Explanation/Notes
IMPORTANT: The Surveillance-specific materials are in a separate
file.
1. This is a core negative topicality file. It is designed to respond to
affirmatives that do not defend the resolution. When responding to
this genre of affirmative, it is important to be specific and tailor your
strategy as best you can to the particulars of the case. It is also
important to consider the relationship between topicality and the
other parts of your strategy. Students are encouraged not to use the
materials in this file in a one-size-fits-all manner.
2. When constructing the 1NC, you can introduce one or more
modules. The 1NC in this file includes three modules, but students are
welcome to construct a shorter (or longer) shell. There are also
optional modules to include when debating affirmatives that discuss
race and gender issues.
3. The 2NC/1NR materials are separated between “Essentials”
(explanations and extensions of 1NC modules) and “Responses to Aff
Arguments.” There is no pre-scripted “Global Overview” — students
should prepare a specific overview for each debate.
4. There is enough material in the 2NC/1NR sections to enable
students to completely develop this position in the negative block. If
topicality is a smaller part of the negative’s strategy, the blocks will
need to be carefully edited to effectively communicate necessary
arguments within stricter time constraints.
5. In order to be ready to defend a topicality argument, students will
need to prepare a violation (“link”) explanation/extension and blocks
to expected affirmative link responses (“we meet because…,” “we are
in the direction of the topic because…,” “we are germane to the topic
because…,” etc.). These explanations need to be carefully tailored to
the specific affirmative.
1NC
1NC — Topicality (Not Framework)
Our interpretation is that the resolution should define the division of
affirmative and negative ground. It was negotiated and announced in
advance, providing both sides with a reasonable opportunity to
prepare to engage one another’s arguments.
This does not require the use of any particular style, type of evidence,
or assumption about the role of the judge — only that the topic should
determine the debate’s subject matter.
The affirmative violates this interpretation because they do not
advocate that the United States federal government substantially
curtail its domestic surveillance.
First, “United States federal government” means the three branches
of the central government. The affirmative does not advocate action
by the USFG.
OECD 87 — Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Council, 1987 (“United
States,” The Control and Management of Government Expenditure, p. 179)
1. Political and organisational structure of government
The United States of America is a federal republic consisting of 50 states. States
have their own constitutions and within each State there are at least two additional levels of
government, generally designated as counties and cities, towns or villages. The relationships
between different levels of government are complex and varied (see Section B for more
information).
The Federal Government is composed of three branches: the legislative
branch, the executive branch, and the judicial branch. Budgetary decisionmaking is
shared primarily by the legislative and executive branches. The general structure of these two
branches relative to budget formulation and execution is as follows.
Second, “its” implies ownership. Domestic surveillance conducted by
the USFG must be curtailed.
Gaertner-Johnston 6 — Lynn Gaertner-Johnston, founder of Syntax Training—a
company that provides business writing training and consulting, holds a Master’s Degree in
Communication from the University of Notre Dame, 2006 (“Its? It's? Or Its'?,” Business
Writing—a blog, May 30th, Available Online at
http://www.businesswritingblog.com/business_writing/2006/05/its_its_or_its_.html, Accessed
07-04-2014)
A friend of mine asked me to write about how to choose the correct form of its, and I am happy to
comply. Those three little letters cause a lot of confusion, but once you master a couple of basic
rules, the choice becomes simple. Here goes:
Its' is never correct. Your grammar and spellchecker should flag it for you. Always change it to one
of the forms below.
It's is the contraction (abbreviated form) of "it is" and "it has." It's has no other meanings--only "it
is" and "it has."
Its is the form to use in all other instances when you want a form of i-t-s but you are not sure
which one. Its is a possessive form; that is, it shows ownership the same way Javier's
or Santosh's does.
Example: The radio station has lost its license.
The tricky part of the its question is this: If we write "Javier's license" with an apostrophe, why do
we write "its license" without an apostrophe?
Here is the explanation: Its is like hers, his, ours, theirs, and yours. These are all
pronouns. Possessive pronouns do not have apostrophes. That is because their spelling
already indicates a possessive. For example, the possessive form of she is hers. The
possessive form of we is ours. Because we change the spelling, there is no need to add an
apostrophe to show possession. Its follows that pattern.
There are several reasons to prefer our interpretation.
First — Deliberation Skills. Topicality facilitates a process of
successive debates that develops important skills and fosters
appreciation for multiple perspectives. Abandoning the topic
forecloses the educational and democratic benefits of debate.
Lundberg 10 — Christian O. Lundberg, Associate Professor of Rhetoric in the Department of
Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, holds a Ph.D. in
Communication Studies from Northwestern University, 2010 (“The Allred Initiative and Debate
Across the Curriculum: Reinventing the Tradition of Debate at North Carolina,” Navigating
Opportunity: Policy Debate in the 21st Century, Edited by Allan D. Louden, Published by the
International Debate Education Association, ISBN 9781617700293, p. 299)
In response to the first critique, which ultimately reduces to the claims that debate
overdetermines democratic deliberation and that it inculcates an unhealthy antagonism, a
number of scholars have extended the old maxim that dissent is critical to democracy in arguing
that debate is a critical tool for civic deliberation (Brookfield and Preskill 1999;
Levinson 2003). Gill Nichols (2000, 132) argues that a commitment to debate and dissent
as a core component of democracy is especially critical in the face of the
complexity of modern governance, rapid technological change, and an increasing
need to deal with the nexus of science and public policy. The benefits of in-class debate
espoused by Stephen Brookfield, Meira Levinson, and Nichols stem from the idea that debate
inculcates skills for creative and open-minded discussion of disputes in
the context of democratic deliberation: on their collective accounting, debate does
not close down discussion by reducing issues to a simple pro/con binary, nor
does it promote antagonism at the expense of cooperative discussion. Rather,
properly cultivated, debate is a tool for managing democratic conflicts that
foregrounds significant points of dispute, and then invites interlocutors to think
about them together creatively in the context of successive strategic
iterations, [end page 304] moments of evaluation, and reiterations of
arguments in the context of a structured public discussion.
Goodwin’s study of in-class debate practice confirms these intuitions. Goodwin’s study revealed
that debate produces an intense personal connection to class materials while simultaneously
making students more open to differing viewpoints. Goodwin’s conclusion is worth quoting at
length here:
Traditional teaching techniques like textbooks, lectures, and tests with right
answers insulate students from the open questions and competing answers
that so often drive our own interest in our subjects. Debates do not, and
in fact invite students to consider a range of alternative views on a
subject, encountering the course content broadly, deeply and personally. Students’
comments about the value of disagreement also offer an interesting perspective on the
nature of the thinking skills we want to foster. The previous research . . . largely focused
on the way debate can help students better master the principles of correct reasoning.
Although some students did echo this finding, many more emphasized the importance of
debate in helping them to recognize and deal with a diversity of viewpoints. (Goodwin
2003, 158)
The results of this research create significant questions about the conclusion that debate
engenders reductive thinking and an antagonism that is unhealthy to democracy. In terms of the
criticism that debate is reductive, the implication of Goodwin’s study is that debate creates a
broader appreciation for multiple perspectives on an issue than the
predominant forms of classroom instruction. This conclusion is especially
powerful when one considers debate as more than a discrete singular performance, but as
a whole process of inventing, discussing, employing, and reformulating
arguments in the context of an audience of comparatively objective evaluators. In
the process of researching, strategizing, debating, reframing stances,
and switching sides on a question, students are provided with both a
framework for thinking about a problem and creative solutions to it from
a number of angles. Thus, while from a very narrow perspective one might
claim debate practices reduce all questions to a “pro” and a “con,” the
cumulative effects of the pedagogical process of preparing for,
performing, and evaluating a debate provide the widest possible
exposure to the varied positions that a student might take on an issue. Perhaps
more significantly, in-class debate provides a competitive incentive for finding as
many innovative and unique approaches to a problem as possible, and for
translating them into publically useful positions.
Second — Surveillance Literacy. (See separate file)
Third — Constructive Constraints. Absolute affirmative flexibility
leaves the negative without meaningful ground to advance welldeveloped counter-arguments. Establishing boundaries is important
because they spur imagination and innovation, improving the quality
of debates.
Thomas and Brown 11 — Douglas Thomas, Associate Professor in the Annenberg School
for Communication at the University of Southern California, founding member of the Critical and
Cultural Studies division of the National Communication Association, holds a Ph. D. in
Communication from the University of Minnesota, and John Seely Brown, Visiting Scholar and
Adviser to the Provost at the University of Southern California, independent cochairman of the
Deloitte Center for the Edge, former Chief Scientist and Director of the Palo Alto Research Center
at Xerox, holds a Ph.D. in Computer and Communication Sciences from the University of
Michigan, 2011 (“A Tale of Two Cultures,” A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the
Imagination for a World of Constant Change, Published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing
Platform, ISBN 1456458884, p. 35)
Learning Environments
We believe, however, that learning should be viewed in terms of an environment—
combined with the rich resources provided by the digital information network—where the
context in which learning happens, the boundaries that define it, and the
students, teachers, and information within it all coexist and shape each other in a
mutually reinforcing way. Here, boundaries serve not only as constraints but
also, oftentimes, as catalysts for innovation. Encountering boundaries spurs
the imagination to become more active in figuring out novel situations within
the constraints of the situation or context.
Environments with well-defined and carefully constructed boundaries are not
usually thought of as standardized, nor are they tested and measured. Rather, they can be
described as a set of pressures that nudge and guide change. They are
substrates for evolution, and they move at varying rates of speed.
1NC — Race/Racism Module
Fourth — Policy Engagement:
Policy debates over racial issues are productive and important.
Meaningful dialogue about what actions the government should take
overcomes the conversational impasse and paves the way for material
change. Disavowing the policy consequences of one’s ideological
positions makes things worse, not better.
Bracey 6 — Christopher A. Bracey, Associate Professor of Law and Associate Professor of
African & African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, holds a B.S. from the
University of North Carolina and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, 2006 (“The Cul De Sac of Race
Preference Discourse,” Southern California Law Review (79 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1231), September,
Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Lexis-Nexis)
IV. A Foundation for Renewed Racial Dialogue
A deepened appreciation and open acknowledgment of this pedigree is crucial to restoring public
conversation on race preferences. Opponents of race preferences must come to understand that
this pedigree, if left unaddressed, tends to overwhelm the underlying merit of arguments against
race preferences in the eyes of proponents. At the same time, proponents should understand that
the deployment of these pedigreed rhetorical themes does not necessarily signal agreement with
the nineteenth-century racial norms from which they are sourced. For both proponents and
opponents, the avoidance of a rapid retreat into ideological trench warfare not
only preserves space for reasoned, substantive debate regarding race preferences,
but also allows for the possibility of overcoming our collective fixation on race preferences
as the issue in American race relations and advancing the conversation to reach the
larger issue of producing a more racially inclusive society.
Our failing public conversation on race matters not only presents a particularly
tragic moment in American race relations, but also evinces a greater failure of
democracy. Sustained, meaningful dialogue is a critical, if not indispensable
feature of our liberal democracy. n260 It is through [*1312] meaningful public
conversation about what actions government should take (or refrain
from taking) that public policy determinations ultimately gain legitimacy.
Conversation is particularly important in our democracy, given the profoundly
diverse and often contradictory cultural and political traditions that are the sine
qua non of American life. Under these particular circumstances, "persons ought
to strive to engage in a mutual process of critical interaction, because if they
do not, no uncoerced common understanding can possibly be attained." n261
Sincere deliberation, in its broadest idealized form, ensures that a broad array of input is heard
and considered, legitimizing the resulting decision. Under this view, "if the preferences that
determine the results of democratic procedures are unreflective or ignorant, then they lose their
claim to political authority over us." n262 In the absence of self-conscious, reflective dialogue,
"democracy loses its capacity to generate legitimate political power." n263
In addition to legitimizing the exercise of state authority in a liberal democracy,
dialogue works to promote individual freedom. The power to hash over our
alternatives is an important exercise of human agency. n264 If democracy is
taken to mean rule by the people themselves, then conversation and deliberation
are the principal means through which we declare and assert the power to shape
our own belief systems. The roots of this idea of dialogue as freedom-promoting are traceable
to the Kantian view that individual motivation that is either uncriticized or uncontested can be
understood on a deeper level as a mode of subjugation. As Frank Michelman explains, "in Kantian
terms we are free only insofar as we are self-governing, directing our actions in accordance with
law-like reasons [*1313] that we adopt for ourselves, as proper to ourselves, upon conscious,
critical reflection on our identities (or natures) and social situations." n265 Because "selfcognition and ensuing self-legislation must, to a like extent, be socially situated," Michelman
continues, "norms must be formed through public dialogue and expressed as public law." n266 In
this way, dialogue as democratic modus operandi can be understood both as a
material expression of freedom and as a mechanism to promote
individual freedom.
Robust dialogue on public policy matters also promotes the individual growth
of the dialogue participants. Conversation helps people become more
knowledgeable and hold better developed opinions because "opinions can
be tested and enlarged only where there is a genuine encounter with
differing opinions." n267 Moreover, meaningful conversation serves to broaden people's
moral perspectives to include matters of public good, because appeals to the public good are often
the most persuasive arguments available in public deliberation. n268 Indeed, even if people are
thinking self-interested thoughts while making public good arguments, cognitive dissonance will
create an incentive for such individuals to reconcile their self interest with the public good. n269
At the same time, because political dialogue is a material manifestation of
democracy in action, it promotes a feeling of democratic community and
instills in the people a will for political action to advance reasoned public
policy in the spirit of promoting the public good. n270
For these reasons, the collective aspiration of those interested in pursing
serious, sustained, and policy-legitimating dialogue on race matters must
be to cultivate a reasoned discourse that is relatively free of retrograde
ideological baggage that feeds skepticism, engenders distrust, and effectively
forecloses constructive conversation on the most corrosive and divisive
issue in American history and contemporary life. As the forgoing sections suggest, the
continued reliance upon pedigreed rhetorical themes has and continues to poison racial legal
discourse. Given the various normative and ideological commitments that might be ascribed to
[*1314] opponents of race preferences, the question thus becomes, how are we to approach the
task of breaking through the conversational impasse and creating intellectual space for
meaningful discourse on this issue?
One can imagine at least three responses to this question. As an initial matter, one might
subscribe to the view that pedigree is not destiny, and thus conclude that the family resemblance
tells us little, if anything, definitive about the normative commitments of today's opponents of
race preferences. Consider the argument that the benefits of white privilege do not extend equally
among all whites, and that policies that treat all whites as equally guilty of racial subordination
advance a theory of undesirable rough justice. n271 Although this argument is a staple of modern
opponents of race preferences, it would be a mistake to conclude that it can only be deployed by
those persons who normatively oppose race preferences. Indeed, one might very well support race
preferences, but believe quite strongly that such programs should be particularly sensitive to
individual candidate qualifications.
Similarly, although one might believe that diversity does not comport with merit based
decisionmaking in education and employment, it would be incorrect to interpret this belief as
necessarily indicative of a greater commitment to preserving status quo racial inequality. One
might reject the diversity rational as insufficient to justify a system of race preferences that one
strongly believes must be justified. In short, one may be inclined to simply engage the argument
and ignore the possibility of retrograde normative underpinnings.
Interestingly, a small cadre of scholars has adopted this approach. Derrick Bok and William
Bowen, in The Shape of the River, investigated whether racial minorities feel stigmatized or
otherwise adversely affected as a result of being denoted beneficiaries of affirmative action policy
in college admissions. n272 Thomas Ross has critically examined claims of collective white
innocence. n273 More recently, Goodwin Lui has researched the scope of the burden that
affirmative action in college admissions imposes upon aspiring white students. n274 In each
instance, these scholars chose to place to one side their skepticism about the normative
commitments of those advancing the viewpoint, and launch directly into substantive critiques of
that viewpoint.
[*1315] This approach, however, may prove unsatisfactory for those more strongly committed to
racial justice - those for whom it is not enough to simply challenge ideas in the abstract. As the
late Robert Cover famously wrote, "legal interpretation takes place within a field of pain and
death." n275 By this, he meant that the stakes of legal discourse are elevated when bodies are on
the line. A vigorous critique of the substantive position alone leaves the normative underpinnings
- the motivational force behind the proposal - dangerously intact. It may stymie the particular
vehicle that attempts to reinforce racial subordination, but it leaves unaddressed the fundamental
motive driving policy positions that seek to undermine racial minorities in the first place.
At the other end of the responsive spectrum is wholesale rejection. One might view the
pedigree as providing good reason to dismiss opponents of race entirely. Proponents of this view
may choose to indulge fully this liberal skepticism and simply reject the message along with the
messenger. n276 The tradition of legal discourse on American race relations [*1316] has been
one steeped in racial animus and characterized by circumlocution, evasiveness, reluctance and
denial. When opponents avail themselves of rhetorical strategies used by nineteenth-century legal
elites, they necessarily invoke the specter of this tragic racial past. Moreover, their continued
reliance upon pedigreed rhetoric to justify a system that only modestly responds to persistent
racial disparities in the material lives of racial minorities suggests a deep, unarticulated normative
commitment to preserving the racial status quo in which whites remain comfortably above blacks.
The steadfast reliance upon pedigreed rhetoric, coupled with the apparent disconnect between
claims of racial egalitarianism and material conditions of racial subordination as a result of
persistent racial disparities, spoils the credibility of modern opponents of race preferences and
creates an incentive for proponents to dismiss them without serious interrogation, consideration,
and weighing of the arguments they advance.
The principal deficit of this approach is that it would serve only to concretize the
existing conversational impasse and subvert the larger aspiration of seeking
constructive solutions to pressing racial issues. It creates an incentive to
view race matters in purely ideological terms and further subverts the
possibility of reasoned policy debate. Speaking of race matters in purely
ideological terms poses a serious impediment to racial conversation because, in
advancing one's position, one essentially argues that a particular set of circumstances demands a
particular outcome. In this [*1317] way, purely ideological race rhetoric functions much like
philosopher Immanuel Kant described in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. n277
According to Kant, a moral imperative is categorical insofar as it is presented as objectively
necessary, without reference to some purpose or outcome. The imperative is the end in and of
itself. As Kant explained, the moral imperative "has to do not with the matter of the action and
what is to result from it, but with the form and the principle from which the action itself follows;
and the essentially [sic] good in the action consists in the disposition, let the result be what it
may." n278 Because the moral imperative embodies that which is morally good, it necessarily
makes a claim about justice. In short, an act is deemed morally just to the extent that it retains
fidelity to the moral imperative.
By contrast, a policy argument reflects a set of choices or priorities and asserts a
claim about the impact of a particular set of decisions upon the world. n279 A
policy argument does not embody a claim to justice. Indeed, the correctness of a policy choice is
often tested against the backdrop of some agreed upon conception of justice. As the late Jerome
Culp, Jr. explained:
Neither side of a moral debate is likely to be persuaded by proof that the policy claims
support or discredit their moral positions. Policy arguments can be disproved by
empirical evidence and challenged by showing in some situations the policy does not
work or has contrary results. To refute a moral claim, however, first requires some
agreement on the moral framework. Only then can one discuss whether the moral policy
advocated conforms to the agreed-upon framework. n280
Speaking about race matters in purely ideological or moral terms creates the impression that a
particular racial policy is rooted in some theory of what is morally just. In this way, opposition to
race preferences is made to appear "above the fray" of politics and less susceptible to public
choice debate. In addition, it enables opponents to claim that race [*1318] preferences merely
reflect the political whims of its proponents, unanchored by principle or a coherent theory of
social justice.
Second, reducing conversation on race matters
to an ideological contest allows
opponents to elide inquiry into whether the results of a particular preference
policy are desirable. Policy positions masquerading as principled ideological
stances create the impression that a racial policy is not simply a choice among
available alternatives, but the embodiment of some higher moral principle. Thus,
the "principle" becomes an end in itself, without reference to outcomes.
Consider the prevailing view of colorblindness in constitutional discourse. Colorblindness has
come to be understood as the embodiment of what is morally just, independent of its actual effect
upon the lives of racial minorities. This explains Justice Thomas's belief in the "moral and
constitutional equivalence" between Jim Crow laws and race preferences, and his tragic assertion
that "Government cannot make us equal [but] can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal
before the law." n281 For Thomas, there is no meaningful difference between laws designed to
entrench racial subordination and those designed to alleviate conditions of oppression. Critics
may point out that colorblindness in practice has the effect of entrenching existing racial
disparities in health, wealth, and society. But in framing the debate in purely
ideological terms, opponents are able to avoid the contentious issue of
outcomes and make viability determinations based exclusively on whether
racially progressive measures exude fidelity to the ideological principle of
colorblindness. Meaningful policy debate is replaced by ideological exchange,
which further exacerbates hostilities and deepens the cycle of
resentment. n282
1NC — Gender/Feminism Module
Fourth — Policy Engagement:
Debates about government policies are productive and important.
Abandoning the state as an agent of change prevents meaningful
progress toward equality. Patriarchy thrives in an environment of
anti-statism.
Harrington 92 — Mona Harrington, lawyer and political scientist, 1992 (“What Exactly Is
Wrong with the Liberal State as an Agent of Change?,” Gendered States: Feminist (Re)Visions of
International Relations Theory, Edited By V. Spike Peterson, Published by Lynne Rienner, ISBN
1555872980, p. 65-66)
The title of this chapter is a question that needs much more careful exploration by feminists than
we have given it so far. In fact, I raise the question in a somewhat belligerent tone because I am
inclined to think that the liberal state is a suitable, even elegant, agent to
advance a feminist agenda in both domestic and international relations. Yet
most of my feminist colleagues who are probing the gendered nature of the state vastly mistrust
the liberal tradition and seek to formulate a politics that will displace it. My aim here is to join
some of their arguments before a consensus forms that liberalism is beyond the pale of seriously
critical feminist analysis. But let me hasten to say, before irreversible misunderstanding sets in,
that what I am contesting is the meaning, the content that antiliberals generally assign to
liberalism. The object of most of their criticism is actually one variant of the liberal tradition, and
I think it is crucially important that we recognize another, more morally spacious, set of liberal
ideas and that we help to develop its deeper promise.
I will review the antiliberal arguments in some detail and answer them presently. First, I want to
suggest why the whole argument is important.
