activism” perspective argue that individual debates have the
potential to create change in the debate community and society at large. If the first approach assumed that debate was completely insulated, this perspective assumes
that there is no substantive insulation between individual debates and the community at large. From our perspective, using individual debates to
create community change is an insufficient strategy for three reasons. First, individual debates are, for the most part,
insulated from the community at large. Second, individual debates limit the conversation to the immediate
participants and the judge, excluding many important contributors to the debate community. Third, locating the
discussion within the confines of a competition diminishes theadditional potential for collaboration, consensus,
and coalition building.
The first problem that we isolate is the difficulty of any individual debate to generate community change.
Although any debate has the potential to create problems for the community (videotapes of objectionable behavior, etc.),
rarely does any one debatehave the power to create community-wide change. We attribute this ineffectiveness to the
structural problems inherent in individual debates and the collective forgetfulness of the debate community.
The structural problems stem from the current tournament format that has remained relatively consistent for the past 30
years. Debaters engage in preliminary debates in rooms that are rarely populated by anyone other than the
judge. Judges are instructed to vote for the team that does the best debating, but the ballot is rarely seen by
anyone outside the tabulation room. Given the limited number of debates in which a judge actually writes meaningful
comments, there is little documentation of what actually transpired during the debate round. During the period when judges
interact with the debaters, there are often external pressures (filing evidence, preparing for the next debate, etc.) that
restrict the ability of anyone outside the debate to pay attention to the judges’ justification for their decision.
Elimination debates do not provide for a much better audience because debates still occur simultaneously, and
travel schedules dictate that most of the participants have left by the later elimination rounds. It is difficult for
anyone to substantiate the claim that asking a judge to vote to solve a community problem in an individual
debate with so few participants is the best strategy for addressing important problems.
In addition to the structural problems, the collective forgetfulness of the debate community reduces the impact that
individual debates have on the community. The debate community is largely made up of participants who debate
and then move on to successful careers. The coaches and directors that make up the backbone of the community are the people
with the longest cultural memory, but they are also a small minority of the community when considering the number
of debaters involved in the activity. This is not meant to suggest that the activity is reinvented every year—certainly there are conventions that are
passed down from coaches to debaters and from debaters to debaters. However, the basic fact remains that there are virtually no
transcriptions available for the community to read, and, therefore, it is difficult to substantiate the claim that
the debate community can remember any one individual debate over the course of several generations of
debaters. Additionally, given the focus on competition and individual skill, the community is more likely to remember
the accomplishments and talents of debaters rather than a specific winning argument. The debate
community does not have the necessary components in place for a strong collective memory of individual
debates. The combination of the structures of debate and the collective forgetfulness means that any strategy for creating
community change that is premised on winning individual debates is less effective than seeking a larger
community dialogue that is recorded and/or transcribed.
A second problem with attempting to create community change in individual debates is that the debate
community is comprised of more individuals than the four debaters and one judge that are present in every
round. Coaches and directors have very little space for engaging in a discussion about community issues.
This is especially true for coaches and directors who are not preferred judges and, therefore, do not have
access to many debates. Coaches and directors should have a public forum to engage in a community
conversation with debaters instead of attempting to take on their opponents through the wins and losses of their own
debaters.
In addition to coaches and debaters, there are many people who might want to contribute to a community conversation,
but are notdirectly involved in competition. For instance, most debate tournaments take place at an academic
institution that plays host to the rest of the community. For that institution to host everyone, they must make tremendous
sacrifices. It would be beneficial to the debate community to have some of the administrators who make decisions
about supporting debate come to a public forum and discuss what types of information they need when they make
decisions about program funding. Directors and coaches would benefit from having administrators explain to the
community how they evaluate the educational benefits of debate. Additionally, every institution has unique
scholars who work in some area and who could be of benefit to the debate community. The input of
scholars who study argument, communication, race, gender, sexuality, economics, and the various other academic interests could provide valuable
advice to the debate community. For example, a business professor could suggest how to set up a collective
bargaining agreement to reduce the costs associated with travel. Attempting to create an insulated community that has
all the answers ignores the potential to create very powerful allies within academic institutions that could help the
debate community. After all, debate is not the first community to have problems associated with finances, diversity, and
competition. These resources, however, are not available for individual debates. The debate community is broader
than the individual participants and can achieve better reform through public dialogue than individual
debates.
The final problem with an individual debate round focus is the role of competition. Creating community
change through individual debate rounds sacrifices the “community” portion of the change. Many teams that
promote activist strategies in debates profess that they are more interested in creating change than winning
debates. What is clear, however, is that the vast majority of teams that are not promoting community change are very
interested in winning debates. The tension that is generated from the clash of these opposing forces is tremendous.
Unfortunately, this is rarely a productive tension. Forcing teams to consider their purpose in debating, their style
in debates, and their approach to evidence are all critical aspects of being participants in the community.