The crux of feminist challenge to the liberal state is essentially an antistate
analysis with demonstrations that liberalism, while promising to divest the state of its
destructive features, does not do so. In this analysis, states are inherently oppressive and
exploitative organizations of power. They are run by hierarchies in control of deadly force
deployed to protect the privileges of elites, which are, for the most part, capital-controlling, white,
and male. In short, feminist antiliberal, antistate analysis is similar to already established Marxist
criticism of the state but with added attention to gender. States are not only instruments of class
interest but also of patriarchy. They perpetuate not only class conflict and violence but also
gender conflict and violence. And liberal systems that supposedly democratize power and wealth
simply mask the underlying fact of elite rule. Where can this analysis lead but to a call for
deconstructing the present sovereign state system? [end page 65]
At this juncture in history—I am writing in the winter of 1990-91 with the Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe decommunized, the Cold War over— other calls for deconstructing nation-states
are also in the air. Internationalists see the first opportunity since the mid-1940s to put a
functioning system of international organization in place, starting with a revived United Nations
and extending, in some versions, to complex networks of denationalized, depoliticized regimes
rationally and efficiently organizing the world's business.
In other words, the state as a dealer
in power, a wielder of weapons, an inherently
violent institution, is the object of suspicion and resistance by both antiliberal
feminists and liberal internationalists. And, especially now, when the international system is
undergoing immense change, pressures for denationalizing change—certainly discourse arguing
for it—will be persistent.
In the face of such pressures, I believe that feminist
critics of the present state system
should beware. The very fact that the state creates, condenses, and focuses
political power may make it the best friend, not the enemy, of feminists—
because the availability of real political power is essential to real democratic
control. Not sufficient, I know, but essential.
My basic premise is that political power can significantly disrupt patriarchal
and class (which is to say, economic) power. It holds the potential, at least, for
disrupting the patriarchal/economic oppression of those in the lower reaches of
class, sex, and race hierarchies. It is indisputable that, in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, it has been the political power of states that has confronted the
massive economic power privately constructed out of industrial processes and
has imposed obligations on employers for the welfare of workers as well as
providing additional social supports for the population at large. And the political
tempering of economic power has been the most responsive to broad public
needs in liberal democracies, where governments must respond roughly to the
interests of voters.
Of course, this is not the whole story. The nation-states of this period have also perpetrated
horrors of torture and war, have aided the development of elite-controlled industrial wealth, and
have not sufficiently responded to the human needs of their less powerful constituents. But I
believe it is better to try to restrain the horrors and abuses than to give up on the
limits that state organized political power can bring to bear on the
forms of class-based, race-based, sex-based power that constitute the greatest
sources of oppression we are likely to face.
2NC/1NR — Essentials
Deliberation Skills Explanation/Extension
(Extend our “Deliberation Skills” impact.)
Debating an agreed-upon topic for an entire season is valuable
because it trains students to effectively deliberate. The process of
debating the topic is valuable independent of its content: successive
strategic iterations, moments of evaluation, and reiterations of
arguments in the context of a structured discussion train students to
appreciate multiple perspectives and better conceptualize and
communicate informed positions. Switching sides on the question is
important because it establishes a framework for thinking through
problems and solutions from multiple angles. Content-based critiques
of the topic aren’t responsive to our process-based defense of topical
debating — that’s Lundberg.
Even if the content of the affirmative is valuable, the process they
endorse is not. Debating the topic challenges students to articulate
and defend positions grounded in the best evidence for and against
the proposition. Knowledge of the topic increases depth of inquiry
and quality of evaluation.
Lundberg 10 — Christian O. Lundberg, Associate Professor of Rhetoric in the Department of
Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, holds a Ph.D. in
Communication Studies from Northwestern University, 2010 (“The Allred Initiative and Debate
Across the Curriculum: Reinventing the Tradition of Debate at North Carolina,” Navigating
Opportunity: Policy Debate in the 21st Century, Edited by Allan D. Louden, Published by the
International Debate Education Association, ISBN 9781617700293, p. 299)
Part of the benefit of debate in this regard is that more than simply fostering
student
engagement with the curricula by incentivizing mastery of the material and
engendering a cooperative learning environment, debate practices also facilitate
the application of course material to students’ everyday lives (Kennedy 2007, 183;
Martens 2005, 4). Debate practice is uniquely effective in fostering application
because it demands that a student have a relatively comprehensive grasp of
a subject area, but, more important, that they articulate a position relative
to the issues in the debate, and evaluate the competing claims that they
might make in relation to the strength of the evidence that supports them
(Schuster and Meany 2005). Thus, debate practices foster not only engagement with an
issue but also an evaluation of a student’s position relative to an issue in the
light of the best arguments for and against a proposition. Debate offers
privileged access not only to content mastery, or even opinion formation, but
what is more important is that it bridges the gap between the theoretical
knowledge inculcated in the classroom and the specific personal stands that
one might take both toward a specific resolution and, more broadly, toward the
critical argumentative connections that a given resolution for debate
accesses. Debate then has the potential to create a depth of inquiry and
evaluation relative to the classroom curriculum that is unparalleled both in
terms of knowledge of a subject area, and perhaps more significantly, in
terms of a set of owned investments relative to the propositions at hand.
Deliberation skills are the most significant impact because they
determine a student’s ability to effectively communicate the content
of their positions. Prioritizing content over process leaves students
less prepared to vigorously defend their opinions when challenged by
well-prepared opponents in non-debate settings.
Constructive Constraints Explanation/Extension
(Extend our “Constructive Constraints” impact.)
Learning is most effective when students are given the freedom to
innovate within well-defined and carefully constructed boundaries.
Without constraints, affirmatives will gravitate toward positions that
don’t invite a well-prepared and thoughtful negative response.
Constructing boundaries catalyzes innovation and spurs students’
imaginations, improving the overall quality of debates — that’s
Thomas and Brown, two Ph.D.s specializing in the culture of 21st
century learning.
Their “topicality bad” arguments assume that boundaries constrain
innovation. We critique this assumption. “Topicality not framework”
is the best way to encourage creative imagination within the confines
of a bounded environment. Prefer evidence from education and
innovation experts.
Thomas and Brown 11 — Douglas Thomas, Associate Professor in the Annenberg School
for Communication at the University of Southern California, founding member of the Critical and
Cultural Studies division of the National Communication Association, holds a Ph. D. in
Communication from the University of Minnesota, and John Seely Brown, Visiting Scholar and
Adviser to the Provost at the University of Southern California, independent cochairman of the
Deloitte Center for the Edge, former Chief Scientist and Director of the Palo Alto Research Center
at Xerox, holds a Ph.D. in Computer and Communication Sciences from the University of
Michigan, 2011 (“We Know More Than We Can Say,” A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the
Imagination for a World of Constant Change, Published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing
Platform, ISBN 1456458884, p. 79)
Inquiry
Conventional wisdom holds that different people learn in different ways. Something is missing
from that idea, however, so we offer a corollary: Different people, when presented with
exactly the same information in exactly the same way, will learn different things.
Most models of education and learning have almost no tolerance for this kind
of thing. As a result, teaching tends to focus on eliminating the source of the
problem: the student’s imagination.
Imagine a situation where two students are learning to play the piano. The lesson
for the day is a Bach prelude. The first student attacks the piano forcefully,
banging out each note correctly but with a violent intensity that is
uncharacteristic for the style of the piece. The second student seems to view the
written score as a loose framework; he varies the rhythm, modifies the melody,
and follows his own internal muse. In today’s classroom, the teacher will see two
students “doing it wrong.” In the new culture of learning, the teacher will see a
budding rock star and a jazz musician.
The story of these students illustrates a fundamental principle of the new
culture of learning: Students learn best when they are able to follow their passion
and operate within the constraints of a bounded environment. Both of
those elements matter. Without the boundary set by the assignment of playing
the prelude, there would be no medium for growth. But without the passion,
there would be nothing to grow in the medium. Yet the process of discovering one’s
passion can be complicated.
An “anything goes” approach doesn’t work. Clear boundaries are
needed precisely because they are challenging.
Thomas and Brown 11 — Douglas Thomas, Associate Professor in the Annenberg School
for Communication at the University of Southern California, founding member of the Critical and
Cultural Studies division of the National Communication Association, holds a Ph. D. in
Communication from the University of Minnesota, and John Seely Brown, Visiting Scholar and
Adviser to the Provost at the University of Southern California, independent cochairman of the
Deloitte Center for the Edge, former Chief Scientist and Director of the Palo Alto Research Center
at Xerox, holds a Ph.D. in Computer and Communication Sciences from the University of
Michigan, 2011 (“We Know More Than We Can Say,” A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the
Imagination for a World of Constant Change, Published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing
Platform, ISBN 1456458884, p. 80-81)
Questions and Answers
The new culture of learning is not about unchecked access [end page 80] to
information and unbridled passion, however. Left to their own devices, there is no
telling what students will do. If you give them a resource like the Internet and ask
them to follow their passion, they will probably meander around finding bits and
pieces of information that move them from topic to topic—and produce a
very haphazard result.
Instead, the new culture of learning is about the kind of tension that develops
when students with an interest or passion that they want to explore are faced
with a set of constraints that allow them to act only within given
boundaries.
Prefer our evidence — psychological studies confirm our thesis.
Gibbert et al. 7 — Michael Gibbert, Assistant Professor of Management at Bocconi
University (Italy), et al., with Martin Hoeglis, Professor of Leadership and Human Resource
Management at WHU—Otto Beisheim School of Management (Germany), and Lifsa Valikangas,
Professor of Innovation Management at the Helsinki School of Economics (Finland) and Director
of the Woodside Institute, 2007 (“In Praise of Resource Constraints,” MIT Sloan Management
Review, Spring, Available Online at
https://umdrive.memphis.edu/gdeitz/public/The%20Moneyball%20Hypothesis/Gibbert%20et%
20al.%20-%20SMR%20(2007)%20Praise%20Resource%20Constraints.pdf, Accessed 04-082012, p. 15-16)
Resource constraints can also fuel innovative team performance directly. In
the spirit of the proverb "necessity is the mother of invention," [end page 15]
teams may produce better results because of resource constraints. Cognitive
psychology provides experimental support for the "less is more" hypothesis.
For example, scholars in creative cognition find in laboratory tests that subjects are
most innovative when given fewer rather than more resources for
solving a problem.
The reason seems to be that the human mind is most productive when restricted.
Limited—or better focused—by specific rules and constraints, we are
more likely to recognize an unexpected idea. Suppose, for example, that we need
to put dinner on the table for unexpected guests arriving later that day. The main constraints here
are the ingredients available and how much time is left. One way to solve this problem is to think
of a familiar recipe and then head off to the supermarket for the extra ingredients. Alternatively,
we may start by looking in the refrigerator and cupboard to see what is already there, then
allowing ourselves to devise innovative ways of combining subsets of these ingredients. Many
cooks attest that the latter option, while riskier, often leads to more creative and better
appreciated dinners. In fact, it is the option invariably preferred by professional chefs.
The heightened innovativeness of such "constraints-driven" solutions comes
from team members' tendencies, under the circumstances, to look for
alternatives beyond "how things are normally done," write C. Page Moreau
and Darren W. Dahl in a 2005 Journal of Consumer Research article. Would-be innovators
facing constraints are more likely to find creative analogies and
combinations that would otherwise be hidden under a glut of resources.
They’ll say that their aff is creative, but this misses the point. Topical
constraints are a better conduit for creativity. Enforcing limits
incentivizes innovation to find ways to express one’s arguments
within the confines of the topic.
Intrator 10—David Intrator, President of Strategic Documentaries, Founder of The Creative
Organization, holds an M.A. in Music from Harvard University, 2010 [“Thinking Inside the Box,”
Training magazine, October 21st, Available Online at
http://www.trainingmag.com/article/thinking-inside-box, Accessed 02-20-2012]
One of the most pernicious myths about creativity, one that seriously inhibits
creative thinking and innovation, is the belief that one needs to “think
outside the box.”
As someone who has worked for decades as a professional creative, nothing could be
further from the truth. This a is view shared by the vast majority of creatives, expressed
famously by the modernist designer Charles Eames when he wrote, “Design depends largely upon
constraints.”
The myth of thinking outside the box stems from a fundamental
misconception of what creativity is, and what it’s not.
In the popular imagination, creativity is something weird and wacky. The creative process is
magical, or divinely inspired.
But, in fact, creativity is not about divine inspiration or magic.
It’s about problem-solving, and by definition a problem is a constraint, a
limit, a box.
One of the best illustrations of this is the work of photographers. They create by excluding the
great mass what’s before them, choosing a small frame in which to work. Within that tiny frame,
literally a box, they uncover relationships and establish priorities.
What makes creative problem-solving uniquely challenging is that you, as the creator, are the one
defining the problem. You’re the one choosing the frame. And you alone determine what’s an
effective solution.
This can be quite demanding, both intellectually and emotionally.
Intellectually, you are required to establish limits, set priorities, and cull
patterns and relationships from a great deal of material, much of it fragmentary.
More often than not, this is the material you generated during brainstorming sessions. At the
end of these sessions, you’re usually left with a big mess of ideas, half-ideas,
vague notions, and the like.
Now, chances are you’ve had a great time making your mess. You might have gone off-site,
enjoyed a “brainstorming camp,” played a number of warm-up games. You feel artistic and
empowered.
But to be truly creative, you
have to clean up your mess, organizing those
fragments into something real, something useful, something that
actually works.
That’s the hard part.
It takes a lot of energy, time, and willpower to make sense of the mess you’ve just
generated.
It also can be emotionally difficult.
You’ll need to throw out many ideas you originally thought were great, ideas
you’ve become attached to, because they simply don’t fit into the rules
you’re creating as you build your box.
Governmentality as Heuristic
Governmentality should be used as a heuristic, not as a description.
We can effectively advocate for policy reforms without identifying
with the existing state. Arguing that the state is a bad actor in all
circumstances overgeneralizes and stifles political agency. Instead of
totalizing rejection, we should assess the practical effects of
particular policies in specific contexts.
Zanotti 13 — Laura Zanotti, Associate Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech, holds a
Ph.D. in International Relations from Florida International University, 2013 (“Governmentality,
Ontology, Methodology: Re-thinking Political Agency in the Global World,” Alternatives: Global,
Local, Political, Volume 38, Issue 4, November, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via
SAGE Publications Online, p. 289-290)
In this article, I
explore the ontological and epistemological assumptions of
different versions of governmentality theory and highlight the importance of
these assumptions for the conceptualization of political agency. I argue that some
versions of governmentality remain trapped in the substantialist ontology they
are set to criticize and that this ontological position stifles the possibility of
reimagining political agency beyond liberal constraints.
While there are important variations in the way international relations scholars use
governmentality theory, for the purpose of my argument I identify two broad trajectories.2 One
body of scholarship uses governmentality as a heuristic tool to explore
modalities of local and international government and to assess their effects in the
contexts where they are deployed; the other adopts this notion as a descriptive
tool to theorize the globally oppressive features of international liberalism.
Scholars who use governmentality as a heuristic tool tend to conduct inquiries
based upon analyses of practices of government and resistance. These scholars
rely on ethnographic inquiries, emphasizes the multifarious ways government
works in practice (to include its oppressive trajectories) and the ways uneven
interactions of governmental strategies and resistance are contingently enacted .
As examples, Didier Bigo, building upon Pierre Bourdieu, has encouraged a research methodology
that privileges a relational approach and focuses on practice;3 William Walters has advocated
considering governmentality as a research program rather than as a ‘‘depiction of discrete
systems of power;’’4 and Michael Merlingen has criticized the downplaying of resistance and the
use of ‘‘governmentality’’ as interchangeable with liberalism.5 Many other scholars have engaged
in contextualized analyses of governmental tactics and resistance. Oded Lowenheim has shown
how ‘‘responsibilization’’ has become an instrument for governing individual travelers through
‘‘travel warnings’’ as well as for ‘‘developing states’’ through performance indicators;6 Wendy
Larner and William Walters have questioned accounts of globalization as an ontological
dimension of the present and advocated less substantialized accounts that focus on studying the
discourses, processes and practices through which globalization is made as a space and a political
economy;7 Ronnie D. Lipschutz and James K. Rowe have looked at how localized practices of
resistance may engage and transform power relations;8 and in my own work, I have studied the
deployment of disciplinary and governmental tools for reforming governments in peacekeeping
operations and how these practices were hijacked and resisted and by their targets. 9
Scholars who use governmentality as a descriptive tool focus instead on one
particular trajectory of global liberalism, that is on the convergence of knowledge
and scrutiny of life processes (or biopolitics) and violence and theorize global
liberalism as an extremely effective formation, a coherent and powerful
Leviathan, where biopolitical tools and violence come together to serve dominant
classes or states’ political agendas. As I will show, Giorgio Agamben, Michael Hardt and
Antonio Negri, and Sergei Prozorov tend to embrace this position.10
The distinction between governmentality as a heuristic and governmentality as a
descriptive tool is central for debating political agency. I argue that,
notwithstanding their critique of liberalism, scholars who use governmentality as a
descriptive tool rely on the same ontological assumptions as the liberal order they
criticize and do move away from Foucault’s focus on historical practices in order to privilege
abstract theorizations. By using governmentality as a description of ‘‘liberalism’’ or
‘‘capitalism’’ instead of as a methodology of inquiry on power’s contingent
modalities and technologies, these scholars tend to reify a substantialist ontology
that ultimately reinforces a liberal conceptualization of subjects and power as
standing in a relation of externality and stifles the possibility of reimagining
political agency on different grounds. ‘‘Descriptive governmentality’’ constructs a
critique of the liberal international order based upon an ontological framework
that presupposes that power and subjects are entities possessing qualities that
preexist relations. Power [end page 289] is imagined as a ‘‘mighty totality,’’ and
subjects as monads endowed with potentia. As a result, the problematique of political
agency is portrayed as a quest for the ‘‘liberation’’ of a subject ontologically gifted
with a freedom that power inevitably oppresses. In this way, the conceptualization
of political agency remains confined within the liberal struggle of ‘‘freedom’’ and
‘‘oppression.’’ Even researchers who adopt a Foucauldian vocabulary end up
falling into what Bigo has identified as ‘‘traps’’ of political science and international
relations theorizing, specifically essentialization and ahistoricism.11
I argue here that in order
to reimagine political agency an ontological and
epistemological turn is necessary, one that relies upon a relational ontology.
Relational ontological positions question adopting abstract stable entities,
such as ‘‘structures,’’ ‘‘power,’’ or ‘‘subjects,’’ as explanations for what happens.
Instead, they explore how these pillar concepts of the Western political thought
came to being, what kind of practices they facilitate, consolidate and result from,
what ambiguities and aporias they contain, and how they are transformed.12
Relational ontologies nurture ‘‘modest’’ conceptualizations of political
agency and also question the overwhelming stability of ‘‘mighty totalities,’’ such
as for instance the international liberal order or the state. In this framework,
political action has more to do with playing with the cards that are dealt to
us to produce practical effects in specific contexts than with building
idealized ‘‘new totalities’’ where perfect conditions might exist. The political
ethics that results from non-substantialist ontological positions is one that
privileges ‘‘modest’’ engagements and weights political choices with regard to the
consequences and distributive effects they may produce in the context
where they are made rather than based upon their universal normative
aspirations.13
Debating about government policies is a valuable heuristic — we can
learn about the state without being it. Their radical framework
eliminates the potential for political agency and oversimplifies
complex, contingent relationships. Instead of rejecting government
policies in general, we should analyze particular policies.
Zanotti 13 — Laura Zanotti, Associate Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech, holds a
Ph.D. in International Relations from Florida International University, 2013 (“Governmentality,
Ontology, Methodology: Re-thinking Political Agency in the Global World,” Alternatives: Global,
Local, Political, Volume 38, Issue 4, November, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via
SAGE Publications Online, p. 299-300)
Conclusion
In this article, I have argued that, notwithstanding
their critical stance, scholars who
use governmentality as a descriptive tool remain rooted in substantialist
ontologies that see power and subjects as standing in a relation of externality.
They also downplay processes of coconstitution and the importance of
indeterminacy and ambiguity as the very space where political agency can thrive.
In this [end page 299] way, they drastically limit the possibility for
imagining political agency outside the liberal straightjacket. They represent
international liberal biopolitical and governmental power as a homogenous
and totalizing formation whose scripts effectively oppress ‘‘subjects,’’ that are
in turn imagined as free ‘‘by nature.’’ Transformations of power modalities through
multifarious tactics of hybridization and redescriptions are not considered as options. The
complexity of politics is reduced to homogenizing and/or romanticizing
narratives and political engagements are reduced to total heroic rejections or to
revolutionary moments.
By questioning substantialist representations of power and subjects, inquiries on
the possibilities of political agency are reframed in a way that focuses on power
and subjects’ relational character and the contingent processes of their
(trans)formation in the context of agonic relations. Options for resistance to
governmental scripts are not limited to ‘‘rejection,’’ ‘‘revolution,’’ or
‘‘dispossession’’ to regain a pristine ‘‘freedom from all constraints’’ or an
immanent ideal social order. It is found instead in multifarious and contingent
struggles that are constituted within the scripts of governmental
rationalities and at the same time exceed and transform them. This
approach questions oversimplifications of the complexities of liberal
political rationalities and of their interactions with non-liberal political players
and nurtures a radical skepticism about identifying universally good or
bad actors or abstract solutions to political problems. International
power interacts in complex ways with diverse political spaces and within these
spaces it is appropriated, hybridized, redescribed, hijacked, and tinkered with.
Governmentality as a heuristic focuses on performing complex diagnostics
of events. It invites historically situated explorations and careful
differentiations rather than overarching demonizations of ‘‘power,’’
romanticizations of the ‘‘rebel’’ or the ‘‘the local.’’ More broadly, theoretical
formulations that conceive the subject in non-substantialist terms and focus on
processes of subjectification, on the ambiguity of power discourses, and on
hybridization as the terrain for political transformation, open ways for
reconsidering political agency beyond the dichotomy of
oppression/rebellion. These alternative formulations also foster an ethics of
political engagement, to be continuously taken up through plural and
uncertain practices, that demand continuous attention to ‘‘what
happens’’ instead of fixations on ‘‘what ought to be.’’83 Such ethics of
engagement would not await the revolution to come or hope for a pristine
‘‘freedom’’ to be regained. Instead, it would constantly attempt to twist the
working of power by playing with whatever cards are available and would
require intense processes of reflexivity on the consequences of political choices.
To conclude with a famous phrase by Michel Foucault ‘‘my point is not that
everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same
as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do. So my
position leads not to apathy but to hyper- and pessimistic activism.’’84
This avoids their offense. “Government bad” doesn’t answer
“government-as-heuristic good.”
Critique of Simple Truth Thesis
Their arguments rely on the Simple Truth Thesis and the No
Reasonable Opposition Thesis. From their perspective, no reasonable
person could ever believe that switching sides about the desirability
of U.S. federal government action is beneficial because the answer is
so self-evident and there is no room for debate. We critique these
underlying theses. The answers to Big Questions like “should the
USFG curtail its domestic surveillance” are not simple and selfevident — reasonable people can disagree.
Aikin and Talisse 14 — Scott F. Aikin, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt
University, holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University, and Robert B. Talisse,
Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at Vanderbilt University, holds a Ph.D. in
Philosophy from the City University of New York, 2014 (“The Simple Truth Thesis,” Why We
Argue (And How We Should): A Guide To Political Disagreement, Published by Routledge, ISBN
9780415859059, p. 61-62)
Both camps betray a commitment to the Simple Truth Thesis, the claim that
Big Questions always admit simple, obvious, undeniable, and easily-stated
answers. The Simple Truth Thesis encourages us to hold that a given truth is so
simple and so obvious that only the ignorant, wicked, devious, or benighted
could possibly deny it. On a recent occasion, an acquaintance of ours, in the midst of a
political conversation, announced that opposing the flat tax was "stupid, evil, or both.” With this
statement, she affirmed that, in her opinion, there is no room for reasoned disagreement about
the merits of a flat tax. In another recent discussion, a professor of philosophy asserted that there
is not even one intelligent defense of the death penalty. Not one, he said.
It's an odd phenomenon. Part of what makes Big Questions so important and,
well, big, is precisely the fact that reasonable, sincere, informed, and
intelligent persons can disagree over their answers. That is, the Simple
Truth Thesis has the effect of deflating Big Questions. But as it does so by casting
aspersions on one's opposition, it deflates the questions by inflaming those with whom one
disagrees. Consequently, as our popular political commentary accepts the Simple
Truth Thesis, there is a great deal of inflammatory rhetoric and righteous
indignation, but in fact very little public debate over the issues that matter
most. Thus the Big Questions over which we are divided remain unexamined,
and our reasons for adopting our different answers are never brought to bear
in public discussion. And, moreover, what passes for public argument is
nothing like argument at all.
This should come as no surprise. It is clear that one of the direct corollaries to the
Simple Truth Thesis is the No Reasonable Opposition Thesis. According to
the No Reasonable Opposition Thesis, argument and debate with those with
whom one disagrees is a pointless and futile endeavor. The reasoning
driving No Reasonable Opposition is simple. [end page 61] If in fact the answer to a
given Big Question is a Simple Truth, then there is no opponent of that answer
who is not also woefully ignorant, misinformed, misguided, wicked, or
worse. In other words, argument concerning a Big Question can be worthwhile only
when there is more than one reasonable position regarding the question.
And this is precisely what the Simple Truth Thesis denies.
One could argue that it would be a wonderful world were the Simple Truth Thesis
true. Our political task would be simply to empower those who know the Simple
Truths, and rebuke the fools who do not. But, alas, the Simple Truth Thesis is not
true, and consequently the No Reasonable Opposition Thesis must be dismissed
as well. In fact, the Simple Truth Thesis is a fairytale—soothing and satisfying,
but ultimately unfit for a serious mind. We must recognize that for any Big
Question, there are several defensible positions; indeed, as we said above, it is
precisely this feature that makes them big questions rather than small or
ordinary ones. Of course, to say that a position is defensible is not to say that it's
true. One can acknowledge that there are multiple defensible positions in
response to a Big Question, and still maintain that there is only one defensible
position that is correct. To oppose the Simple Truth Thesis is not to embrace
relativism, nor is it to give up on the idea that there are true answers to Big
Questions. It is rather to give up on the view that the truth is always
simple.
If we win this argument, vote negative. Even if they are right about
their answer to the Big Question of the resolution, refusing to affirm
the topic demonstrated that they were unwilling to acknowledge the
possibility of other answers or perspectives. We must abandon the
Simple Truth Thesis and the No Reasonable Opposition Thesis in
order for productive debate to occur. Our critique “turns” their
critique of the resolution.
Aikin and Talisse 14 — Scott F. Aikin, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt
University, holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University, and Robert B. Talisse,
Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at Vanderbilt University, holds a Ph.D. in
Philosophy from the City University of New York, 2014 (“The Simple Truth Thesis,” Why We
Argue (And How We Should): A Guide To Political Disagreement, Published by Routledge, ISBN
9780415859059, p. 64-66)
That's the quick and dirty case against relativism. Now notice that none of these arguments bear
on the view that there are multiple reasonable answers to Big Questions. In affirming that
there are many defensible responses to each Big Question, one claims only
that there is a difference between being wrong and being stupid. It is to
acknowledge that even smart people make mistakes. Take Plato. From the
previous chapters, it should be pretty clear that we think Plato was wrong about a great many
things. We already indicated that we think he was wrong about several matters concerning
democracy, but that’s just the beginning of the story. We think that Plato was wrong about almost
everything. But we also think it’s obvious that Plato was a great philosopher. In fact, we think he
was a genius. We admire him, wrestle [end page 64] with his thought, try to criticize his views,
and in general take him very, very seriously. But, on nearly every philosophical issue, we believe
he was wrong, wrong, wrong.
Holding that there is reasonable opposition, in fact, is a condition for thinking
that criticism is possible. Consider that if you think that those who you disagree
with are simply stupid, benighted, or evil, you wouldn’t have any arguments to
give to them. Criticism of them and their views would be impossible. You would
need only to state that they are wrong. But notice that it's only when you take your
opponents to be reasonable—people who care about evidence, can see relevant
issues, and are able to understand what's at stake in a debate—that you can
actually criticize them. Criticism depends upon the background thought that
the person you're engaging with has the capacity to reason in good faith. That is
not to say that in order to criticize another person, one must endorse or accept
their reasons. It means only that you must acknowledge that reasoning
(perhaps bad reasoning, or reasoning from false premises) is occurring, and
that it's possible to assess and correct it. So to deny the Simple Truth and No
Reasonable Opposition theses is not to capitulate to relativism at all. One
can reject these theses and yet be committed to there being a single right
answer to each Big Question; and one can still hold that those who deny what
you believe are dead wrong. One who rejects these theses can still be committed
to arguing earnestly with others, and to vigorously critiquing those who are
wrong. But most importantly, the denial of the Simple Truth and No Reasonable
Opposition theses actually delivers the kind of tolerance that relativism could
only promise. Once you’re committed to seeing your opponents as reasonable,
intelligent, and sincere, but mistaken, you're less likely to use force or
violence to correct them. You're more likely to use arguments to change their
minds.
Consequently, even if there is some Big
Question whose true answer is p, there can
nonetheless be formidable cases made in support of alternative, mistaken,
answers. That's because when it comes to Big Questions, there are many
different considerations that must be examined, and there will always be
reasonable disagreements among intelligent and sincere people about
the relative weight of considerations of different kinds. Again, Big Questions are
big because they require that we take many, many kinds of consideration into
account. Indeed, sometimes the answer to one Big Question depends on how we’ve answered
[end page 65] other Big Questions. Things can get extremely complicated very
quickly. Yet we are finite creatures with limited cognitive resources, and so it is sometimes hard
for us to balance our philosophical checkbooks. Big Questions can dwarf our intelligence. Once
we appreciate this, we must recognize that the No Reasonable Opposition Thesis
must be abandoned. Even if we have the true answer to a Big Question, there
will be room for intelligent, informed, and sincere people to disagree. In
such cases, our opponents are mistaken or wrong, but not therefore
unintelligent, wicked, untrustworthy, or ignorant. They deserve our attention,
and we need to consider what they have to say.
They’ll say that our position is Relativism, but this misunderstands
our argument. We don’t think that every answer to the Big Question
of the resolution is right, just that reasonable people can disagree
about the answer. This still leaves plenty of room to advocate on
behalf of the answer they believe is right when they are negative.
Aikin and Talisse 14 — Scott F. Aikin, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt
University, holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University, and Robert B. Talisse,
Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at Vanderbilt University, holds a Ph.D. in
Philosophy from the City University of New York, 2014 (“The Simple Truth Thesis,” Why We
Argue (And How We Should): A Guide To Political Disagreement, Published by Routledge, ISBN
9780415859059, p. 62)
That last point about relativism is crucial. So let us take a moment to develop it further. We just
said that denying the Simple Truth and No Reasonable Opposition theses does
not commit one to relativism. Holding that there can be more than one
reasonable answer to a question does not commit anyone to holding that
all those answers are right. Nor does it prohibit anyone holding one of those
reasonable views from criticizing another person holding another of those
reasonable views.
Relativism is about truth, about who is right. It is the view that everyone in a
disagreement is right, or perhaps not wrong. In fact, it is not clear that we even need to
appeal to disagreement in order to state relativism's main contention. It is that every
view is correct for the person who holds it.
2NC/1NR — Responses to Aff
Arguments
They Say: “Topicality Bad – General”
1. There is always a topic for debate. The question is whether the topic
is negotiated in advance or announced by the 1AC. Regardless,
productive debate requires that there be room for both teams to
present arguments. “Topicality bad” is not responsive to our
argument.
2. It’s better for the topic to be negotiated and announced in advance.
Establishing procedural rules for reason-giving argument is a form of
respect, not coercion. Identity-based positions celebrate
disagreement as an end-in-itself, foreclosing the possibility of
persuasion and agreement through dialogue.
Anderson 6 — Amanda Anderson, Caroline Donovan Professor of English Literature and
Department Chair at Johns Hopkins University, Senior Fellow at the School of Criticism and
Theory at Cornell University, holds a Ph.D. in English from Cornell University, 2006 (“Reply to
My Critic(s),” Criticism, Volume 48, Number 2, Spring, Available Online to Subscribing
Institutions via Project MUSE, p. 281-282)
My recent book, The Way We Argue Now, has in a sense two theses. In the first place, the
book makes the case for the importance of debate and argument to any
vital democratic or pluralistic intellectual culture. This is in many ways an
unexceptional position, but the premise of the book is that the claims of reasoned argument
are often trumped, within the current intellectual terrain, by appeals to cultural
identity and what I gather more broadly under the rubric of ethos, which includes cultural
identity but also forms of ethical piety and charismatic authority. In promoting argument as
a universal practice keyed to a human capacity for communicative reason, my
book is a critique of relativism and identity politics, or the notion that forms of
cultural authenticity or group identity have a certain unquestioned
legitimacy, one that cannot or should not be subjected to the challenges of
reason or principle, precisely because reason and what is often called "false universalism" are,
according to this pattern of thinking, always involved in forms of exclusion, power, or
domination. My book insists, by contrast, that argument is a form of respect, that the
ideals of democracy, whether conceived from a nationalist or an internationalist perspective,
rely fundamentally upon procedures of argumentation and debate in
order to legitimate themselves and to keep their central institutions vital. And the
idea that one should be protected from debate, that argument is somehow
injurious to persons if it does not honor their desire to have their basic beliefs
and claims and solidarities accepted without challenge, is strenuously
opposed. As is the notion that any attempt to ask people to agree upon
processes of reason-giving argument is somehow necessarily to
impose a coercive norm, one that will disable the free expression and
performance of identities, feelings, or solidarities. Disagreement is, by the terms
of my book, a form of respect, not a form of disrespect. And by disagreement, I
don't mean simply to say that we should expect disagreement rather than agreement, which is a
frequently voiced—if misconceived—criticism of Habermas. Of course we should expect
disagreement. My point is that we should focus on the moment of dissatisfaction in the
face of disagreement—the internal dynamic in argument that imagines argument
might be the beginning of [End Page 281] a process of persuasion and
exchange that could end in agreement (or partial agreement). For those
who advocate reconciling ourselves to disagreements rather than arguing them
out, by contrast, there is a complacent—and in some versions, even
celebratory—attitude toward fixed disagreement. Refusing these options, I make the
case for dissatisfied disagreement in the final chapter of the book and argue that people should
be willing to justify their positions in dialogue with one another,
especially if they hope to live together in a post-traditional pluralist
society.
They Say: “Framework Bad”
1. Our argument is topicality, not framework. The distinction is
meaningful. We don’t seek regulation of style, types of evidence, or
the role of the judge. Reading our argument as “role playing good” or
“diverse perspectives bad” misunderstands the thesis.
2. Topic boundaries are uniquely justified. “Anything goes” prevents
meaningful engagement. Everyone learns more when students are
well-prepared to debate a shared topic.
3. Reject “active voice,” not the topic. They can affirm the topic using
passive voice — domestic surveillance by the USFG should be
substantially curtailed. There is no “role playing” requirement — their
“Framework Impact Turns” don’t apply to topicality-not-framework.
They Say: “We Are Germane To The Topic”
1. Only arguments that affirm the topic count as affirmative, not
arguments “germane” to the topic. This standard is meaningless—
negative arguments are “germane” to the topic, but they shouldn’t
count for the affirmative.
2. Legal evidence supports our argument—“germaneness” is
meaningless because it’s too broad.
Abbott et al. 6 — Greg Abbott, Attorney General of Texas, et al., 2006 (Petition for Review of
the Third Court of Appeals at Austin, Texas of The State of Texas, by and through the Texas
Department of Transportation v. Precision Solar Controls, Inc., Available Online at
http://www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/ebriefs/06/06034803.pdf, Accessed 08-31-2013, p. 1011)
A. The Court of Appeals Skipped the Predicate Question of Whether the Counterclaim Is a “Matter
Properly Defensive,” Fixating Instead on the Additional Requirement That It Also Be “Germane.”
There has been widespread confusion in the courts of appeals about the proper
scope of counterclaims that might be asserted under Reata. The Reata Court quoted
language from Anderson, Clayton permitting “the defense [to] plead and prove all matters
properly defensive. This includes the right to make any defense by answer or cross-complaint
germane to the matter in controversy.” 62 S.W.2d at 110 (emphasis added), as quoted in Reata, 47
TEX. SUP. CT. J. at 409. That test begins with the limitation that a matter must be “properly
defensive.” Id. It then goes on to further specify that such a “defensive” matter can be raised
through a procedural device “germane to the matter in controversy.” Id.
The court of appeals promoted the word “germane” to be the centerpiece of
this test, without first satisfying the predicate requirement that the claim be among the
“matters properly defensive.” Slip op. at 10. Worse, because the word “germane” is largely
foreign to Texas jurisprudence, the courts of appeals have been left to rely on
general-purpose dictionary definitions that leave something to be desired as legal
tests, [end page 10] since they simply rephrase the obvious—that the word
“germane” has something to do with a concept of relatedness. Slip op. at 10
(citing City of Dallas v. Redbird Dev’t Corp., 143 S.W.3d 375, 381 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2004, no
pet.) (relying on Webster’s Dictionary and the Random House Unabridged Dictionary to yield that
“the term ‘germane’ means ‘closely akin’ and ‘being at once relevant and appropriate.’”). It is no
surprise that such broad definitions led to an equally broad and formless
legal rule.
3. It is not enough to be “related”—germaneness requires promoting
the same purposes. The aff’s arguments aren’t “germane” to the topic
because they don’t affirm that the U.S. federal government
substantially curtail its domestic surveillance.
Mann 33 — George R. Mann, Author of the Nebraska Legislative Manual, 1933 ("Bill Drafting,"
Nebraska Legislative Manual, Available Online at
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/topic/resources/OLLibrary/Legislature/1933/pages/nelj0121.
htm, Accessed 08-31-2013)
Every act must have a title which must designate a single subject, or indicate
some particular plan of legislation as a head under which particular
provisions of the act may reasonably be looked for. The title need not be an epitome
of the act, and it need not particularize by specifying each detail or feature of the act or
contain an index thereto or an abstract thereof. The general subject is all that properly
belongs to the title of an act, and the title's exclusive office is to apprise those who vote upon
the act as to what that subject is; the details and means by which it is proposed to make the law
effective in accomplishing its purpose must be looked for, not in the title, but in the body of the
bill. It is essential to a good title that the subject of the act be expressed in exact terms; it is
sufficient if the subject is fairly deducible from the language employed.
As a general rule, titles should not express ends, objects or purposes to be accomplished, but
rather the means by which ends, objects and purposes are to be attained. The word "subject" is
used to indicate the chief thing about which legislation is enacted. "Subject" as used in the
prohibition against more than one subject in a statute, has no mathematically precise meaning
nor can it be defined exactly. The prohibition against duplicity of subjects is directed,
rather, against the joining into one measure of incongruous and unrelated
matters. Whether there is a logical connection and relation between the matters
treated is the test as to the unity of subject rather than the extent and scope of the
act. The word "subject" as used in the constitution signifies the matter or thing forming the
groundwork. It may contain many parts which grow out of it and are germane to it, and which, if
traced back, will [end page 127] lead the mind to it as the generic head. Any matter or thing
which may reasonably be said to be subservient to the general object or purpose
will be germane and may be properly included in the law. The word "germane"
has been frequently employed by the courts in discussing the connection or
relationship of provisions to a subject. Literally "germane" means "akin," "closely
allied." It is only applicable to persons who are united to each other by the common tie of blood
or marriage. When applied to inanimate things it is, of course, used in a metaphorical
sense, but still the idea of a common tie is always present. Thus when properly
applied to a legislative provision, the common tie is found in the tendency of the
provision to promote the object and purpose of the act to which it
belongs. Any provision not having this tendency which introduces new
subject matter into the act is clearly obnoxious to the constitutional
provisions in question. It is an error to suppose that two things are, in a
legal sense, germane to each other merely because there is a resemblance
between them, or because they have some characteristic common to
them both. It is only the subject and not the matters properly connected
therewith which must be expressed in the title.
They Say: “Resolved: Colon”
1. The resolution divides affirmative and negative ground and
establishes each side’s orientation toward the topic. The affirmative
team’s ground is the affirmative position and the negative team’s
ground is the negative position. Their interpretation doesn’t assume
the context of debate — resolved is used to designate that the issue to
be debated is a resolution.
Louisiana no date — Louisiana State Legislature, No Date Cited (“Glossary of Legislative
Terms,” Available Online at http://www.legis.state.la.us/glossary2.htm, Accessed 02-06-2006)
Resolution: A legislative instrument that generally is used for making
declarations, stating policies, and making decisions where some other form is not
required. A bill includes the constitutionally required enacting clause; a
resolution uses the term "resolved". Not subject to a time limit for introduction nor
to governor's veto. (Const. Art. III, §17(B) and House Rules 8.11, 13.1, 6.8, and 7.4 and Senate
Rules 10.9, 13.5 and 15.1)
2. “Resolved colon” supports a topicality burden that mirrors real
world policymaking.
Parcher 1 — Jeff Parcher, Former Director of Debate at Georgetown University, 2001 ("Re:
Jeff P--Is the resolution a question?," Post to the e-Debate List, February 26, Available Online at
http://www.ndtceda.com/archives/200102/ 0790.html, Accessed 09-10-2005)
> Jeff, I don't think debaters' relation to the resolution is nearly as clear as it you make it out to be
in your recent posts. 1. The resolution > is not a question. It is a statement that has "resolved" on
one side and a normative statement on the other separated by a colon. What > is the meaning of
"resolved?" I know Bill Shanahan has made the argument that "resolved" means "reserved," in
which case the
> resolution doesn't require you to arrive at any certainty about the truth of the normative
statement.
(1) Pardon me if I turn to a source besides Bill. American Heritage Dictionary: Resolve: 1.
To make a firm decision about. 2. To decide or express by formal vote. 3. To
separate something into constiutent parts See Syns at *analyze* (emphasis in orginal) 4. Find a
solution to. See Syns at *Solve* (emphasis in original) 5. To dispel: resolve a doubt. - n 1.
Frimness of purpose; resolution. 2. A determination or decision.
(2) The very nature of the word "resolution" makes it a question . American Heritage:
A course of action determined or decided on. A formal statemnt of a deciion, as by a legislature.
(3) The resolution is obviously a question. Any other conclusion is utterly inconcievable. Why?
Context. The debate community empowers a topic committee to write a topic for
ALTERNATE side debating. The committee is not a random group of people
coming together to "reserve" themselves about some issue. There is context - they
are empowered by a community to do something. In their deliberations, the topic
community attempts to craft a resolution which can be ANSWERED in either
direction. They focus on issues like ground and fairness because they know the
resolution will serve as the basis for debate which will be resolved by determining
the policy desireablility of that resolution. That's not only what they do, but it's what we
REQUIRE them to do. We don't just send the topic committtee somewhere to adopt their own
group resolution. It's not the end point of a resolution adopted by a body - it's the prelimanary
wording of a resolution sent to others to be answered or decided upon.
(4) Further context: the word resolved is used to
emphasis the fact that it's policy
debate. Resolved comes from the adoption of resolutions by legislative bodies. A
resolution is either adopted or it is not. It's a question before a legislative body. Should this
statement be adopted or not.
(5) The very terms 'affirmative' and 'negative' support my view. One affirms a
resolution. Affirmative and negative are the equivalents of 'yes' or 'no' - which, of
course, are answers to a question.
They Say: “We Are a Discussion of the Topic”
1. It’s not enough to “discuss the topic” — that doesn’t invite us to
participate because it doesn’t provide predictable ground. The
resolution divides ground between the affirmative and negative; the
negative’s job is to affirm the topic and therefore invite the negative to
negate.
2. This doesn’t provide a meaningful limit — teams can “discuss the
topic” by arguing that there should be a different topic, that the topic
creation process is bad, that the topic is a metaphor for something
else, etc. The neg can’t prepare to meaningfully participate in these
debates.
They Say: “No Topical Version Of The Aff”
1. This is a failure of imagination. (Yes, there is a topical version—
<explain>.)
2. (Extend/apply arguments from the “Constructive Constraints”
module.)
They Say: “Topicality is Violent/Policing”
1. Topicality divides ground — it doesn’t exclude people. Debaters can
express themselves however they want within their assigned speech
time, but only arguments that support the affirmative orientation
toward the topic should count as reasons to vote affirmative when the
judge is choosing the winner.
2. Procedural fairness is most important—it establishes expectations
for preparation and facilitates respectful and productive dialogue
between well-prepared opponents. Topicality-not-framework is a
reasonable procedural norm.