However, the dismissal of the proposed resolution that the debaters have spent countless hours preparing for, in
the name of a community problem that the debaters often have little control over, does little to engender
coalitions of the willing. Should a debate team lose because their director or coach has been ineffective at
recruiting minority participants? Should a debate team lose because their coach or director holds political positions that are in opposition to the
activist program? Competition has been a critical component of the interest in intercollegiate debate from the beginning, and it
does not help further the goals of the debate community to dismiss competition in the name of community
change.
The larger problem with locating the “debate as activism” perspective within the competitive framework is that it overlooks the
communal nature of the community problem. If each individual debate is a decision about how the debate
community should approach a problem, then the losing debaters become collateral damage in the activist
strategy dedicated toward creating community change. One frustrating example of this type of argument might include a judge voting for an activist team in an
effort to help them reach elimination rounds to generate a community discussion about the problem. Under this scenario, the losing team serves as a
sacrificial lamb on the altar of community change. Downplaying the important role of competition and
treating opponents as scapegoats for the failures of the community may increase the profile of the winning team and the community problem, but it
does little to generate the critical coalitions necessary to address the community problem, because the
competitive focus encourages teams to concentrate on how to beat the strategy with little regard for
addressing thecommunity problem. There is no role for competition when a judge decides that it is important to accentuate the publicity of a
community problem. An extreme example might include a team arguing that their opponents’ academic institution had a legacy of civil rights abuses and that the
judge should not vote for them because that would be a community endorsement of a problematic institution. This scenario is a bit more outlandish but not
unreasonable if one assumes that each debate should be about what is best for promoting solutions to diversity problems in the debate community.
If the debate community is serious about generating community change, then it is more likely to occur
outside a traditional competitive debate. When a team loses a debate because the judge decides that it is
better for the community for the other team to win, then they have sacrificed two potential advocates for
change within the community. Creating change through wins generates backlash through losses. Some
proponents are comfortable with generating backlash and argue that the reaction is evidence that the issue
is being discussed.
From our perspective, the discussion that results from these hostile situations is not a productive one where
participants seek to work together for a common goal. Instead of giving up on hope for change and agitating for wins regardless of who is left
behind, it seems more reasonable that the debate community should try the method of public argument that
we teach in an effort to generate a discussion of necessary community changes. Simply put, debate
competitions do not represent the best environment for community change because it is a competition for
a win and only one team can win any given debate, whereas addressing systemic century-long community
problems requires a tremendous effort by a great number of people.
Their performance undermines intrinsic motivation—outweighs
Kohn 93 – Alfie Kohn, MA in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, BA from Brown
University, internally quoting Edward L. Deci, Professor of Psychology and Gowen Professor in the
Social Sciences at the University of Rochester, No Contest: The Case Against Competition, p. 59-60
The idea that trying to do well and trying to do better than others may work at cross-purposes can be
understood in the context of an issue addressed by motivational theorists. We do best at the tasks we enjoy. An outside or extrinsic motivator
(money, grades, the trappings of competitive success) simply cannot take the place of an activity we find rewarding in itself. "While extrinsic motivation may affect
performance," wrote Margaret Clifford, "performance is dependent upon learning, which in turn is primarily dependent upon intrinsic motivation." More specifically,
"a significant performance-increase on a highly complex task will be dependentupon intrinsic motivation."59 In
fact, even people who are judged to be high in achievement motivation do not perform well unless extrinsic motivation has been
minimized, as several studies have shown.60
Competition works just as any other extrinsic motivator does. As Edward Deci, one of the leading students of this topic, has written, "The
reward for extrinsically motivated behavior is something that is separate from and follows the behavior. With competitive activities, the
reward is typically 'winning' (that is, beating the other person or the other team), so the reward is
actually extrinsic to the activity itself."51 This has been corroborated by subjective reports: people who are more competitive regard themselves as being
extrinsically motivated.62 Like any other extrinsic motivator, competition cannot produce the kind of results that flow from enjoying the activity itself.
But this tells only half the story. As research by Deci and others has shown, the use of extrinsic motivators actually tends
to undermine intrinsic motivation and thus adversely affect performance in the long run. The introduction
of, say, monetary reward will edge out intrinsic satisfaction; once this reward is withdrawn, the activity may well cease even though no reward at all was necessary for
its performance earlier. Money "may work to 'buy off one's intrinsic motivation for an activity. And this decreased motivation appears (from the results of the field
experiment) to be more than just a temporary phenomenon."63 Extrinsic motivators, in other words, are not only ineffective but
corrosive. They eat away at the kind of motivation that does produce results.
This effect has been shown specifically with competition. In a 1981 study, eighty undergraduates worked on a spatial relations
puzzle. Some of them were asked to try to solve it more quickly than the penons sitting next to them, while others did not have to compete. The subjects then sat alone
(but clandestinely observed) for a few minutes in a room that contained a similar puzzle. The time they voluntarily spent working on it, together with a self-report on
how interested they had been in solving the puzzle, constituted the measure of intrinsic interest. As predicted, the students who had been
competing were less intrinsically motivated than those who had originally worked on the puzzle in a
noncompetitive environment. It was concluded that