Massaro 89 — Toni M. Massaro, Professor of Law at the University of Florida, 1989 (“Legal
Storytelling: Empathy, Legal Storytelling, and the Rule of Law: New Words, Old Wounds?,”
Michigan Law Review (87 Mich. L. Rev. 2099), August, Available Online to Subscribing
Institutions via Lexis-Nexis)
B. The Rule-of-Law Model as Villain
Most writers who argue for more empathy in the law concede that law must resort to some
conventions and abstract principles. That is, they do not claim that legal rules are, as rules,
intrinsically sinister. Rather, they argue that we should design our legal categories and procedures
in a way that encourages the decisionmakers to consider individual persons and concrete
situations. Generalities, abstractions, and formalities should not dominate the process. The law
should be flexible enough to take emotion into account, and to respond openly to the various
"stories" of the people it controls. We should, as I have said, move toward "minimalist" law.
Yet despite their
acknowledgment that some ordering and rules are necessary,
empathy proponents tend to approach the rule-of-law model as a villain. Moreover,
they are hardly alone in their deep skepticism about the rule-of-law model. Most modern legal
theorists question the value of procedural regularity when it denies substantive justice. n52
Some even question the whole notion of justifying a legal [*2111] decision by
appealing to a rule of law, versus justifying the decision by reference to the facts
of the case and the judges' own reason and experience. n53 I do not intend to enter this
important jurisprudential debate, except to the limited extent that the "empathy" writings have
suggested that the rule-of-law chills judges' empathic reactions. In this regard, I have several
observations.
My first thought is that the rule-of-law model is only a model. If the term means
absolute separation of legal decision and "politics," then it surely is both unrealistic and
undesirable. n54 But our actual statutory and decisional "rules" rarely mandate a
particular (unempathetic) response. Most of our rules are fairly open-ended.
"Relevance," "the best interests of the child," "undue hardship," "negligence," or "freedom of
speech" -- to name only a few legal concepts -- hardly admit of precise definition or
consistent, predictable application. Rather, they represent a weaker, but still
constraining sense of the rule-of-law model. Most rules are guidelines that
establish spheres of relevant conversation, not mathematical formulas.
Moreover, legal training in a common law system emphasizes the indeterminate nature of rules
and the significance of even subtle variations in facts. Our legal tradition stresses an
inductive method of discovering legal principles. We are taught to distinguish
different "stories," to arrive at "law" through experience with many stories, and to
revise that law as future experience requires. Much of the effort of most first-year law
professors is, I believe, devoted to debunking popular lay myths about "law" as clean-cut answers,
and to illuminate law as a dynamic body of policy determinations constrained by certain guiding
principles. n55
As a practical matter, therefore, our rules often are ambiguous and fluid
standards that offer substantial room for varying interpretations. The
interpreter, usually a judge, may consult several sources to aid in decisionmaking.
One important source necessarily will be the judge's own experiences -- including the experiences
that seem to determine a person's empathic capacity. In fact, much ink has been spilled to
illuminate that our stated "rules" often do not dictate or explain our legal results. Some writers
even have argued that a rule of law may be, at times, nothing more than a post hoc rationalization
or attempted legitimization [*2112] of results that may be better explained by extralegal
(including, but not necessarily limited to, emotional) responses to the facts, the litigants, or the
litigants' lawyers, n56 all of which may go unstated. The opportunity for contextual and
empathic decisionmaking therefore already is very much a part of our
adjudicatory law, despite our commitment to the rule-of-law ideal.
Even when law is clear and relatively inflexible, however, it is not necessarily
"unempathetic." The assumed antagonism of legality and empathy is belied by our experience
in rape cases, to take one important example. In the past, judges construed the general, openended standard of "relevance" to include evidence about the alleged victim's prior sexual conduct,
regardless of whether the conduct involved the defendant. n57 The solution to this "empathy gap"
was legislative action to make the law more specific -- more formalized. Rape shield statutes were
enacted that controlled judicial discretion and specifically defined relevance to exclude the prior
sexual history of the woman, except in limited, justifiable situations. n58 In this case, one can
make a persuasive argument not only that the rule-of-law model does explain these later rulings,
but also that obedience to that model resulted in a triumph for the human voice of the rape
survivor. Without the rule, some judges likely would have continued to respond to other
inclinations, and admit this testimony about rape survivors. The example thus shows that radical
rule skepticism is inconsistent with at least some evidence of actual judicial behavior. It also
suggests that the principle of legality is potentially most critical for people who are least
understood by the decisionmakers -- in this example, women -- and hence most vulnerable to
unempathetic ad hoc rulings.
A final observation is that the principle of legality reflects a deeply ingrained, perhaps
inescapable, cultural instinct. We value some procedural regularity – “law for
law's sake" – because it lends stasis and structure to our often chaotic lives.
Even within our most intimate relationships, we both establish "rules," and
expect the other [*2113] party to follow them. n59 Breach of these unspoken
agreements can destroy the relationship and hurt us deeply, regardless of
the wisdom or "substantive fairness" of a particular rule. Our agreements create
expectations, and their consistent application fulfills the expectations. The
modest predictability that this sort of "formalism" provides actually may
encourage human relationships. n60
3. There’s nothing violent about debating the assigned topic or
making reasoned arguments — topicality isn’t policing.
Anderson 6 — Amanda Anderson, Caroline Donovan Professor of English Literature and
Department Chair at Johns Hopkins University, Senior Fellow at the School of Criticism and
Theory at Cornell University, holds a Ph.D. in English from Cornell University, 2006 (“Reply to
My Critic(s),” Criticism, Volume 48, Number 2, Spring, Available Online to Subscribing
Institutions via Project MUSE, p. 285-287)
Let's first examine the claim that my book is "unwittingly" inviting a resurrection of the
"Enlightenment-equals-totalitarianism position." How, one wonders, could a book promoting
argument and debate, and promoting reason-giving practices as a kind of common ground that
should prevail over assertions of cultural authenticity, somehow come to be seen as a dangerous
resurgence of bad Enlightenment? Robbins tells us why: I want "argument on my own terms"—
that [End Page 285] is, I want to impose reason on people, which is a form of power and
oppression. But what can this possibly mean? Arguments stand or fall based on whether
they are successful and persuasive, even an argument in favor of argument.
It simply is not the case that an argument in favor of the importance of
reasoned debate to liberal democracy is tantamount to oppressive power. To
assume so is to assume, in the manner of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, that
reason is itself violent, inherently, and that it will always mask power and
enforce exclusions. But to assume this is to assume the very view of Enlightenment reason
that Robbins claims we are "thankfully" well rid of. (I leave to the side the idea that any individual
can proclaim that a debate is over, thankfully or not.) But perhaps Robbins will say, "I am not
imagining that your argument is directly oppressive, but that what you argue for would be, if it
were enforced." Yet my book doesn't imagine or suggest it is enforceable; I simply argue in
favor of, I promote, an ethos of argument within a liberal democratic and
proceduralist framework. As much as Robbins would like to think so, neither I nor the
books I write can be cast as an arm of the police.
Robbins wants to imagine a far more direct line of influence from criticism to political reality,
however, and this is why it can be such a bad thing to suggest norms of argument. Watch as the
gloves come off:
Faced with the prospect of submitting to her version of argument—roughly, Habermas's
version—and of being thus authorized to disagree only about other, smaller things, some
may feel that there will have been an end to argument, or an end to the arguments they
find most interesting. With current events in mind, I would be surprised if there were no
recourse to the metaphor of a regular army facing a guerilla insurrection, hinting that
Anderson wants to force her opponents to dress in uniform, reside in well-demarcated
camps and capitals that can be bombed, fight by the rules of states (whether the states
themselves abide by these rules or not), and so on—in short, that she wants to get the
battle onto a terrain where her side will be assured of having the upper hand.
Let's leave to the side the fact that this is a disowned hypothetical criticism. (As in, "Well, okay,
yes, those are my gloves, but those are somebody else's hands they will have come off of.")
Because far more interesting, actually, is the sudden elevation of stakes. It is a symptom of
the sorry state of affairs in our profession that it plays out repeatedly this
tragicomic tendency to give a grandiose political meaning to every object it
analyzes or confronts. We have evidence of how desperate the situation is when we see it in a
critic as thoughtful as Bruce Robbins, where it emerges as the need to allegorize a point
about an argument in such a way that it gets cast as the equivalent of war
atrocities. It is especially ironic in light of the fact that to the extent that I do give examples of
the importance of liberal democratic proceduralism, I invoke the disregard of the protocols of
international adjudication in the days leading up to the invasion of Iraq; I also speak [End Page
286] about concerns with voting transparency. It is hard for me to see how my argument
about proceduralism can be associated with the policies of the Bush
administration when that administration has exhibited a flagrant disregard of
democratic procedure and the rule of law. I happen to think that a renewed focus on
proceduralism is a timely venture, which is why I spend so much time discussing it in my final
chapter. But I hasten to add that I am not interested in imagining that proceduralism is the sole
political response to the needs of cultural criticism in our time: my goal in the book is to argue for
a liberal democratic culture of argument, and to suggest ways in which argument is not served by
trumping appeals to identity and charismatic authority. I fully admit that my examples are less
political events than academic debates; for those uninterested in the shape of intellectual
arguments, and eager for more direct and sustained discussion of contemporary politics, the
approach will disappoint. Moreover, there will always be a tendency for a proceduralist to underspecify substance, and that is partly a principled decision, since the point is that agreements,
compromises, and policies get worked out through the communicative and political process. My
book is mainly concentrated on evaluating forms of arguments and appeals to ethos, both those
that count as a form of trump card or distortion, and those that flesh out an understanding of
argument as a universalist practice. There is an intermittent appeal to larger concerns in the
political democratic culture, and that is because I see connections between the ideal of argument
and the ideal of deliberative democracy. But there is clearly, and indeed necessarily, significant
room for further elaboration here.
They Say: “Topicality Excludes Our Perspective”
1. This is non-falsifiable and self-serving — they could affirm the topic
from their perspective, but they’ve made the strategic decision not to
do so.
2. The process of debating the assigned topic cultivates an ethos of
argument that promotes respect. Identity-as-argument forecloses
reasoned disagreement.
Anderson 6 — Amanda Anderson, Caroline Donovan Professor of English Literature and
Department Chair at Johns Hopkins University, Senior Fellow at the School of Criticism and
Theory at Cornell University, holds a Ph.D. in English from Cornell University, 2006 (“Beyond
Sincerity and Authenticity: The Ethos of Proceduralism,” The Way We Argue Now: A Study in
the Cultures of Theory, Published by Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691114033, p. 186187)
Let me conclude by trying to summarize what I take to be the value of affirming
argument as ethos, rather than privileging ethos in any of its other various
guises—authentic ethical life, charismatic critique, or accommodating tact. While I
understand the motivation behind McCarthy's critique of Habermas, his sense that we may need
to expect disagreement more than aim for agreement, I think the Habermasian principle of
“an intersubjective praxis of argumentation” more closely achieves the ideals of
universalization and respect that undergird the democratic project. Simply
accepting the views of others because they are asserted to be fundamentally
linked to their nonnegotiable conceptions of the good or to their given cultural
identity—accepting a merely overlapping consensus, or insisting on
accommodation of ways and customs that may seem to jar with liberal
democratic practice—seems to me precisely to fail in according the forms of
respect that the model seems to claim for itself.28
I am not arguing that identity issues should be excluded from consideration, but
simply that they should not be permitted to stand inviolable or
uncontestable. Argument with those from whom we differ is a form [end page
186] of respect and it implies an aspiration to universalism. Committed to
the possibility of agreement as well as the conditions of pluralism, it does not
attempt to tame or stabilize disagreement: it is capable of reasoned
disagreement, but it is perhaps more fundamentally characterized by a
dissatisfied recognition of disagreement. To take a current example, the debate
over the banning of the hajib (Muslim headscarf) and other religious symbols in schools in France
has created a certain dialogical demand whose benefits outweigh, it seems to me, a situation in
which clarification and articulation of self-reflective pluralism are simply avoided in the name of
passive toleration. This is not to imply that this particular issue cannot be resolved in favor of
toleration. What the French debate importantly demands is that citizens of a pluralist state go
beyond peremptory appeals to cultural identity and clarify their understanding of what it means
to live together under conditions of pluralism with the collective responsibility of providing
education consonant with the secular principles of the state. This demand extends not only to
Muslims and Jews, but also to the historically dominant Catholic population, whose own partial
universalism is revealed in the attempt to include only “large crosses” in the ban. In this situation,
there is a need to negotiate between differing forms of affiliation, as well as between political
principle and cultural identity. The process of argument is what enables the very act of
pluralist self-clarification to occur, and the society in question must cultivate an
ethos of argument if it is to meet the ongoing challenges of its political
(re)constitution.
When argument can itself be recognized as an ethos, disagreement remains live,
not merely the nonnegotiable emanation of a pregiven cultural identity or holistic
ethos. To put this in yet another way, tolerance and respect are not utterly
coterminous, as the accommodationist position would have us believe. Indeed, if
we collapse these terms, we are left in a situation where the tradition of
sincerity—conceived of in its broadest terms as allied with critique and the
promotion of political integrity—remains impotent in the face of peremptory
appeals to authenticity. Proceduralism is itself a dialectical overcoming of the
sincerity/authenticity problematic, but, unlike in Trilling, its polemical relation to received
opinion is not in the service of nature, fate, or the unconscious, but rather in the service of an
aspiration toward universalism.
3. To be meaningful and effective, other modes of expression must be
translated into policy-relevant arguments.
Anderson 6 — Amanda Anderson, Caroline Donovan Professor of English Literature and
Department Chair at Johns Hopkins University, Senior Fellow at the School of Criticism and
Theory at Cornell University, holds a Ph.D. in English from Cornell University, 2006 (“Beyond
Sincerity and Authenticity: The Ethos of Proceduralism,” The Way We Argue Now: A Study in
the Cultures of Theory, Published by Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691114033, p. 184185)
By way of closing, I want to address objections that have been raised against the
privileging of argument and debate as an ethicopolitical ideal. It has been claimed
that such an ideal is too narrow in its conception of how political commitments
find expression, and unable to comprehend nonrational forms of solidarity or
aesthetic political practices (theatrical display, performativity, ironic critique). I argued in
chapter 1 for a democratic model of politics that could acknowledge a wide range of forms of
expression as possessing theoretical and political significance: in this sense I have no quarrel with
those critics of Habermas who seek to emphasize affective or aesthetic modes. And I have
suggested elsewhere in this volume, most particularly in the essay on pragmatism, that liberalism
should remain open to a plurality of characterological and expressive modes, rather than seek to
elevate a specific temperament or persona.
I would argue, however, that the accommodation of plural modes of expression
still
requires procedural elaboration if it is to have any political meaning or
effectiveness, as McCarthy's own critique makes clear. In order to affect
institutionalized deliberative procedures, nonrational forms of political
expression require some form of translation into terms that can impact
decision making and policy. While dramatic displays of protest that rely on
theatrical tactics and visceral power cannot entirely [end page 184] be explained in
rational terms, and can be recognized to have a force on their own terms, in order
to affect policy they have to be translated into claims recognizable within
existing political institutions. We do not remain inarticulate about the
visceral if it effectively affects our political views and our social interactions.
They Say: “No Personal Connection to the Topic”
1. That’s a benefit of topicality — it allows students of all backgrounds
to engage in research about a prescribed topic. No particular identity
or experience is required to participate.
2. The process of debating creates a connection—learning about
surveillance policy provides students with the content knowledge
needed to critically evaluate U.S. policies and formulate their own
opinions.
3. Maintaining critical distance is vital to effective democratic debate
— the demand for a “personal connection” shuts down dialogue.
Anderson 6 — Amanda Anderson, Caroline Donovan Professor of English Literature and
Department Chair at Johns Hopkins University, Senior Fellow at the School of Criticism and
Theory at Cornell University, holds a Ph.D. in English from Cornell University, 2006
(“Introduction,” The Way We Argue Now: A Study in the Cultures of Theory, Published by
Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691114033, p. 1-2)
At the same time, however, the book engages in an internal critique of certain tendencies within
the field of theory. These essays repeatedly draw attention to the underdeveloped and often
incoherent evaluative stance of contemporary theory, its inability to clearly avow the norms and
values underlying its own critical programs. In particular, I contest the prevalent
skepticism about the possibility or desirability of achieving reflective distance
on one's social or cultural positioning. As a result of poststructuralism's
insistence on the forms of finitude—linguistic, psychological, and cultural—that limit
individual agency, and multiculturalism's insistence on the primacy of ascribed
group identity and its accompanying perspectives, the concept of critical distance
has been seriously discredited, even as it necessarily informs many of the very
accounts that announce its [end page 1] bankruptcy. The alliance between the
poststructuralist critique of reason and the form of sociological reductionism that
governs the politics of identity threatens to undermine the vitality of both
academic and political debate insofar as it becomes impossible to explore
shared forms of rationality. Given these conditions, in fact, this book might well have
been called “The Way We Fail to Argue Now.”2
To counter the tendencies of both poststructuralism and identity politics, I
advance a renewed assessment of the work of philosopher Jürgen Habermas, whose
interrelated theories of communicative action, discourse ethics, and democratic proceduralism
have provoked continued and often dismissive critique from theorists in the fields of literary
studies, cultural studies, and political theory. The book is in no way an uncritical embrace of
Habermas's theory, however. Rather, it offers a renewed assessment of the notions of
critical distance and procedural democracy in light of the arguments that have
been waged against them. In part I do this by giving airtime to those debates in which
Habermas and like-minded critics have engaged poststructuralism. But I also try to give
Habermas a new hearing by showing the ways in which his theories promote an
understanding of reflective distance as an achieved and lived practice, one
with an intimate bearing on questions of ethos and character. Typically dismissed
as impersonal, abstract, and arid, rational discourse of the kind associated with
the neo-Kantianism of Habermas and his followers is often employed as a contrast to
valorized ideals of embodied identities, feelings and passions, ethics and
politics—in short, all the values that are seen to imbue theoretical practice with
existential meaningfulness and moral force. This very opposition, which has
effectively structured many influential academic debates, involves a
serious misreading and reduction of the rationalist tradition, which at its
most compelling seeks precisely to understand communicative reason
and the aspiration to critical distance as an embedded practice, as an
ongoing achievement rather than a fantasmatic imposition. This aspiration,
moreover, also characterizes collective forms of liberal politics, including the
practices and procedures that constitute the democratic tradition and are so
vital to its ongoing health and stability.
They Say: “Topicality/Your Argument Hurts Us”
1. Arguments aren’t harmful in-and-of themselves. The burden of
rejoinder is necessary for debate to occur.
Anderson 6 — Amanda Anderson, Caroline Donovan Professor of English Literature and
Department Chair at Johns Hopkins University, Senior Fellow at the School of Criticism and
Theory at Cornell University, holds a Ph.D. in English from Cornell University, 2006 (“Reply to
My Critic(s),” Criticism, Volume 48, Number 2, Spring, Available Online to Subscribing
Institutions via Project MUSE, p. 289)
Probyn's piece is a mixture of affective fallacy, argument by authority, and bald ad hominem.
There's a pattern here: precisely the tendency to personalize argument and to foreground what
Wendy Brown has called "states of injury." Probyn says, for example, that she "felt ostracized by
the book's content and style." Ostracized? Argument here is seen as directly harming persons, and
this is precisely the state of affairs to which I object. Argument is not injurious to
persons. Policies are injurious to persons and institutionalized practices can
alienate and exclude. But argument itself is not directly harmful; once one says
it is, one is very close to a logic of censorship. The most productive thing
to do in an open academic culture (and in societies that aspire to freedom and
democracy) when you encounter a book or an argument that you disagree with is
to produce a response or a book that states your disagreement. But to
assert that the book itself directly harms you is tantamount to saying that you
do not believe in argument or in the free exchange of ideas, that your
claim to injury somehow damns your opponent's ideas.
2. Their argument can’t be negated. This proves our argument — they
refuse to invite us to the argumentative table.
Subotnik 98 — Daniel Subotnik, Professor of Law at the Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center at
Touro College, holds a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law, 1998 (“What's Wrong With
Critical Race Theory?: Reopening The Case For Middle Class Values,” Cornell Journal of Law and
Public Policy (7 Cornell J. L. & Pub. Pol'y 681), Spring, Available Online to Subscribing
Institutions via Lexis-Nexis)
B. And the Consequences
Having traced a major strand in the development of CRT, we turn now to the strands' effect on the
relationships of CRATs with each other and with outsiders. As the foregoing material suggests,
the central CRT message is not simply that minorities are being treated unfairly,
or even that individuals out there are in pain—assertions for which there are data
to serve as grist for the academic mill—but that the minority scholar himself
or herself hurts and hurts badly.
An important problem that concerns the very definition of the scholarly
enterprise now comes into focus. What can an academic trained to [*694] question
and to doubt n72 possibly say to Patricia Williams when effectively she announces, "I hurt
bad"? n73 "No, you don't hurt"? "You shouldn't hurt"? "Other people hurt too"?
Or, most dangerously - and perhaps most tellingly - "What do you expect when you keep shooting
yourself in the foot?" If the majority were perceived as having the well-being of minority groups in
mind, these responses might be acceptable, even welcomed. And they might lead to real
conversation. But, writes Williams, the failure by those "cushioned within the invisible privileges
of race and power... to incorporate a sense of precarious connection as a part of our lives is...
ultimately obliterating." n74
"Precarious." "Obliterating." These words will clearly invite responses only from fools
and sociopaths; they will, by effectively precluding objection, disconcert
and disunite others. "I hurt," in academic discourse, has three broad though
interrelated effects. First, it demands priority from the reader's conscience. It is for this
reason that law review editors, waiving usual standards, have privileged a long trail of
undisciplined - even silly n75 - destructive and, above all, self-destructive arti [*695] cles. n76
Second, by emphasizing the emotional bond between those who hurt in a similar
way, "I hurt" discourages fellow sufferers from abstracting themselves from
their pain in order to gain perspective on their condition. n77
[*696] Last, as we have seen, it precludes the possibility of
conversation with others. n78
open and structured
[*697] It is because of this conversation-stopping effect of what they insensitively
call "first-person agony stories" that Farber and Sherry deplore their use. "The norms
of academic civility hamper readers from challenging the accuracy of the
researcher's account; it would be rather difficult, for example, to criticize a law review article
by questioning the author's emotional stability or veracity." n79 Perhaps, a better practice
would be to put the scholar's experience on the table, along with other
relevant material, but to subject that experience to the same level of
scrutiny.
If through the foregoing rhetorical strategies CRATs succeeded in limiting
academic debate, why do they not have greater influence on public policy? Discouraging
white legal scholars from entering the national conversation about race, n80 I
suggest, has generated a kind of cynicism in white audiences which, in turn, has
had precisely the reverse effect of that ostensibly desired by CRATs. It drives
the American public to the right and ensures that anything CRT offers is
reflexively rejected.
In the absence of scholarly work by white males in the area of race, of course, it is difficult to be
sure what reasons they would give for not having rallied behind CRT. Two things, however, are
certain. First, the kinds of issues raised by Williams are too important in their
implications [*698] for American life to be confined to communities of color. If
the lives of minorities are heavily constrained, if not fully defined, by the
thoughts and actions of the majority elements in society, it would seem to be of
great importance that white thinkers and doers participate in open
discourse to bring about change. Second, given the lack of engagement of
CRT by the community of legal scholars as a whole, the discourse that should be
taking place at the highest scholarly levels has, by default, been displaced to
faculty offices and, more generally, the streets and the airwaves.
* CRT = Critical Race Theory
* CRAT = CRT’s Advocates
They Say: “Neg Still Has Ground/Should Be
Prepared”
1. The neg doesn’t have predictable ground when the aff doesn’t
affirm the topic. Ground is inevitable, but the affirmative hurt the
quality of in-round dialogue.
Galloway 7 — Ryan Galloway, Assistant Professor and Director of Debate at Samford
University, 2007 (“Dinner and Conversation at the Argumentative Table: Re-Conceptualizing
Debate As An Argumentative Dialogue,” Contemporary Argumentation & Debate, Volume 28,
September, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Academic Search Premier, p. 12)
In addition, even when the negative strategy
is not entirely excluded, any strategy
that diminishes argumentative depth and quality diminishes the quality of
in-round dialogue. An affirmative speech act that flagrantly violates debate
fairness norms and claims that the benefits of the affirmative act supersede the
need for such guidelines has the potential of excluding a meaningful
negative response, and undermines the pedagogical benefits of the inround dialogue. The “germ of a response” (Bakhtin, 1990) is stunted.
2. Even if we could prepare a different strategy, this requirement is
too burdensome. Prep time isn’t unlimited — dedicating time to
untopical affs trades off either with preparation for topical affs or
with other important parts of our lives. Topicality is our preparation
— it is a researched strategy that clashes with the aff. Vote neg to
preserve meaningful limits.
Harris 13 — Scott Harris, Associate Specialist and Debate Coach at the University of Kansas,
holds a Ph.D. in Communication from Northwestern University, 2013 (“This Ballot,” Ballot from
the Final Round of the 2013 National Debate Tournament, Posted on the Global Debate blog,
April 6th, Available Online at http://globaldebateblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/scott-harris-writeslong-ballot-for-ndt.html, Accessed 08-31-2013)
I understand that there has been some criticism of Northwestern’s strategy in this debate round.
This criticism is premised on the idea that they ran framework instead of engaging Emporia’s
argument about home and the Wiz. I think this criticism is unfair. Northwestern’s framework
argument did engage Emporia’s argument. Emporia said that you should vote for the team that
performatively and methodologically made debate a home. Northwestern’s argument directly
clashed with that contention. My problem in this debate was with aspects of the execution of the
argument rather than with the strategy itself. It has always made me angry in debates when
people have treated topicality as if it were a less important argument than other arguments in
debate. Topicality is a real argument. It is a researched strategy. It is an
argument that challenges many affirmatives. The fact that other arguments could
be run in a debate or are run in a debate does not make topicality somehow a
less important argument. In reality, for many of you that go on to law school
you will spend much of your life running topicality arguments because you will
find that words in the law matter. The rest of us will experience the ways that
word choices matter in contracts, in leases, in writing laws and in many aspects of
our lives. Kansas ran an affirmative a few years ago about how the location of a comma in a law
led a couple of districts to misinterpret the law into allowing individuals to be incarcerated in jail
for two days without having any formal charges filed against them. For those individuals the
location of the comma in the law had major consequences. Debates about words are
not insignificant. Debates about what kinds of arguments we should or should
not be making in debates are not insignificant either. The limits debate is an
argument that has real pragmatic consequences. I found myself earlier this year
judging Harvard’s eco-pedagogy aff and thought to myself—I could stay up tonight and put a
strategy together on eco-pedagogy, but then I thought to myself—why should I have to? Yes, I
could put together a strategy against any random argument somebody makes employing an
energy metaphor but the reality is there are only so many nights to stay up all night researching. I
would like to actually spend time playing catch with my children occasionally or maybe even read
a book or go to a movie or spend some time with my wife. A world where there are an
infinite number of affirmatives is a world where the demand to have a specific
strategy and not run framework is a world that says this community doesn’t
care whether its participants have a life or do well in school or spend
time with their families. I know there is a new call abounding for interpreting this NDT
as a mandate for broader more diverse topics. The reality is that will create more work to prepare
for the teams that choose to debate the topic but will have little to no effect on the teams that
refuse to debate the topic. Broader topics that do not require positive government action or are
bidirectional will not make teams that won’t debate the topic choose to debate the topic. I think
that is a con job. I am not opposed to broader topics necessarily. I tend to like the way high school
topics are written more than the way college topics are written. I just think people who take
the meaning of the outcome of this NDT as proof that we need to make it so people get
to talk about anything they want to talk about without having to debate against
topicality or framework arguments are interested in constructing a world that
might make debate an unending nightmare and not a very good home in
which to live. Limits, to me, are a real impact because I feel their impact in my
everyday existence.
3. Every debate that’s not about the topic is a lost opportunity to
repeat the iterative process — that’s Lundberg.
They Say: “Switch-Sides Debate Bad – General”
1. “Switch sides” refers to format, not content. Affirmative and
negative are orientations toward the topic, not prescribed identities.
The topic requires debaters to sometimes affirm and sometimes
negate the resolution in order to make the best decision about
surveillance policy, not to “switch sides” on every argument.
2. Playing devil’s advocate combats dogmatism and leads to better
convictions.
Galloway 7 — Ryan Galloway, Assistant Professor and Director of Debate at Samford
University, 2007 (“Dinner and Conversation at the Argumentative Table: Re-Conceptualizing
Debate As An Argumentative Dialogue,” Contemporary Argumentation & Debate, Volume 28,
September, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Academic Search Premier, p. 8-9)
Willingness to argue against what one believes helps the advocate understand the
strengths and weaknesses of their own position. It opens the potential for a new
synthesis of material that is superior to the first (Dybvig & Iverson, 2000). Serving as
a devil’s advocate encourages an appreciation for middle ground and nuance (Dell,
1958). Failure to see both sides can lead to high levels of ego involvement and
dogmatism (Hicks & Greene, 2000). [end page 8] Survey data confirms these
conclusions. Star Muir found that debaters become more tolerant after learning to
debate both sides of an issue (Muir, 1993).
Such tolerance is predictable since debate is firmly grounded in respect for the
other through the creation of a fair dialogue. Ironically, opponents of a debate as
dialogue risk falling prey to dogmatism and the requisite failure to respect
potential middle grounds. Perceiving the world through the lens of contingency
and probability can be beneficial to real-world activism when its goal is creating
consensus out of competing interests. The anti-oppression messages of critical
teams would benefit from a thorough investigation of such claims, and not merely
an untested axiological assumption.
3. This encourages debaters to better appreciate one another’s
arguments.
Galloway 7 — Ryan Galloway, Assistant Professor and Director of Debate at Samford
University, 2007 (“Dinner and Conversation at the Argumentative Table: Re-Conceptualizing
Debate As An Argumentative Dialogue,” Contemporary Argumentation & Debate, Volume 28,
September, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Academic Search Premier, p. 12)
Conversely, in a dialogical exchange,
debaters come to realize the positions other
than their own have value, and that reasonable minds can disagree on
controversial issues. This respect encourages debaters to modify and adapt their
own positions on critical issues without the threat of being labeled a hypocrite.
The conceptualization of debate as a dialogue allows challenges to take place
from a wide variety of perspectives. By offering a stable referent the affirmative
must uphold, the negative can choose to engage the affirmative on the widest
possible array of “counter- words,” enhancing the pedagogical process produced
by debate.
4. Their interpretation causes confirmation bias. Challenging
assumptions by playing Devil’s Advocate is vital to prevent policy
disasters.
Dame and Gedmin 13 — John Dame, Chief Executive Officer of Dame Management
Strategies, and Jeffrey Gedmin, Chief Executive Officer of the Legatum Institute, 2013 (“Three
Tips For Overcoming Your Blind Spots,” Harvard Business Review blog, October 2nd, Available
Online at http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/10/three-tips-for-overcoming-your-blind-spots/, Accessed
10-10-2013)
To fight confirmation bias, have a devil’s advocate.
Confirmation bias refers to our tendency, when receiving new information, to
process it in a way that it fits our pre-existing narrative about a situation or
problem. Simply put, if you’re already inclined to believe that the French are rude, you will find
the examples on your trip to Paris to validate your thesis. Disconfirming evidence – the friendly
waiter, the helpful bellman – gets pushed aside. They’re just “the exception.” Warren Buffett says,
“What the human being is best at doing, is interpreting all new information so that their prior
conclusions remain intact.” He knows he is prone to it himself.
Attorneys, debaters, and politicians engage in
a kind of confirmation bias when, in
order to make a case, they select certain data while deliberately
neglecting or deemphasizing other data. But confirmation bias can cause
disaster in business and policy when it leads a decision-maker to jump to
conclusions, fall prey to misguided analogies, or simply exclude
information that inconveniently disturbs a desired plan of action.
What to do? The only remedy is to make sure you have a
full and accurate
picture available when making important decisions. When you have a theory
about someone or something, test it. When you smell a contradiction – a thorny
issue, an inconsistency or problem – go after it. Like the orchestral conductor,
isolate it, drill deeper. When someone says – or you yourself intuit – “that’s just
an exception,” be sure it’s just that. Thoroughly examine the claim.
Dealing with confirmation bias is about reining in your impulses and
challenging your own assumptions. It’s difficult to stick to it day in and out.
That’s why it’s important to have in your circle of advisers a brainy, tough-asnails devil’s advocate who – perhaps annoyingly, but valuably – checks you
constantly.
They Say: “Switch-Sides Debate Bad – Hicks &
Greene”
1. Switch-side debating prepares students to challenge dominant
ideologies, not mindlessly accept them.
English et al. 7 — Eric English, Graduate Student in the Department of Communication at
the University of Pittsburgh, et al., part of the Schenley Park Debate Authors Working Group
(DAWG)—a consortium of public argument scholars at University of Pittsburgh that includes
Gordon R. Mitchell—Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh,
Stephen Llano, Catherine E. Morrison, John Rief, and Carly Woods—Graduate Students in the
Department of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh, 2007 (“Debate as a Weapon of
Mass Destruction,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Volume 4, Number 2, June,
Available Online at http://www.pitt.edu/~gordonm/JPubs/EnglishDAWG.pdf, Accessed 01-192010, p. 223-225)
Second, while the pedagogical benefits of switch-side debating for participants are compelling,10
some worry that the technique may perversely and unwittingly serve the ends of an aggressively
militaristic foreign policy. In the context of the 1954 controversy, Ronald Walter Greene and
Darrin Hicks suggest that the articulation of the debate community as a zone of dissent against
McCarthyist tendencies developed into a larger and somewhat uncritical affirmation of switchside debate as a [end page 223] "technology" of liberal participatory democracy. This technology
is part and parcel of the post-McCarthy ethical citizen, prepared to discuss issues from multiple
viewpoints. The problem for Greene and Hicks is that this notion of citizenship becomes tied to a
normative conception of American democracy that justifies imperialism. They write, "The
production and management of this field of governance allows liberalism to trade in cultural
technologies in the global cosmopolitan marketplace at the same time as it creates a field of
intervention to transform and change the world one subject (regime) at a time."11 Here, Greene
and Hicks argue that this new conception of liberal governance, which epitomizes the ethical
citizen as an individual trained in the switch-side technique, serves as a normative tool for
judging other polities and justifying forcible regime change. One need look only to the Bush
administration’s framing of war as an instrument of democracy promotion to grasp how the
switch-side technique can be appropriated as a justification for violence.
It is our position, however, that rather than acting
as a cultural technology expanding
American exceptionalism, switch-side debating originates from a civic attitude
that serves as a bulwark against fundamentalism of all stripes. Several
prominent voices reshaping the national dialogue on homeland security have
come from the academic debate community and draw on its animating spirit of
critical inquiry. For example, Georgetown University law professor Neal Katyal served as
lead plaintiff’s counsel in Hamdan, which challenged post-9/11 enemy combat
definitions.12 The foundation for Katyal’s winning argument in Hamdan was laid
some four years before, when he collaborated with former intercollegiate debate
champion Laurence Tribe on an influential Yale Law Journal addressing a similar topic.13
Tribe won the National Debate Tournament in 1961 while competing as an
undergraduate debater for Harvard University. Thirty years later, Katyal represented
Dartmouth College at the same tournament and finished third. The imprint of this
debate training is evident in Tribe and Katyal’s contemporary public
interventions, which are characterized by meticulous research, sound
argumentation, and a staunch commitment to democratic principles. Katyal’s
reflection on his early days of debating at Loyola High School in Chicago’s North Shore provides a
vivid illustration. "I came in as a shy freshman with dreams of going to medical school. Then
Loyola’s debate team opened my eyes to a different world: one of argumentation and policy." As
Katyal recounts, "the most important preparation for my career came from my
experiences as a member of Loyola’s debate team."14
The success of former debaters like Katyal, Tribe, and others in challenging the
dominant dialogue on homeland security points to the efficacy of academic
debate as a training ground for future advocates of progressive change.
Moreover, a robust understanding of the switch-side technique and the classical
liberalism which underpins it would help prevent misappropriation of the
technique to bolster suspect homeland security policies. For buried within an
inner-city debater’s files is a secret threat to absolutism: the refusal to be
classified as "with us or against us," the embracing of intellectual
experimentation in an age of orthodoxy, and reflexivity in the face of
fundamentalism. But by now, the irony of our story should be [end page 224] apparent—the
more effectively academic debating practice can be focused toward these ends,
the greater the proclivity of McCarthy’s ideological heirs to brand the activity as a
"weapon of mass destruction."
2. Hicks and Greene are wrong — they overgeneralize and lack an
alternative. Switch-side debating facilitates informed deliberation.
Stannard 6 — Matt Stannard, Director of Forensics and Associate Lecturer in the Department
of Communication and Journalism at the University of Wyoming, 2006 (“Deliberation, Debate,
and Democracy in the Academy and Beyond,” The Underview, Spring 2006 Faculty Senate
Speaker Series Speech, April 18, Available Online at
http://theunderview.blogspot.com/2006/04/deliberation-democracy-and-debate.html, Accessed
06-26-2007)
If it is indeed true that debate inevitably produces other-oriented deliberative discourse at the
expense of students' confidence in their first-order convictions, this would indeed be a trade-off
worth criticizing. In all fairness, Hicks and Greene do not overclaim their critique, and
they take care to acknowledge the important ethical and cognitive virtues of
deliberative debating. When represented as anything other than a political-ethical concern,
however, Hicks and Greene's critique has several problems: First, as J.P. Lacy once
pointed out, it seems a tremendous causal (or even rhetorical) stretch to go
from "debating both sides of an issue creates civic responsibility essential to
liberal democracy" to "this civic responsibility upholds the worst forms of
American exceptionalism."
Second, Hicks and Greene do not make any comparison of the potentially bad
power of debate to any alternative. Their implied alternative, however, is a form of
forensic speech that privileges personal conviction. The idea that students should
be able to preserve their personal convictions at all costs seems far more
immediately tyrannical, far more immediately damaging to either
liberal or participatory democracy, than the ritualized requirements that students
occasionally take the opposite side of what they believe.
Third, as I have suggested and will continue to suggest, while a debate project
requiring
participants to understand and often "speak for" opposing points of view may
carry a great deal of liberal baggage, it is at its core a project more ethically
deliberative than institutionally liberal. Where Hicks and Greene see debate
producing "the liberal citizen-subject," I see debate at least having the potential
to produce "the deliberative human being." The fact that some academic
debaters are recruited by the CSIS and the CIA does not undermine this thesis.
Absent healthy debate programs, these think-tanks and government agencies
would still recruit what they saw as the best and brightest students. And absent a
debate community that rewards anti-institutional political rhetoric as much as
liberal rhetoric, those students would have little-to-no chance of being exposed
to truly oppositional ideas.
They Say: “Unethical To Defend The Topic”
1. This is an affirmative burden: the resolution requires the
affirmative to defend that the U.S. federal government substantially
curtail its domestic surveillance. “The USFG is evil — and so is every
policy the USFG enacts” is a negative argument, not a response to
topicality.
2. Debate is not role-playing — arguing that the federal government
should curtail domestic surveillance doesn’t make a debater complicit
with the USFG’s wrongdoing. You don’t become the USFG by arguing
about it.
Harris 13 — Scott Harris, Associate Specialist and Debate Coach at the University of Kansas,
holds a Ph.D. in Communication from Northwestern University, 2013 (“This Ballot,” Ballot from
the Final Round of the 2013 National Debate Tournament, Posted on the Global Debate blog,
April 6th, Available Online at http://globaldebateblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/scott-harris-writeslong-ballot-for-ndt.html, Accessed 08-31-2013)
While this ballot has meandered off on a tangent I’ll take this opportunity to comment on an
unrelated argument in the debate. Emporia argued that oppressed people should not
be forced to role play being the oppressor. This idea that debate is about role
playing being a part of the government puzzles me greatly. While I have been
in debate for 40 years now never once have I role played being part of the
government. When I debated and when I have judged debates I have never
pretended to be anyone but Scott Harris. Pretending to be Scott Harris is burden enough
for me. Scott Harris has formed many opinions about what the government and
other institutions should or should not do without ever role playing being
part of those institutions. I would form opinions about things the government
does if I had never debated. I cannot imagine a world in which people don’t
form opinions about the things their government does. I don’t know where this
vision of debate comes from. I have no idea at all why it would be oppressive
for someone to form an opinion about whether or not they think the
government should or should not do something. I do not role play being the
owner of the Chiefs when I argue with my friends about who they should take
with the first pick in this year’s NFL draft. I do not role play coaching the
basketball team or being a player if I argue with friends about coaching decisions
or player decisions made during the NCAA tournament. If I argue with someone
about whether or not the government should use torture or drone strikes I can do
that and form opinions without ever role playing that I am part of the
government. Sometimes the things that debaters argue is happening in debates puzzle me
because they seem to be based on a vision of debate that is foreign to what I think happens in a
debate round.
3. Debate is about the development of convictions, not the stating of
convictions—debate is a process for learning how to argue and decide
ethical positions.
4. Working within the state is good — it is not unethical.
Smith 10 — Andrea Smith, Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Cultural
Studies at the University of California-Riverside, Faculty Member at the North American Institute
for Indigenous Theological Studies, Co-Founder of INCITE!—a national activist organization of
radical feminists of color advancing a movement to end violence against women of color and our
communities through direct action, critical dialogue and grassroots organizing, holds a Ph.D. in
History of Consciousness from the University of California-Santa Cruz, interviewed by Sharmeen
Khan, David Hugill, and Tyler McCreary, 2010 (“Building Unlikely Alliances: An Interview with
Andrea Smith,” Upping The Anti—a Canadian radical journal, Number 10, Available Online at
http://uppingtheanti.org/journal/article/10-building-unlikely-alliances-an-interview-withandrea-smith/, Accessed 05-02-2014)
You’ve said that you saw the Obama election as a moment for social movements to build
themselves. What are your thoughts about electoral politics and the role of the
state in terms of the question of power?
Until you have an alternative system, then there is no “outside” of the current
system. I don’t think there is a pure place in which to work, so you can work in
many places, including inside the state. I think there is no reason not to
engage in electoral politics or any other thing. But it would probably be a lot more
effective if, while we are doing that, we are also building alternatives. If we
build the alternatives, we have movements to hold us accountable when we
work within the system and we also have more negotiating power. It can actually
be helpful.
In terms of, say, state repression, if we have some critical people within the
state then we might be able to do something about it. We might think about
them as a way to relieve some of the pressure while trying to build the
alternatives. I don’t think it is un-strategic to think about it like that. I am just
not the kind of person who ever says, “never do ‘x’.” You always have to be openminded and creative. It may not work out. You may get co-opted or something
bad might happen. But if we really knew the correct way to do something we
would have done it by now.
You challenge the US Social Forum motto – “another world is possible, another US is necessary”
by raising the question that, if another world is possible, then why is another US necessary?
What happens when we organize around a state-centered framework?
Well, our political imaginary gets captured by the state. I think that the world we
want to live in is something we can’t imagine now. We just assume that the US
must be necessary, but does anybody really feel liberated here? It’s almost common
sense. Do we really think the United States demonstrates the best way to organize
the universe? Why is that the limit of our imagination? I am not necessarily
saying we can never do electoral politics or be strategic in certain ways. The
problem is when that strategy becomes the long-term vision itself. So, for example,
Obama’s campaign becomes the goal rather than a means to another goal. To me,
that is what that question is really asking. Can we free up our imaginations about
what we really want?
5. In-depth knowledge about the USFG is empowering. This answers
“historical determinism” and proves that government is responsive
to citizen intervention.
Zelden 8 — Charles L. Zelden, Professor of History at Nova Southeastern University, holds a
Ph.D. in History from Rice University, 2008 (“Foreword,” The Legislative Branch of Federal
Government: People, Process, and Politics, Written by Gary P. Gershman, Published by ABCCLIO, ISBN 1851097120, p. vii-ix)
Most of us know something about the federal government. At the very least, we can
name its three branches—executive, legislative, and judicial—and discuss the
differences between them. At an early age, we are taught in school about the president of the
United States and his official roles and responsibilities; we learn about Congress and the courts
and their place in our government. In civics classes, we often get a skeletal picture of how the
nation’s government works; we are told that Congress writes the laws, the president executes
them, and the Supreme Court acts as the interpreter of the U.S. Constitution. News reports, blogs,
and editorials we read as adults add to this knowledge. Many of us can go further and
explain some of the basic interactions among the branches. We know that the laws
Congress passes are subject to the president’s veto power and the Supreme Court’s powers of
judicial review; we understand that the president names the members of his Cabinet and
nominates justices to the Supreme Court, but that the Senate has to confirm these nominations;
and we can discuss how the Supreme Court, as the “caretaker” of the Constitution, can declare
laws unconstitutional, but that it is up to the legislative and executive branches to enforce these
rulings. We bandy around such terms as checks and balances and separation of powers. We talk
about majority votes and filibusters in the Senate.
For most of us, however, this is about as far as our knowledge goes. According to
newspaper accounts spanning decades, most Americans have trouble naming members
of the Supreme Court, or key figures in the congressional leadership, or the
members of the president’s Cabinet. Still fewer of us can explain in detail how a
bill becomes a law, or the president’s authority in foreign affairs, or how the
Supreme Court decides a case. If we ask about the historical development of these
institutions and officials and their powers, the numbers of those who understand how our federal
government works drops even further.
It is not surprising that most of us do not know a lot about the workings of our
government. Government is a large and complex enterprise. It includes thousands of
people working on subjects ranging from tax reform to national security, from voting rights to
defining and enforcing environmental standards. Much of the work of government,
although technically open to the public, is done out of sight and hence out of mind. We
may know about those parts of the government that affect us directly—the Social
Security Administration for the elderly, the Defense Department for those with family members
in the military, or the Supreme Court when the news is filled with such controversial topics as
abortion or the right to die or prayer in schools—but our understandings are generally
limited to only those parts that directly affect us. Although this state [end page vii] of
affairs is understandable, it is also dangerous. Our form of government is a
democratic republic. This means that, although elected or appointed officials
carry out the duties of government, “We the People of the United States” are the
ultimate authority, and not just because we choose those who run the government (or those
who appoint the men and women who run the day-to-day business of government). In the end,
it is our choices that shape (or, at least, should shape) the scope and function of
the federal government. As Abraham Lincoln gracefully puts it, ours is a government “of the
people, by the people, for the people.”
Yet what sort of choices can we make if we do not understand the structures, workings, and
powers of the federal government? Choices made in ignorance are dangerous
choices. When a president goes on TV and claims a power not granted by the Constitution, we
need to know that this claim is something new. It might be that what the president is asking for is
a reasonable and necessary extension of the powers already held by the executive branch—but it
might, on the other hand, be a radical expansion of his powers based on nothing more than his
say-so. If we do not understand what is normal, how can we judge whether abnormal and
exceptional proposals are necessary or proper? The same is true when pundits and politicians
rant on about the dangers of “activist judges.” How can we know what an “activist judge” is if we
do not even understand a “normal” judge’s job? What one person calls dangerous activism could
be courageous defense of constitutional rights in other people’s eyes—or what one person praises
as a creative reading of the Constitution, another person might denounce as an irresponsible and
unwise judicial experiment.
This is the point: without knowledge of the way things are supposed to be, how can
we judge when the powers of government are being underused, misused, or
even abused? The need for this knowledge is the root from which the three volumes of the
About Federal Government series have grown. Our goal is to present the federal
government as a living, working system made up of real people doing jobs of
real importance—not just in the abstract, but for all of us in our daily lives.
Knowledge is power, and this is as true today as when Lord Francis Bacon wrote it about
four hundred years ago. Understanding how our government works, and how
each of its institutions works, and how they interact with one another and with
“We the People” is not just something we might need to pass a civics test or a
citizenship exam—it is a source of power for us as citizens. Knowing how a bill
becomes a law and the many ways that a good idea can be derailed by the process of lawmaking is
a source of power—for some day, there may be a bill that you want to see enacted into law, or that
you want to prevent being made a law. Knowing the stress points at which a bill is most
vulnerable to defeat can give you the opportunity to put pressure where it would do the most
good. We can find similar examples for the other two branches as well.
One way of showing the living and evolving nature of the federal government is to
place it into its historical context. Our government did not just come into being
fully formed. The government we have today is the result of over two hundred
years of [end page viii] growth and change, of choices made and laws passed.
Much of what we hold to be gospel today, when it comes to the goals and methods
and powers of the national government, resulted from our experiences—good and
bad—in the past. How can one understand today’s civil rights laws, for example, without first
understanding the impact of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction on the structure of our
government? Forgetting the past leaves us powerless to deal with the present and the future. A
second way to bring our government to life is to focus on the interactions among the three
branches of the federal government, as well as between these three branches and the states. Most
of the controversy shaping our governing structures grew out of conflicts among the various
branches of the federal government, or between the federal government and the states. When
Congress fights with the president over budgets or the Supreme Court overturns a popular law
passed by Congress and signed by the president, or when a state defies a mandate issued by the
U.S. Supreme Court and the president must put that state’s National Guard under his authority to
enforce the Court’s decision, those crises clarify the actual working structures of our government.
Like flexing a muscle to make it strong, these interactions define the actual impact of our
government—not only today, but in the future as well. Finally, we can understand the living
nature of the federal government by examining the people who make up that
government. Government is not an abstract idea: it is people doing their jobs
as best they can. If government can be said to have a personality, it is the direct reflection of
the collective personalities of those who work in our government. Hence, when we talk about
Congress, we are talking about the people who are elected to the House of Representatives and
the Senate and whose values, views, beliefs, and prejudices shape the output of the national
legislature. The About Federal Government series integrates all three of these approaches as it
sets out the workings and structures of our national government. Written by historians with a
keen understanding of the workings of government past and present, these volumes stress the
ways in which each of the branches helps form part of a whole system—and the ways that each
branch is unique as an institution. Finally, we have given special stress to bringing the
people and the history of these branches to life, in the process making clear just
how open to our own intervention our government really is. This is our
government, and the more we understand how it works, the more real our
“ownership” of it will be.
6. Voicing an argument doesn’t make a person unethical. They
oversimplify complex relations between stance and identity.
Proceduralism is the best way to facilitate reasoned compromise.
Anderson 6 — Amanda Anderson, Caroline Donovan Professor of English Literature and
Department Chair at Johns Hopkins University, Senior Fellow at the School of Criticism and
Theory at Cornell University, holds a Ph.D. in English from Cornell University, 2006 (“Beyond
Sincerity and Authenticity: The Ethos of Proceduralism,” The Way We Argue Now: A Study in
the Cultures of Theory, Published by Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691114033, p. 161163)
In this essay, I interpret the political theory known as “proceduralism” as an alternative to the
paradigms of thought that dominate within poststructuralism. Proceduralism is a normative
model for the justification of specific political practices and institutions: in the case
of the forms of democracy favored by Rawls and Habermas, the aim is to elaborate those
processes, rules, and procedures that will determine legitimate or
justifiable outcomes. Historically associated with liberalism and legal formalism,
proceduralism contrasts itself with moral and political theories that make appeal to substantive
guiding concepts such as human nature or a pregiven notion of the good. In Habermas's case,
ongoing intersubjective argument conducted within conditions of fairness and reciprocity, and
animated by a moral point of view committed to the enlargement of perspective that argument
itself promotes and demands, is the privileged procedural component of liberal and
internationalist democratic institutions. Only those outcomes that have been accepted
by all those concerned—whether by consensus or reasoned compromise—
can be considered legitimate from a moral point of view.
In its Habermasian version, I will argue, proceduralism harbors a challenging
conception of ethos, one that effectively displaces the antinomy between
reason and ethos that I examined in the previous essay. The very idea of a proceduralist
ethos will, I realize, be viewed by some readers as counterintuitive, insofar as proceduralism is
often seen as fundamentally impersonal in its emphasis on processes, rules, and institutional
practices that exceed the level of individual actors. But I will excavate proceduralism's own
interest in ethos at both the individual and collective levels, and in order to set the stage for my
analysis, I will revisit Lionel Trilling's genealogy of the modern concepts of sincerity and
authenticity, arguing that proceduralism constitutes an extension of the sincerity paradigm, while
poststructuralism remains the inheritor of the authenticity paradigm. The essays in the final
section of this volume have identified ways in which a certain exiling of the categories of character
and ethos has impoverished the theoretical resources of contemporary literary and cultural
studies. My central presupposition has been that sociological [end page 161] conceptions of
identity—ascriptions of race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality—have so
dominated the understanding of subjective experience that we do not tend to
reflect sufficiently on the complex relations among ascribed identity,
cultivated ethos, and practice. Even in much work influenced by
poststructuralism, where identity is of course a complex affair, there is no coherent
analysis of the relation between implied ideals of intellectual or ethical or
political virtue, and the insistence that identities are fundamentally multiple and
unstable because shot through with various group identifications. Ethical rhetoric
certainly appears when theorists discuss the desirable or undesirable consequences of various
stances toward identity and social relations. But the conceptual gulf between stance
and identity typically remains unacknowledged—the former implies capacities
for reflective distance, self-cultivation, and situated judgment, while the latter
remains either extrinsic or imposed (even when unstable or precarious). The idea
that intellectual and political practices carry ethical significance precisely insofar
as they become a part of one's character or contribute toward the formation of a
developed ethos seems foreign to the view of identity as imposed, subverted,
unstable, or even performed (precisely because the notion of performance is
fundamentally elaborated in relation to conditions of imposition and opportunities for
subversion). In the end, the current frameworks for understanding selfhood and
practice tend to imagine action as a negation or negotiation of identity,
rather than something that might develop a character or foster an ethos.
Habermas's proceduralism departs from prevailing paradigms of identity—and their consequent
theoretical impasses—by addressing two questions whose fates are deeply intertwined. First, his
proceduralism interestingly reframes the poststructuralist attempt to trouble,
subvert, or denaturalize identity, both at the level of individual practice and in
relation to the collective dimensions of identity. It very much subordinates group
identity to the moral framework of a universalist procedure that can subtend
diverse forms of self-understanding: in this sense it mounts a critique of identity
politics and discloses certain limits or problems in recent attempts to
promote pluralist accommodation of disparate cultural practices and selfunderstandings. But in doing so, I will argue, it in no way fails to conceptualize
an ethos that meets the demands of a pluralistic democracy. Indeed, its ability to
mediate among the individual, intersubjective, and collective levels of practice
constitute, I will suggest, one of the strongest claims of this tradition upon our
attention.
The second achievement of Habermasian proceduralism that I isolate lies in its manner of
addressing a core problem that has emerged within those pockets of theory, analyzed in previous
chapters, in which ethos emerges as conceptually significant, but remains oppositional or
mystified [end page 162] insofar as it is invoked as that which exceeds, escapes, or resists either
rational argument or abstract universalism. Proceduralism departs dramatically from this
theoretical predisposition by suggesting that argument informed by universalistic principles
might itself become an ethos. In doing so, it pushes beyond not only the impasses of
identity paradigms (in either their affirmative or deconstructive guise), but also certain
entrenched excesses of the critique of enlightenment. The account that I will offer will
refuse the prevalent tendency to offer ethos—whether understood as individual style or group
culture—as the corrective to reason.
7. Vigorously defending positions you don’t believe in debates is the
highest ethical obligation in a democracy. Their refusal to affirm the
topic when assigned to defend the affirmative is unethical.
Day 66 — Douglas G. Day, Assistant Professor and Director of Forensics at the University of
Wisconsin, 1966 (“The Ethics of Democratic Debate,” Central States Speech Journal, Volume 17,
February, p. 5-7)
The ethics of debate are inherent in debate as the technology of decisionmaking in a democratic society. These ethics may be ascertained by examining the nature
of debate as a decision-making process and the function debate fulfills in democratic society.
Democracy as a political philosophy does not specify what the good life is, rather it provides a
methodological framework within which each individual may seek to fulfill his own conception of
the good life. The two primary functions of democratic government are to provide means for
establishing public policies when such policies become necessary and to provide means for the
adjudication of disputes when private interests come into conflict with each other or with public
policies.2 In both functions debate is the essential procedural feature of the decision-making
process. When the people or their representatives in legislature or committee choose a policy, the
choice is presumed to be the outcome of debate. In the adjudication of disputes, law guarantees
that the decision be determined by debate. Without debate the ballot box and the jury's verdict
become empty social gestures.
The acceptance of debate as the democratic technology of decision-making rests upon two
assumptions. First, that political and moral truths are different from scientific truths. Second,
that public consensus on political and moral truth is possible. I call these two statements
"assumptions" because debate as a method must accept them as true, even though they may be
open to question. The first assumption, that political and moral truth is different from scientific
truth, is reasonably clear. Moral statements which are answers to questions such as "What ought I
do?" or 'What should I do?" are not factual statements. They are not empirical descriptions of the
way things are, but rather attitudes toward the way things are. This does not, of course, mean that
empirical data may not be relevant to moral decisions; it does mean that we cannot turn to the
empirical sciences to discover the nature of the good life. The second assumption necessary to the
acceptance of debate is that consensus on political and moral statements is possible, in spite of
the inability to verify such statements empirically. In other words, when we seek agreement, we
assume agreement is possible. In practice, of course, we do not expect unanimous agreement. But
our willingness to be bound by, i.e., to accept as true, a decision with which we disagree stems
from the fact that agreement is assumed possible and is sought. As Sabine observes: "It is the
belief that consensus is possible which creates the will to make the apparatus work, and it is the
belief that a consensus has been sought that takes from its execution the sense of being merely
coercive."3 The problem for democracy is to make decision by debate work as effectively as
possible.
Decision is meaningful only if there are alternatives from which to choose; it
is intelligent only if the alternatives are understood. Thus, the prime requisite
which must be met if debate is to provide sound decisions is that it be thorough
and complete, that all arguments and information relevant to decision be
known and understood.
Democratic government provides the opportunity for debate through the guarantee of freedom of
speech. The important civil value in freedom of speech, however, is not in the elimination of
restraints on speech but in the unique opportunity that this elimination of restraints provides.
Lippman calls this the "creative principle" of freedom of speech. He observes that "the essence of
freedom of opinion is not in more toleration as such, but in the debate which toleration provides:
it is not in the venting of opinion, but in the confrontation of opinion."5 Too often regard for
freedom of speech is only in its negative sense and the positive obligation is forgotten. The
prohibition against restraint of speech is meaningless if nothing is said. Free speech is "people
talking, not merely people who are not prevented from doing so."6
Free speech is the necessary prerequisite of full debate. It guarantees that full debate can take
place; it does not guarantee that full debate will take place. Herein lies the highest ethic of
democratic debate. A commitment to debate as the method of democratic decision-
making demands an overriding ethical responsibility to promote the full
confrontation of opposing opinions, arguments, and information relevant to
decision. Without the confrontation of opposing ideas debate does not exist, and
to the extent that that confrontation is incomplete so is debate incomplete.
What are the practical obligations entailed in acceptance of this ethic? The preservation of
freedom of speech is obviously necessary. But more important is the obligation to see that
opinions and arguments are fully and persuasively presented. Encouragement and incentive must
be provided those who hold minority viewpoints to express them. Forums must be provided those
whose views are so unpopular that they are denied ready access to the usual channels of public
expression. And finally, all must recognize and accept personal responsibility
to present, when necessary, as forcefully as possible, opinions and arguments
with which they may personally disagree.
To present persuasively the arguments for a position with which one disagrees is,
perhaps, the greatest need and the highest ethical act in democratic debate.
It is the greatest need because most minority views, if expressed at all, are not expressed
forcefully and persuasively. Bryce, in his perceptive analysis of America and Americans, saw two
dangers to democratic government: the danger of not ascertaining accurately the will of the
majority and the danger that minorities might not effectively express themselves.7 In regard to
the second danger, which he considered the greater of the two, he suggested:
The duty, therefore, of a patriotic statesman in a country where public opinion rules,
would seem to be rather to resist and correct than to encourage the dominant sentiment.
He will not be content with trying to form and mould and lead it, but he will confront it,
lecture it, remind it that it is fallible, rouse it out of its self-complacency.8
To present persuasively arguments for a position with which one disagrees is the
highest ethical act in debate because it sets aside personal interests for
the benefit of the common good. Essentially, for the person who accepts decision by
debate, the ethics of the decision-making process are superior to the ethics of
personal conviction on particular subjects for debate. Democracy is a
commitment to means, not ends. Democratic society accepts certain ends, i.e.,
decisions, because they have been arrived at by democratic means. We recognize the moral
priority of decision by debate when we agree to be bound by that decision regardless of personal
conviction. Such an agreement is morally acceptable because the decision-making process
guarantees our moral integrity by guaranteeing the opportunity to debate
for a reversal of the decision.
8. Procedural fairness outweighs personal conviction.
Day 66 — Douglas G. Day, Assistant Professor and Director of Forensics at the University of
Wisconsin, 1966 (“The Ethics of Democratic Debate,” Central States Speech Journal, Volume 17,
February, p. 7)
Thus, personal conviction can have moral significance
in social decision-making
only so long as the integrity of debate is maintained. And the integrity of
debate is maintained only when there is a full and forceful confrontation of
arguments and evidence relevant to decision. When an argument is not
presented or is not presented as persuasively as possible, then debate
fails. As debate fails decisions become less "wise." As decisions become less wise
the process of decision-making is questioned. And finally, if and when debate is set
aside for the alternative method of decision-making by authority, the personal
convictions of individuals within society lose their moral significance as
determinants of social choice.
9. No impact — if they believe the resolution is unethical, they should
be confident defending it because when all arguments are made, the
truth will win out. The only reason they would fear presenting
affirmative arguments is if they didn’t believe in their personal
convictions.
Day 66 — Douglas G. Day, Assistant Professor and Director of Forensics at the University of
Wisconsin, 1966 (“The Ethics of Democratic Debate,” Central States Speech Journal, Volume 17,
February, p. 7-8)
This may seem to represent a paradoxical ethical dichotomy to those who believe that sincerity of
expression is the highest ethical test of public address. No paradox obtains, however, for those
who are committed to debate. Belief that the wisest decisions are achieved by a full
confrontation of arguments and information dictates a primary obligation to
see that debate takes place. And if personal conviction on a particular subject has a
preponderance of truth in its favor it will prevail over other views even when all
views are fully presented. If we believe that our personal conviction can
prevail only if not confronted by other opinions, then we must either reject
the belief that debate is the best method of arriving at truth in social matters or
admit that our personal conviction is not in the general interests of society. When
we give personal conviction an ethical priority over the decision-making
process our emphasis can too easily focus on ends rather than means. And
personal conviction, as noted above, derives its moral significance only in a specified context of
means. Perhaps this is what Murphy had in mind when he wrote, "Although personal integrity
and honest belief are important parts of a man's character, it is not the sincerity of the man but
the honesty of his expression which has to be measured in rhetoric.”9
They Say: “Our Experience/Perspective Outweighs”
1. Tolerance of difference requires recognition of disagreement, not
abandonment of rules. Radical accommodation collapses argument
into identity and renders democratic debate impossible.
Anderson 6 — Amanda Anderson, Caroline Donovan Professor of English Literature and
Department Chair at Johns Hopkins University, Senior Fellow at the School of Criticism and
Theory at Cornell University, holds a Ph.D. in English from Cornell University, 2006 (“Beyond
Sincerity and Authenticity: The Ethos of Proceduralism,” The Way We Argue Now: A Study in
the Cultures of Theory, Published by Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691114033, p. 182184)
The question of how dialogue under conditions of pluralism might ideally be
conceived has led to alternate theories that define themselves against
Habermasian proceduralism, which is seen as ethnocentrically invested in
rationality and consensus. It is important, in my view, to acknowledge how
fundamental to these alternate views remains the attempt to define ethos
against argument, which amounts to refusing the idea of argument as
ethos. As in the case of the Foucault/Habermas “debate,” and in certain articulations of the new
cosmopolitanism, ethos in these alternate models is elevated above argument,
most visibly as a critique of reason and abstract universalism, but also, I shall argue,
as a model of difference that poses problems for democratic politics and
particularly for the fate of debate within it. In the Rawlsian model of overlapping
consensus (where people with fundamentally different conceptions of the good agree on political
principles but for different reasons) and in models of accommodation that have been proffered in
objection to what are seen as the deficiencies of the consensus models, there is an expectation of
fundamental, nonnegotiable disagreement among parties who nonetheless have an investment in
cohabiting within a pluralistic democratic state.
One of the more thoughtful critiques of Habermasian proceduralism along accommodationist
lines is that of Thomas McCarthy, who argues that Habermas's emphases on rational acceptance
and a cooperative search for truth intended to gain the assent of a universal audience are not
themselves the proper informing ideals of a discourse proceduralism enacted under the
“conditions of posttraditional pluralism and individualism.”23 McCarthy argues that Habermas
wants to prevent any skepticism about [end page 182] the possibility of ethicopolitical consensus
from undercutting the orientation to reasoned agreement on which he bases his conception of
legitimacy. For McCarthy, by contrast, participants need to recognize the possibility of reasoned
disagreements and then use this recognition to devise democratic procedures that will enable and
enhance coexistence. McCarthy therefore suggests that Habermas's organizing presuppositions,
which favor procedures meant to promote consensus and negotiated compromise, might be
foreclosing the possibility of devising a different order of proceduralism that would aim to
promote not agreement but rather mutual accommodation. He concludes, tantalizingly: “it would
be an important and interesting task to explore the logic of the ethical-political dialogue that
could produce such mutual accommodation and to elaborate its differences from the logics both
of truth-oriented discourse and of strategic, self-interested bargaining” (151).
In his reply to McCarthy's critique, Habermas refuses the concept of mutual accommodation that
McCarthy introduces. He entirely cedes the point that we must expect disagreement—an ideal of
argument presupposes this—and that this awareness should form part of reflective participation
in democratic debate. He then maps out three positions on dialogue under conditions of
pluralism, rejecting the first two and endorsing the third. The first position holds that it is
impossible to escape clashing horizons; when they encounter one another, the only possibility for
overcoming their differences is the assimilation of one to the other. The second position, which is
Rawls's, envisions an overlapping consensus (parties accept a consensus result for different
reasons).24 And the third position promotes the progressive expansion of horizons: beyond the
limit of their respective self-interpretations and world views, the different parties refer to a
presumptively shared moral point of view that, under the symmetrical conditions of discourse
and mutual learning, requires an ever broader decentering of perspectives. What Habermas
insists upon is the necessity that people accept regulating procedures elaborated with the goal of
coexistence for the same reasons. As he concludes, “We can agree to the mutual toleration of
forms of life and worldviews that represent existential challenges for each other only if we have a
basis of shared beliefs for 'agreeing to disagree.'”25
In the case of McCarthy, whose position is closer to Rawls's, the elaboration of those
virtues that would best express a goal of accommodation—[end page 183] tolerance,
respect—are elevated above any principle of shared reasons. This creates a
situation in which ethos, in the sense of an avowed form of ethical life, is somehow
allowed to cushion the participants against argumentative challenges, a
condition that Habermas is persistently concerned to disallow. In its most pronounced
form, such an approach risks collapsing argument into identity: here the
ineluctable fact of difference—whether radically conceived or more traditionally pluralist—
becomes the overriding reason for reasoned disagreement. But of course the
position that McCarthy advances need not be taken so far: read another way, there is a potential
similarity between McCarthy's position and the new cosmopolitanism, insofar as both locate a
virtue in refusing the insistence on explicit justification and rational agreement that we find in
Habermas. The logic of accommodation implies a willingness not to argue out every
last detail, but rather to exercise the tact that consists in recognizing that we
may differ. Nonetheless, it is important to recognize that accommodation here
operates as an attitude informing democratic practices that otherwise
still need to be based on procedures for ensuring open debate and
equitable forms of representation. These procedures can be refined and
debated themselves, but never suspended completely. Ethos in this view
does not replace or eclipse procedure, just as cosmopolitanism has the potential to
refine universalism through tact and phronesis, without disavowing its fundamental universalistic
principles.
2. Don’t attach special authority to insider accounts. Excluding the
perspectives of individuals without a particular experience or identity
impoverishes debate.
Bridges 1 — David Bridges, Director of the Centre for Applied Research in Education and
Professorial Fellow at the University of East Anglia, Chair of the Von Hügel Institute at St
Edmund's College Cambridge, holds a Ph.D. from the University of London, 2001 (“The Ethics of
Outsider Research,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 35, Issue 3, August, Available
Online to Subscribing Institutions via Academic Search Premier, p. 372-374)
II Only Insiders Can Properly Represent The Experience of a Community
First, it is argued that only those who have shared in, and have been part of, a
particular experience can understand or can properly understand (and perhaps
‘properly’ is particularly heavily loaded here) what it is like. You need to be a woman to
understand what it is like to live as a woman; to be disabled to understand what it is like to live as
a disabled [end page 372] person etc. Thus Charlton writes of ‘the innate inability of able-bodied
people, regardless of fancy credentials and awards, to understand the disability experience’
(Charlton, 1998, p. 128).
Charlton’s choice of language here is indicative of the rhetorical character which these arguments
tend to assume. This arises perhaps from the strength of feeling from which they issue, but it
warns of a need for caution in their treatment and acceptance. Even if able-bodied people have
this ‘inability’ it is difficult to see in what sense it is ‘innate’. Are all credentials ‘fancy’ or might
some (e.g. those reflecting a sustained, humble and patient attempt to grapple with the issues) be
pertinent to that ability? And does Charlton really wish to maintain that there is a single
experience which is the experience of disability, whatever solidarity disabled people might feel for
each other?
The understanding that any of us have of our own conditions or experience is unique and special,
though recent work on personal narratives also shows that it is itself multi-layered and
inconstant, i.e. that we have and can provide many different understandings even of our own lives
(see, for example, Tierney, 1993). Nevertheless, our own understanding has a special status: it
provides among other things a data source for others’ interpretations of our actions; it stands in a
unique relationship to our own experiencing; and no one else can have quite the same
understanding. It is also plausible that people who share certain kinds of experience in common
stand in a special position in terms of understanding those shared aspects of experience.
However, once this argument is applied to such broad categories as ‘women’ or
‘blacks’, it has to deal with some very heterogeneous groups; the different
social, personal and situational characteristics that constitute their individuality
may well outweigh the shared characteristics; and there may indeed be
greater barriers to mutual understanding than there are gateways.
These arguments, however, all risk a descent into solipsism: if our individual
understanding is so particular, how can we have communication with or any
understanding of anyone else? But, granted Wittgenstein’s persuasive argument against a
private language (Wittgenstein, l963, perhaps more straightforwardly presented in Rhees, 1970),
we cannot in these circumstances even describe or have any real understanding of our own
condition in such an isolated world. Rather it is in talking to each other, in
participating in a shared language, that we construct the conceptual apparatus
that allows us to understand our own situation in relation to others—and
this is a construction which involves understanding differences as well as
similarities.
Besides, we have good reason to treat with some scepticism accounts provided by
individuals of their own experience and by extension accounts provided by
members of a particular category or community of people. We know that such
accounts can be riddled with special pleading, selective memory, careless
error, self-centredness, myopia, prejudice and a good deal more. A lesbian
scholar illustrates some of the pressures that can bear, for example, on an insider researcher in
her own community: [end page 373]
As an insider, the lesbian has an important sensitivity to offer, yet she is also more
vulnerable than the non-lesbian researcher, both to the pressure from the heterosexual
world—that her studies conform to previous works and describe lesbian reality in terms
of its relationship with the outside—and to pressure from the inside, from Within the
lesbian community itself-that her studies mirror not the reality of that community but its
self-protective ideology. (Kreiger, 1982, p. 108)
In other words, while individuals from within a community have access to a
particular kind of understanding of their experience, this does not
automatically attach special authority (though it might attach special interest) to
their own representations of that experience. Moreover, while we might
acknowledge the limitations of the understanding which someone from outside a
community (or someone other than the individual who is the focus of the research) can
develop, this does not entail that they cannot develop and present an
understanding or that such understanding is worthless. Individuals can indeed find
benefit in the understandings that others offer of their experience in, for example, a counselling
relationship, or when a researcher adopts a supportive role with teachers engaged in reflection on
or research into their own practice. Many have echoed the plea of the Scottish poet, Robert Burns
(in ‘To a louse’):
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!3
—even if they might have been horrified with what such power revealed to them. Russell argued
that it was the function of philosophy (and why not research too?) ‘to suggest many possibilities
which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom… It keeps alive our sense of
wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect’ (Russell, 1912, p. 91). ‘Making the
familiar strange’, as Stenhouse called it, often requires the assistance of someone
unfamiliar with our own world who can look at our taken-for-granted
experience through, precisely, the eye of a stranger. Sparkes (1994) writes very much in
these terms in describing his own research, as a white, heterosexual middle-aged male, into the
life history of a lesbian PE teacher. He describes his own struggle with the question ‘is it possible
for heterosexual people to undertake research into homosexual populations’?’ but he concludes
that being a ‘phenomenological stranger’ who asks ‘dumb questions’ may be a
useful and illuminating experience for the research subject in that they may have
to return to first principles in reviewing their story. This could, of course be an
elaborate piece of self-justification, but it is interesting that someone like Max Biddulph, who
writes from a gay/bisexual standpoint, can quote this conclusion with apparent approval
(Biddulph, 1996).
3. If they win that it is impossible for outsiders to understand their
experience, it is also impossible for them to communicate their
argument effectively. Don’t exclude outsider scholarship.
Bridges 1 — David Bridges, Director of the Centre for Applied Research in Education and
Professorial Fellow at the University of East Anglia, Chair of the Von Hügel Institute at St
Edmund's College Cambridge, holds a Ph.D. from the University of London, 2001 (“The Ethics of
Outsider Research,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 35, Issue 3, August, Available
Online to Subscribing Institutions via Academic Search Premier, p. 374-375)
People from outside a community clearly can have an understanding of the
experience of those who are inside that community. It is almost [end page 374]
certainly a different understanding from that of the insiders. Whether it is of any value will
depend among other things on the extent to which they have immersed themselves in the world of
the other and portrayed it in its richness and complexity; on the empathy and imagination that
they have brought to their enquiry and writing; on whether their stories are honest, responsible
and critical (Barone, 1992). Nevertheless, this value will also depend on qualities derived
from the researchers’ externality: their capacity to relate one set of experiences
to others (perhaps from their own community); their outsider perspective on the
structures which surround and help to define the experience of the community;
on the reactions and responses to that community of individuals and groups
external to it. 4
Finally, it must surely follow that if we hold that a researcher, who (to take the favourable case)
seeks honestly, sensitively and with humility to understand and to represent the experience of a
community to which he or she does not belong, is incapable of such understanding and
representation, then how can he or she understand either that same experience as mediated
through the research of someone from that community? The argument which excludes the
outsider from understanding a community through the effort of their own
research, a fortiori excludes the outsider from that understanding through the
secondary source in the form of the effort of an insider researcher or indeed any
other means. Again, the point can only be maintained by insisting that a particular (and itself
ill-defined) understanding is the only kind of understanding which is worth having.
The epistemological argument (that outsiders cannot understand the experience
of a community to which they do not belong) becomes an ethical argument when
this is taken to entail the further proposition that they ought not therefore
attempt to research that community. I hope to have shown that this argument is based
on a false premise. Even if the premise were sound, however, it would not
necessarily follow that researchers should be prevented or excluded from
attempting to understand this experience, unless it could be shown that in so doing they
would cause some harm. This is indeed part of the argument emerging from disempowered
communities and it is to this that I shall now turn.
They Say: “Debate Is Dying Now”
No basis for their argument—two reasons:
1. Insufficient Data—no statistical analysis supports their
assertion. Factual questions require data-driven answers, not
politicized speculation.
2. Over-determination—even if they’re right, causation is
complicated and participation is relative. “Try-or-die” is an
inappropriate metaphor: debate will survive, but they’ve
misdiagnosed the problem.
We’ll straight turn their position:
First, progress now: urban participation is growing.
NAUDL 12 — National Association of Urban Debate Leagues, last updated in 2012 (“Urban
Debate QuickFacts,” Available Online at http://www.urbandebate.org/quickfacts.shtml, Accessed
04-05-2012)
Urban Debate Leagues (UDLs) currently exist in
24 of the nation's largest cities.
Currently over 500 urban high schools are part of the Urban Debate Network.
More than 40,000 urban public school students have competed in UDLs.
Policy debate is the most academically rigorous of all interscholastic speech activities and the
oldest, dating back to 1928, of all high school academic competitions. Policy debate develops core
academic skills: literacy, critical thinking, research, communication, organization, and supporting
of arguments.
UDLs can have a fundamental impact on participating schools. An Argumentation and Debate
course is offered at almost half of the schools in the Urban Debate Network. Curricular Debate, a
method that incorporates formal debating throughout the regular curriculum, is offered in several
districts.
UDLs promote education equity. Not only are they providing rigorous academic training to
students from all across participating cities, some of those urban public school students are
competing nationally and winning. UDLs have placed highly at state debate championships in
California, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York. UDL teams have been in the top 16
National Finalists on four separate occasions, placing 5th in the nation in 2003.
Debate training equips youth for future success. Former debaters are disproportionately
represented among leaders in the media, the business word, the law, the academy, and the
government. Nearly two out of three Members of the 104th U.S. Congress (1996-97) were former
debaters.
Urban debate is highly efficient and cost-effective as an out-of-school-time program. A full
academic season costs under $750 per student served, compared with an industry average of
nearly $1,500.
The commitment by urban public school districts to urban debate is substantial
and growing. Since 1997, approximately $11 million has been invested in
Urban Debate Leagues by school districts such as those in Baltimore, Detroit, St.
Louis, Seattle, Newark, Kansas City, and Chicago. Private partners have also
made significant, multi-million dollar investments in UDLs.
And participation is record-breaking and will continue to grow—
latest data.
NAUDL 12 — National Association of Urban Debate Leagues, 2012 (“National Association of
Urban Debate Leagues Winter 2012 Newsletter,” Winter, Available Online at
http://www.urbandebate.org/newsblastwinter12.shtml, Accessed 04-05-2012)
Urban debate is growing! This year our urban debate leagues are reporting
record-breaking participation at their tournaments. Congratulations to the
leagues in Boston, Dallas, and Nashville. In the last few months, these leagues have added more
than 250 high school students to the urban debate network. Today, 3,000 high school
students compete in urban debate leagues in nineteen cities. Our leagues are
also teaching debate to more than 900 middle school students. You can read more
about our leagues and their work in "Around the Leagues."
Here at the NAUDL we believe that urban debate must
continue to grow. Under
our new strategic plan, our goal is, in the next five years, to triple the number
of urban debaters. See the summary and link to Preparing Urban Youth to Lead in the 21st
Century. We were reminded why urban debate is so important a few months ago when Dr. Briana
Mezuk published her newest study. In her first study, published several years ago, Dr. Mezuk
found that urban debate leads to higher grades and test scores and better graduation rates. In her
second study, published in October, she found that urban debaters outperformed non-debaters,
even after controlling for the self-selection bias. See the article "Urban Debaters Better Prepared
for College" for a link to the complete study.
Unfortunately, doomsaying undermines progress toward greater
participation.
Habig 10 — Jason Habig, Speech and Debate Coach for Hathaway Brown School in Ohio,
serves as North Coast District Chairman in the National Forensic League, 2010 (“Assisted
Rhetorical Suicide: A Response to O’Rourke and the Future of Policy Debate in Ohio,” Rostrum,
Volume 84, Number 6, February, Available Online at
http://nflonline.org/uploads/Rostrum/0210_029_030.pdf, Accessed 04-05-2012, p. 29-30)
This leads to the biggest problem with O’Rourke’s objections to Policy Debate. For while he
correctly points to declining support for Policy Debate in Ohio, he completely
misunderstands its cause; because so many others uncritically accept his
analysis, O’Rourke’s arguments will only serve to feed people’s
misunderstandings about Policy and further weaken its support. When
you talk to Policy Debate coaches in Ohio about what is responsible for declining
numbers, answers include a lack of financial resources in a state that continues to
have an [end page 29] unconstitutional form of school funding, an increase in the number
of other, less time-consuming forensic options for students, a lack of
coaches willing to make the time commitment, and the strict limits on
school transportation more than 120 miles outside of our state lines. Yet when you
ask some non-Policy forensic coaches, they likely will respond with some of the
same straw man arguments that O’Rourke employs. This disconnect is
troubling because it illustrates a sharp division within our community and
perpetuates the myths and rumors about what “good” Policy Debate looks
like, which are killing support for the activity in Ohio. Moreover, O’Rourke’s
claim that Policy Debate is becoming the stomping ground of elite private schools
is sheer fiction, as almost 75 percent of the Policy Debate teams qualified to
Ohio’s state tournament in 2008 were public.2 Successful Urban Debate Leagues, many
with a Policy Debate focus, have been successful throughout the nation, and efforts
are underway to bring such a program to Cleveland. Organizations like the National Debate
Coaches Association have made lesson plans and prepared evidence for Policy Debate
free with universal access, beginning to eliminate some of the financial
barriers that have hampered Policy Debate in Ohio and nationwide. Clearly many
within the Policy Debate community are taking the steps necessary to
increase participation in the activity by addressing these real causes of the
activity’s contraction; the misunderstandings created by articles like O’Rourke’s
hinder this progress significantly.
And, the mere perception is enough—school districts and
administrations won’t support an activity if they perceive that it is
dying. “Sky is falling” predictions create a self-fulfilling prophecy of
declining participation.
And, the internal link only goes our way: external structural factors
determine participation, not format or style.
Hanes 7 — T. Russell Hanes, holds an M.S. in Communication Studies from Portland State
University, recipient of the IMPACT Coalition’s Legacy Award for his volunteer contributions to
the New York and Southern California Urban Debate Leagues, 2007 (“Popularizing Debate: An
Equity Strategy,” Rostrum, Volume 81, Number 6, February, Available Online at
http://nflonline.org/uploads/Rostrum/0207_069_070.pdf, Accessed 04-05-2012, p. 69)
Miller notes that the percentage of schools participating in debate has been declining for decades,
beginning back in the 1970s. (As just one example, Gary Fine notes a precipitous drop from 50%
of all Minnesota high schools down to 10% that competed in debate from the 1960s to 1990s.)1
Miller implies that the national-circuit style, which caught on at the high school level in the 1970s,
caused this decline. He criticizes several practices, arguing that the kinds of research used in
debate can turn kids away (especially minority students who feel no connection to academics and
political pundits) and positing that unrealistic impacts (such as nuclear war or genocide) distance
debaters from the real-world activism debate should foster. Instead, Miller advocates the use of
poetry, song lyrics, and personal narratives as alternative kinds of evidence and moves his teams
to a narratives style.
On the one hand, Miller presents a valid concern. If a coach finds that a certain style connects
with a student—especially if it is a student from a group currently under-represented in the
debate community—then it is reasonable for the coach to support that student’s needs and wants.
Students ought to feel personally invested in both the substance and style of their arguments. As
James Gee notes, students always begin learning about a subject in their “primary discourse”
(conversational language emphasizing an intimate connection), but education can help move
them into “secondary discourses” (academic languages that abstract and publicize an issue)— and
our society gives much greater credibility to second ary discourses.2 The detachment might be
greater in secondary discourses, but coaches ought to help students close that argumentative
distance. Narratives are best if used as a bridge between personally relevant stories and academic
research. Based on his descriptions, this is exactly what Mr. Miller did as a coach.
On the other hand, this analysis applies only to the retention of students. His analysis can
nothing about the retention of programs, and on this issue, neither his
say
explanation nor his solution squares with the facts. Why did speech-only
programs also decline to roughly the same degree? Why have LD and PF, both of
which explicitly rejected the national-circuit style, not reversed the decline in
NFL membership? A better explanation is that the 1970s saw the emergence of
the back-to-basics movement, which cut co-curricular speech classes, hired new
teachers of “basic” subjects while superannuating teachers of “extras” such as art
and debate, and generally denied the place of rhetoric in the liberal arts canon.
Programs folded, and never returned. The national circuit emerged in response
to these events but did not cause them, despite what Miller posits.
Neither a new style nor a new format will address the root causes of declining
NFL membership. Miller blames the debate community for creating exclusionary
norms around the activity, which is unfair because many of the pressures that limit
participation to a few well-to-do schools were given to the debate
community by inequalities in the education system as a whole. The style
of debate may affect which students participate—and increasing participation, especially minority
participation, is important to consider—but style does not affect how many schools
participate. There are substantive problems facing debate programs that no
amount of new rules are capable of solving. After all, the rules only determine what
happens in the round, not what the school district and principal do
before the tournament. In other words, I believe Miller overestimates how
many real world inequalities can be rectified with a new debate style or
theory.
Public Forum proves our argument—it is less progressive than policy
debate but participation is strong because it is cheaper and easier for
schools to support. High school administrators worry about funding,
not style.
Strongly err negative—their burden of proof is high: writing off
debate based on speculation about participation trajectory does a
disservice to all current and future participants. Judge-educators
invested in the long-term health of debate should be wary of “sky is
falling” predictions—hyperbolic rhetoric makes reasonable
discussion impossible.
They Say: “Black/Urban Youth Are Disinterested In
USFG Policies”
1. Urban youth aren't disinterested in policy. On balance, that's false
and essentializing. Embracing frameworks that oppose policy will be
a setback at the student and community level. We can win within
their framework.
Noguera and Cannella 6 — Pedro Noguera, Professor in the Steinhardt School of
Education and Director of the Metro Center for Research on Urban Schools and Globalization at
New York University, holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California-Berkeley, and
Chiara M. Cannella, Doctoral Student in the Department of Language, Reading, and Culture at
the University of Arizona, 2006 (“Conclusion: Youth Agency, Resistance, and Civic Activism: The
Public Commitment to Social Justice,” Beyond Resistance! Youth Activism and Community
Change: New Democratic Possibilities for Practice and Policy for America’s Youth, Edited by
Shawn Ginwright, Pedro Noguera, and Julio Cammarota, Published by Routledge, ISBN
0415952506, p. 342)
Principle 3: Invest in the Capacity of Youth Leaders
Involving youth in the processes of policy creation, implementation, and
evaluation requires youth to have experience in critical thinking, research,
social analysis, and problem solving. Urban youth have demonstrated both
the capacity and the inclination for these roles when they are supported by
effective educational and youth development strategies (Duncan-Andrade,
chapter 9, this volume; HoSang, chapter 1, this volume; Kwon, chapter 12, this volume; LewisCharp, Yu, & Soukamneuth, chapter 2, this volume; Strobel, Osberg, & McLaughlin, chapter 11,
this volume). But urban youth, especially recent immigrants and linguistic minorities, tend
to have fewer opportunities to learn and acquire experience to become active
as leaders in their communities (Sherrod, chapter 16, this volume). Without
deliberate training and education, youth are likely to lack the skills and
thinking required for effective civic participation. Poor urban
neighborhoods in particular tend to offer fewer opportunities for adolescents to
become involved in community organizations, to exercise leadership in their
schools, and to participate in multigenerational organizing efforts.
Effective youth programs build a scaffold for the development of the skills
necessary for young people to become activists and leaders in their
community. They also impart the skills, both analytical and academic, that
young people need to be able to critique conditions and policies that
adversely affect their lives (Kirshner, chapter 3, this volume; Morrell, chapter 7, this volume;
O’Donoghue, chapter 13, this volume). This scaffolding may include adult or youth
leaders modeling certain behaviors, such as how to speak in public, collect
signatures for a petition, organize a rally or write a press release. They also provide the young
people they work with the opportunity to reflect and process the work and activities they engage
in order to insure that they can learn from their experiences. Groups like the Children’s Defense
Fund and the Center for Third World Organizing also place young people with community-based
organizations where they can learn the nuts and bolts of organizing and leadership directly from
veterans. Such training
activities are crucial if young people are to develop the
skills needed to become leaders in their communities.
2. We critique their totalizing representations of politically alienated
urban youth. Even if some young people are cynical about policy
discourse, the aff has made a sweeping generalization that ignores
complexity and particularity. Vote neg to reject this essentialism.
Kirshner et al. 3 — Ben Kirshner, Doctoral Student in the Program in Child and Adolescent
Development at the School of Education at Stanford University, et al., with Karen Strobel, PostDoctoral Fellow at the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and their Communities at Stanford
University, holds a Ph.D. in Psychological Studies in Education from the School of Education at
Stanford University, and María Fernández, Liaison to Redwood City community partners
addressing community youth development, civic engagement, and school-family-community
partnerships for the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and their Communities at Stanford
University, 2003 (“Critical Civic Engagement Among Urban Youth,” Perspectives on Urban
Education, Volume 2, Issue 1, Spring, Available Online at
https://www.urbanedjournal.org/archive/volume-2-issue-1-spring-2003/critical-civicengagement-among-urban-youth, Accessed 07-16-2014)
While these analyses of the structural and institutional challenges to urban youth's
civic participation provide a necessary starting point, it is also important to pay
attention to young people's own interpretations of social context. How do young
people make sense of their social and political environment and its implications for their future?
Flanagan and Gallay (1995) write:
Rarely are [young people] asked to look outward, toward the community where they live,
and reflect on the justice of economic arrangements or of the political influence they
observe…we know little about the processes through which children come to understand,
challenge, or justify the political arrangements or economic practices of their society (p.
35).
Often, ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES) and geographically defined
neighborhoods are variables included in studies as indicators of the social context
in which adolescents are developing their civic identities. In this paper, we argue
that knowledge of adolescents' "social address"—while necessary—does not
provide sufficient understanding of youth experiences in that context;
this is not because we think that the structural analyses are wrong, but because
we believe youth's sense-making about social and political realities is a core
aspect of their development. Understanding how young people think about their
neighborhoods, schools, and communities is critical to supporting their capacity
to help build, shape or challenge the institutions in those settings.
Secondly, knowledge of youth's social awareness is important because it can give us
a more complex picture of what it means to be an "engaged citizen." Terms
such as "cynical," or "alienated" that are used to categorize broad
demographic groups misrepresent the complexity of youth's attitudes
towards their communities. Young people are often cynical and hopeful, or
both critical and engaged. Rosaldo (1997), for example, points out in his discussion of
"Latino cultural citizenship" that citizenship involves a discussion and struggle over the meaning
and scope of membership in the community in which one lives, which involves feelings of both
alienation and belonging. Sanchez-Jankowski (2002) makes a related point: because of historical
experiences of oppression and exclusion, some ethnic groups are more attuned to systemic
injustices, leading to distinct forms of civic involvement. For youth growing up in neighborhoods
and schools with insufficient resources, meaningful democratic participation often involves a
critical analysis of structural forces and power (Ginwright & James, 2002). This complex
process can be described as a critical form of civic engagement, in which youth's
civic participation is motivated by their own experience of pressing social
problems. A research approach that puts urban youth's meaning-making about
social context at the center can help to shed light on this complexity.
One promising arena for a better understanding of critical civic engagement lies
in the emerging phenomena of youth participation in social change. Amidst
concerns about the political disengagement of young people, researchers have begun to document
the growing prevalence of "youth action" (Forum for Youth Investment, 2001). For example,
youth groups have organized politically to achieve school reform goals, performed action research
to expose environmental polluters, and conducted program evaluation to improve city services for
youth (for a discussion see Forum for Youth Investment, 2001; Sherman, 2002). Programs like
these seek to empower youth who have been traditionally marginalized from
political participation. The way that youth are socially positioned in the groups
contrasts sharply with the typical public school, which rarely engages youth in
decision-making or privileges their voices in policy discourse (Gee, 2001; Mitra,
2002). Youth are expected to think critically, develop a sense of themselves as
agents of change, and learn how to act competently in the public arena.
Although practitioners have begun to promote this emerging field, there is little research
describing developmental processes in these settings or their significance for youth's development
as citizens (Rajani, 2001).
3. Their sweeping generalizations lack scholarly support. Studies
confirm the benefits of training opportunities that enable
marginalized youth to engage in public policy activism.
Lewis-Charp et al. 6 — Heather Lewis-Charp, Senior Associate and Social Scientist at
Social Policy Research Associates, holds an M.A. in Education Research from the University of
California-Santa Cruz, et al., with Hanh Cao Yu, Vice President and Senior Social Scientist at
Social Policy Research Associates, holds a Ph.D. in Education Administration and Policy Analysis
from Stanford University, and Sengsouvanh Soukamneuth, Social Scientist at Social Policy
Research Associates, holds an M.A. in Education Policy from the University of California-Los
Angeles, 2006 (“Civic Activist Approaches for Engaging Youth in Social Justice,” Beyond
Resistance! Youth Activism and Community Change: New Democratic Possibilities for Practice
and Policy for America’s Youth, Edited by Shawn Ginwright, Pedro Noguera, and Julio
Cammarota, Published by Routledge, ISBN 0415952506, p. 22)
Despite the emerging interest in youth action and political engagement, few
empirical studies exist in this area—particularly studies of youth in low-income
urban communities. Most research has focused on the benefits of traditional
forms of political engagement and/or community service (see Walker, 2002; Youniss
& Yates, 1997; Youniss & Yates, 1999). Few empirical studies have explicitly
explored the relationship between youth development and youth activism.
Emerging scholarly works on the development of an activist orientation and
sociopolitical capacity, however, have begun to lay the groundwork for a study in
this area. Watts, Williams, and Jagers (2003), for example, explore concepts relevant to
sociopolitical development among African American youth. Building on concepts from
community psychology, such as oppression, liberation, critical consciousness,
and culture, Watts et al. claim that sociopolitical development is a key process by
which individuals acquire the knowledge, analytical skills, and emotional
faculties necessary for participation in democratic processes and social
change efforts.
The study of civic activism we conducted and discuss in this chapter is one step
toward addressing this void in the research literature, as we focus explicitly on
the engagement of marginalized youth in social justice efforts. The study focuses
on the work of civic activism groups because of their applied strategy for
engaging youth as actors and “experts” on issues of public policy and
community concern. By supporting political skills and knowledge, civic
activism efforts support young people’s capacity to engage directly with
power brokers, decision makers, and institutions in their communities.
Such efforts have the potential to transform the capacity of families and
communities to provide for young people (Forum for Youth Investment, 2001). It is
through the politicized analysis of the inequitable contexts and policies
that shape young people’s day-to-day lives (schools, healthcare, public services, etc.) that
civic activism groups seek to promote the conditions for healthy youth
development.
4. Our critique of essentialism turns their critique of topicality.
Sweeping generalizations about urban youth are used to pathologize
and stigmatize already marginalized populations.
Noguera and Cannella 6 — Pedro Noguera, Professor in the Steinhardt School of
Education and Director of the Metro Center for Research on Urban Schools and Globalization at
New York University, holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California-Berkeley, and
Chiara M. Cannella, Doctoral Student in the Department of Language, Reading, and Culture at
the University of Arizona, 2006 (“Conclusion: Youth Agency, Resistance, and Civic Activism: The
Public Commitment to Social Justice,” Beyond Resistance! Youth Activism and Community
Change: New Democratic Possibilities for Practice and Policy for America’s Youth, Edited by
Shawn Ginwright, Pedro Noguera, and Julio Cammarota, Published by Routledge, ISBN
0415952506, p. 343-345)
Principle 5: Counter the Prevalence—and Impact—of Misconceptions and
Distortions About Youth
One aspect of accountability in public policy that is essential for advancing the
interests of low-income youth is a willingness to contradict the
misrepresentations and distortions that have been used to rationalize
targeting youth for punitive measures (HoSang, chapter 1, this volume) With the
tendency of the media to sensationalize reporting on crime and other social
issues, young people, especially poor youth of color, have often been subject to
negative characterizations and debilitating prejudice. There are numerous
examples of youth being [end page 343] portrayed as lazy and unmotivated to excel
academically, as prone to violence and gang activity, as morally depraved and
pathological (Giroux, 1996; Mahiri, 1997). Such images dominate popular media and
shape political understandings of how young people should be addressed through
policy. As Mike Males (1998; chapter 17, this volume) demonstrates, commonsense knowledge
about the rates and severity of youth crimes are woefully inaccurate. Yet such misconceptions
serve as the justification for punitive and coercive policies (Gin- wright & Cammarota, 2003;
HoSang, chapter 1, this volume).
For example, the willingness of several states to adopt high-stakes exams as a basis for
determining high school graduation without ensuring that all students have access to quality
education (i.e., competent teachers, schools that are adequately funded, etc.) is yet another
example of the way in which public policy scapegoat young people. The No Child Left Behind Act
(U.S. Department of Education, 2001) has resulted in a system of educational accountability in
which the only people who are really accountable for failure are those who lack political power
and influence—mainly students (Orfield, 2004), but also their underpaid and deprofessionalized
teachers. The fact that there is so little concern expressed over the casualties of these policies—
poor students, students who don’t speak fluent or academic English, students with learning
disabilities, and students who are consigned to the worst schools, all of whom are overrepresented
among those who fail—is perhaps the clearest indication that for many policy makers, some
students are expendable.
Youth researchers in this volume repeatedly demonstrate how many problems
commonly identified as characteristic of individual youth are in fact the result of
institutionalized racism, economic disadvantage, and ethnic, linguistic, and class
discrimination (HoSang, chapter 1; Lewis-Charp, Yu, & Soukamneuth, chapter 2; Strobel,
Osberg, & McLaughlin, chapter 11; Torre & Fine, chapter 15). Their work complements a
tremendous body of research on the degree to which hard work ensures academic achievement
for only some of our nation’s students (see, for example, Anyon, 1994).
This does not mean that young people should not be held responsible for poor
decisions when they make them. The other side of recognizing the potential of young
people to engage in actions that can change their circumstances is to also
acknowledge that they can take responsibility for their own behavior. Anything
less would be patronizing and would reflect an unwillingness to see youth as
individuals capable of participating in change. On one hand, this means we should not
make excuses for young people who prey upon others, who peddle drugs in their communities,
who behave irresponsibly and hurt others or themselves. On the other hand, it means that we
cannot be content to accept commonsense knowledge, but are responsible for
our understanding of the context of economic, educational, and cultural
disenfranchisement many youth face. It is also important that we not engage in
broad, sweeping generalizations about the nature of these problems such
that we that end up disparaging all minority or low-income youth, and
create [end page 344] unjust and counterproductive policies. By accepting
pathological characterizations of youth, especially nonwhite youth, that is
precisely what we have done. Policy makers must take the first step of
demanding and disseminating accurate representations of all of
America’s youth.
5. This is especially true in the context of debate. When sweeping
generalizations are accepted, students aren’t taken seriously when
they do actively participate in policy discourse.
Noguera and Cannella 6 — Pedro Noguera, Professor in the Steinhardt School of
Education and Director of the Metro Center for Research on Urban Schools and Globalization at
New York University, holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California-Berkeley, and
Chiara M. Cannella, Doctoral Student in the Department of Language, Reading, and Culture at
the University of Arizona, 2006 (“Conclusion: Youth Agency, Resistance, and Civic Activism: The
Public Commitment to Social Justice,” Beyond Resistance! Youth Activism and Community
Change: New Democratic Possibilities for Practice and Policy for America’s Youth, Edited by
Shawn Ginwright, Pedro Noguera, and Julio Cammarota, Published by Routledge, ISBN
0415952506, p. 333-334)
Each of the chapters in this book shows in different ways that despite a relative lack of
power and despite the ways in which young people are often marginalized and
maligned, youth—even those who are poor and disadvantaged—have the
potential to take action upon the forces that oppress, constrain, and limit their
lives. The authors remind us that this is possible even for young people deemed to be
“at risk,” who have low skills, who have been written off as unemployable and
uneducable. Despite the odds against them, under the right circumstances they
have the ability to critique the situations that restrict their lives, to articulate that
critique in verbal, written, and artistic form, and to move beyond critique by
taking action to assert and affirm their interests as individuals and as
members of families and communities. This volume documents the ways that youth are
redefining what constitutes civic engagement, as they create and assume powerful
roles as individuals and as members of families and communities. Given that young
people in urban areas are too often unfairly characterized as undisciplined and unmotivated—or
even worse, as delinquent, menacing and insolent—this may come as a revelation to many
readers. [end page 333]
To the extent that we are able to see beyond the stereotypes and
distortions that are perpetrated through the one-dimensional portraits of
urban youth frequently found in the media, then perhaps such a revelation may also
elicit a different set of perspectives on how to relate and respond to youth
when they act. Rather than responding to young people’s attempts to be heard
and taken seriously with fear, contempt, or condescension, more adults,
particularly those with power and authority, may find it possible to see in youth
agency the kernels of our future democracy. And this is not the type of
democracy that is limited to voting on designated dates, but the kind of
democratic practice that encourages social awareness, debate and active
participation in civic life.
They Say: “Conditionality Bad”/“ Topicality is a
Reverse Voting Issue”
1. Conditional Perspective-Taking Good — presenting multiple initial
positions in debates about racism is valuable. Openly exploring
opposing positions helps us determine which arguments are most
persuasive. Education theory confirms the value of antilogic and
dialectic as heuristics in discussions about race.
Inoue 5 — Asao B. Inoue, Ph.D. Candidate in English at Washington State University, currently
is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition in the English Department at Fresno State
University, 2005 (“The Epistemology of Racism and Community-Based Assessment Practice,”
Washington State University Ph.D. Dissertation, May, Available Online at
http://www.dissertations.wsu.edu/Dissertations/Spring2005/a_inoue_012205.pdf, Accessed
07-13-2014, p. 158-159)
Sophistic antilogic and a slightly altered version of dialectic, as heuristics, can be
quite beneficial to the writing classroom. Originally, these methods were meant for
education, and for the sophists, a way to invent arguments, not in an Aristotelian sense (i.e. to
discover the available means of persuasion), but in an explorative sense. It’s this second sense I
hold up as more profitable contemporary classrooms. As a set of heuristics, sophistic
pedagogy, particularly antilogic and dialectic method, asks students to play with
ideas and language in order to come closest to acceptable truth for a given
context, purpose, audience, and their currently understood ethical limits.
The practice of antilogic when married to a dialectical forum (as a
community of rhetors who vie for understanding) can also provide for ways in
which students can see past the god-trick in their own dispositions and the
common sense. However, for it to work as a critical pedagogy, the epistemology
of racism should be incorporated in order for students to see dispositions as
a part of habitus and common sense in discourse as rhetorical and social
structures that structure their very ways of seeing and believing. Additionally, it can
move away from discussions of relativism that many students will resist,
discussions that seem purely opinion-based that antilogic might seem to
encourage. Instead dialectic and antilogic can help students position
themselves at other locations in a network of ideas and subjectivies,
and thus see how consent and SR are structured into our lives, daily activities,
and discourse, even when good intentions suggest otherwise. To openly
explore opposing positions pushes us to reconsider our own vantage
points in the network, and thus they can work to help students better use the
epistemology of racism as a framework to see structurally. Antilogic
and dialectic also highlight a crucial aspect of the writing class: that it’s not only
about grammar, linguistic precision, correctness, or rules to learn, it’s also about learning to
be citizens, about the limits and horizons to our knowledge and ways of coming to
that knowledge, about revising our initial perspectives [end page 158] and
allowing for potential adjustments to them later on, and about finding a
critical space in which to make good decisions that work for the present and
future. In short, as I’ll discuss in chapter 4, the writing class is about assessing our
positions and ideas, as well as those of others, in critical ways that look for
structuring structures and address power relationships.
* SR = Structural Racism
We’ll explicitly clarify our terminology. Factually, “antilogic” means
“taking either side in an argument.”
Inoue 5 — Asao B. Inoue, Ph.D. Candidate in English at Washington State University, currently
is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition in the English Department at Fresno State
University, 2005 (“The Epistemology of Racism and Community-Based Assessment Practice,”
Washington State University Ph.D. Dissertation, May, Available Online at
http://www.dissertations.wsu.edu/Dissertations/Spring2005/a_inoue_012205.pdf, Accessed
07-13-2014, p. 143-144)
Protagoras had one of the earliest most coherent sophistic philosophies of nomos over physis, or
structured power relationships over inherent power relationships. This affected the debate over
the teachability of arête (discussed later in this chapter). The nomos-physis controversy and
Protagoras’ position in it is seen in his man-measure doctrine,83 but it can also be seen in his
philosophies on the teaching of rhetoric. Gutherie explains Protagorean teachings, saying
they were practical and based “largely on the art of persuasive speaking, training his
pupils to argue both sides of a case.” This practice of “taking either side in an
argument . . . was founded on theories of knowledge and being which constituted an
extreme reaction from the Eleatic antithesis of knowledge and opinion [episteme and doxa], the
one true the other false” (Gutherie 267). The practice of antilogic (“taking either side
in an argument”) was a heuristic that Protagoras perfected and taught his
pupils because it helped them find success in various contexts and with a
variety of audiences. Rhetorical success, thus, wasn’t about finding truth but
finding successful and persuasive arguments. While Protagoras advocates a
protreptic function for rhetoric,84 he’s less certain that one could know any kind of absolute truth
or justice (for the polis), instead he’s more confident in the articulation of persuasive doxa
(opinion), supported by observable nomos; thus, antilogic emphasizes the best that language can
offer us in the way of socially sanctioned knowledge. It’s an agnostic view towards truth, but not a
hopeless one, or one that leads to inaction. It is, in a way, a reaction to the need many politicians
and statesmen had in Athens at the time. One could haggle philosophically with others
indefinitely about what’s true or right, but for a state to run effectively and efficiently, decisions
need to be made quickly [end page 143] and actions taken from them. In a nomos-centered world,
the appeals that justified “the right” decisions needed more backing since rhetoric is more about
power relationships and not the articulation of absolute and divine “truth,” which could not be
questioned. In short, a sophist like Protagoras would be dangerous to the Greek state and the
power relationships it nurtured.
This is especially important in this competitive format because
students are risk-averse. Without a fallback option, negatives won’t
be willing to introduce new arguments. This discourages innovative
research.
2. Preemptive Forgiveness Good — their interpretation prevents
serious and honest conversations about race because it punishes
students for making mistakes and evolving their positions. It’s okay
to change one’s mind because of interactions during the debate.
Farr 14 — Arnold Farr, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky, holds a
Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Kentucky, 2014 (“Racialized Consciousness and
Learned Ignorance: Trying to Help White People Understand,” Exploring Race in Predominantly
White Classrooms: Scholars of Color Reflect, Edited by George Yancy and Maria del Guadalupe
Davidson, Published by Routledge, ISBN 9780415836692, p. 106-107)
The Disarming Power of Preemptive Forgiveness
The phenomenon of racialized consciousness combined with epistemologies of
ignorance,7 and atomistic individualism, makes it very difficult to explain,
discuss, and teach about race in predominantly White institutions. In the above
section, I have tried to explain this difficulty by examining some of the social mechanisms (e.g.,
habitus and racialized consciousness) as constitutive sources of learned ignorance and resistance.
Much more could be said about these mechanisms, but that would take us beyond the conspectus
of this chapter. My purpose in discussing them at all here is to reveal the social and psychological
disposition of the White student who is the recipient of the disclosure by the Black professor of
ongoing racism in the United States. Understanding the social and psychological
mechanisms that shape White, racialized consciousness and learned ignorance is
important for developing strategies for teaching White students about race.
My first teaching strategy I call "preemptive forgiveness." Preemptive
forgiveness is not the traditional Christian form of forgiveness, as in turning the
other cheek or pardoning someone after they've harmed you in some way. This
traditional form of forgiveness has been overused, and I would suggest that oppressed people be
less inclined to forgive. The purpose of preemptive forgiveness is to open a space
for free and honest conversations about racism and other forms of
oppression. In spite of Bill Clinton’s call, in the 1990s, to have a conversation about race, our
society has not yet learned to talk about race, due to White America’s obsession with comfort.
How many times have we been in conversation with well-intentioned, liberal White people who
become angry or claim to be uncomfortable when things get a bit too deep vis-à-vis race. These
people are fine with talking about race as long as we do not go deep enough to challenge their own
identity and privilege. Hence, even when we talk about race, the conversation ends up being
truncated and very superficial. There is a fear of offending someone or of saying the wrong thing.
When conversations about race begin to move beyond the superficial level,
people often back out. Conversations about race and racism are so difficult for White people
because of the pervasiveness of White denial; the reduction of [end page 106] racism to conscious,
intentional, individual forms of hatred and discrimination, and our failure to think structurally.
The result is that our students are completely unprepared to discuss or listen to
discussions about race. Even well-intentioned students who might be open to a
discussion about race often freeze up because they are afraid that they may
say the wrong thing.
Preemptive forgiveness opens the space for a candid conversation about
race. Before we enter the conversation, we recognize that, due to decades of
denial, we have been ill equipped for candid conversations about race. Due to
our lack of preparedness, it is a given that some people hold false assumptions
about race and racism. It is also a given that we will make mistakes and
perhaps offend someone (unintentionally) during the conversation.
Preemptive forgiveness is the act of forgiving one another in advance for the
inevitable mistakes that will occur during the conversation. I forgive my
students, they forgive one another, and they forgive me. With forgiveness in
place, we are now free to enter a conversation about race that goes well beyond
the typical superficial level.
Preemptive forgiveness has a disarming effect with regard to students and
faculty who might get defensive because they feel that they are being blamed for a form of
oppression that they may not be consciously committed to. With preemptive forgiveness,
all participants are put on an even playing field due to the recognition that we
have all been ill prepared by our society for a serious and honest
conversation about race.
This contextualizes to debate — it is a dialogic space where ideas
about race and racism can be exchanged and tested. Their
interpretation forecloses opportunities for learning and growth.
Glass 14 — Kathy Glass, Associate Professor of English and Director of Undergraduate Studies
at McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts at Duquesne University, holds a Ph.D. in
English from the University of California-San Diego, 2014 (“Race-ing the Curriculum: Reflections
on a Pedagogy of Social Change,” Exploring Race in Predominantly White Classrooms: Scholars
of Color Reflect, Edited by George Yancy and Maria del Guadalupe Davidson, Published by
Routledge, ISBN 9780415836692, p. 59)
Pedagogical Response and Concluding Thoughts
Given the sensitive nature of the issues discussed and the slipperiness of
language, the meaning of which cannot be guaranteed, I establish my classroom as a
space of respectful listening and learning. While the catchphrase "safe
space" could be invoked to describe my classroom, I prefer to use what I call a
"dialogic space" to make clear to students that they are free to ask questions
and to exchange ideas with me and their peers. They might not always feel
emotionally comfortable or "safe" during these encounters, as honest
participation requires some degree of vulnerability.
Designating the classroom as a non-punitive space where any one of us might
in fact misspeak while grappling with such sensitive issues as race, racism, and
other systems of oppression helps to create a more relaxed environment. In such
a context, misunderstanding and even disagreement can create opportunities
for learning and growth.