Limits 2NC
Basic limits are necessary to effective resistance –-- they govern deliberative democracy and are essential to prevent
violence and tyranny
Shively ‘2K
(Ruth Lessl, Assistant Prof Political Science – Texas A&M U., Partisan Politics and Political Theory, p.
184)
The point here is that in arguing—and the point holds equally for other forms of contest—we assume that it is possible to educate or
persuade one another. We assume that it is possible to come to more mutual understandings of an issue and that the participants in an
argument are open to this possibility. Otherwise, there is no point to the exercise; we are simply talking at or past one another. At this
point, the ambiguists might respond that, even if there are such rules of argument, they do not apply to the more subversive or radical
activities they have in mind. Subversion is, after all, about questioning and undermining such seemingly “necessary” or universal rules
of behavior. But, again, the response to the ambiguist must be that the practice of questioning and undermining rules, like all other
social practices, needs a certain order. The subversive needs rules to protect subversion. And when we look more closely at the
rules protective of subversion, we find that they are roughly the rules of argument discussed above. In fact, the rules of argument are
roughly the rules of democracy or civility: the delineation of boundaries necessary to protect speech and action from violence,
manipulation and other forms of tyranny. Earlier we asked how the ambiguists distinguish legitimate political behaviors, like
contest or resistance, from illegitimate behaviors, like cruelty and subjugation. We find a more complete answer here. The former are
legitimate because they have civil or rational persuasion as their end. That is, legitimate forms of contest and resistance seek to inform
or convince others by appeal to reasons rather than by force or manipulation. The idea is implicit in democracy because democracy
implies a basic respect for self-determination: a respect for people’s rights to direct their own lives as much as possible by their own
choices, to work and carry on relationships as they see fit, to participate in community and politics according to decisions freely made by
them rather than decisions forced on them, and so on. Thus, to say that rational persuasion is the end of political action is simply to
acknowledge that, in democratic politics, this is the way we show respect for others’ capacities for self-direction. In public debate, our
goal is to persuade others with ideas that they recognize as true rather than by trying to manipulate them or move them without their
conscious, rational assent.
Eliminating rules transforms competitive debate into ‘cooperative conversation’ --- this approach privileges dominant voices,
locking in exclusion and political alienation
Tonn ‘05
(Mari Boor, Professor of Communication – University of Maryland, “Taking Conversation, Dialogue,
and Therapy Public”, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Vol. 8, Issue 3, Fall)
Perhaps the most conspicuous effort at replacing public debate with therapeutic dialogue was President Clinton's Conversation on Race, launched in mid-1997. Controversial
from its inception for its ideological bent, the initiative met further widespread criticism for its encounter-group approaches to racial stratification and strife, critiques echoing
previously articulated concerns- my own among them6-that certain dangers lurk in employing private or social communication modes for public problem-solving.7
Since then, others have joined in contesting the treating of public problems with narrative and psychological approaches, which-in the name of
promoting civility, cooperation, personal empowerment, and socially constructed or idiosyncratic truths-actually work to contain dissent, locate
systemic social problems solely within individual neurosis, and otherwise fortify hegemony.8 Particularly noteworthy is Michael Schudson's challenge to the
utopian equating of "conversation" with the "soul of democracy." Schudson points to pivotal differences in the goals and architecture of conversational
and democratic deliberative processes. To him, political (or democratic) conversation is a contradiction in terms. Political deliberation entails a clear
instrumental purpose, ideally remaining ever mindful of its implications beyond an individual case. Marked by disagreement-even pain-democratic
deliberation contains transparent prescribed procedures governing participation and decision making so as to protect the timid or otherwise weak. In
such processes, written records chronicle the interactional journey toward resolution, and in the case of writing law especially, provide
accessible justification for decisions rendered. In sharp contrast, conversation is often "small talk" exchanged among family, friends, or
candidates for intimacy, unbridled by set agendas, and prone to egocentric rather than altruistic goals. Subject only to unstated "rules" such as turntaking and politeness, conversation tends to advantage the gregarious or articulate over the shy or slight of tongue.9 The events of 9/11, the onset of
war with Afghanistan and Iraq, and the subsequent failure to locate Iraqi weapons of mass destruction have resuscitated some faith in debate, argument,
warrant, and facts as crucial to the public sphere. Still, the romance with public conversation persists. As examples among communication scholars, Karlyn Kohrs
Campbell's 2001 Carroll C. Arnold Distinguished Lecture treated what she termed "the rhetoric of conversation" as a means to "manage controversy" and empower nondominant voices10; multiple essays in a 2002 special issue of Rhetoric & Public Affairs on deliberative democracy couch a deliberative democratic ideal in dialogic terms11;
and the 2005 Southern States Communication Convention featured family therapist Sallyann Roth, founding member and trainer of the Public Conversations Project, as
keynote speaker.12 Representative of the dialogic turn in deliberative democracy scholarship is Gerard A. Hauser and Chantal Benoit-Barne's critique of the traditional
procedural, reasoning model of public problem solving: "A deliberative model of democracy . . . constru[es] democracy in terms of participation in the ongoing conversation
about how we shall act and interact-our political relations" and "Civil society redirects our attention to the language of social dialogue on which our understanding of political
interests and possibility rests."13 And on the political front, British Prime Minister Tony Blair-facing declining poll numbers and mounting criticism of his indifference to
public opinion on issues ranging from the Iraq war to steep tuition hike proposals-launched The Big Conversation on November 28, 2003. Trumpeted as "as way of enriching
the Labour Party's policy making process by listening to the British public about their priorities," the initiative includes an interactive government website and community
meetings ostensibly designed to solicit citizens' voices on public issues.14 In their own way, each treatment of public conversation positions it as a democratic good, a mode
that heals divisions and carves out spaces wherein ordinary voices can be heard. In certain ways, Schudson's initial reluctance to dismiss public conversation echoes my own
early reservations, given the ideals of egalitarianism, empowerment, and mutual respect conversational advocates champion. Still, in the spirit of the dialectic ostensibly
underlying dialogic premises, this essay argues that various negative consequences can result from transporting conversational and therapeutic paradigms into
public problem solving. In what follows, I extend Schudson's critique of a conversational model for democracy in two ways: First, whereas
Schudson primarily offers a theoretical analysis, I interrogate public conversation as a praxis in a variety of venues, illustrating how
public "conversation" and "dialogue" have been coopted to silence rather than empower marginalized or dissenting voices. In practice, public conversation
easily can emulate what feminist political scientist Jo Freeman termed "the tyranny of structurelessness" in her classic 1970 critique of
consciousness- raising groups in the women's liberation movement,15 as well as the key traits Irving L. Janis ascribes to "groupthink."16
Thus, contrary to its promotion as a means to neutralize hierarchy and exclusion in the public sphere, public conversation can and has accomplished the
reverse. When such moves are rendered transparent, public conversation and dialogue, I contend, risk increasing rather than diminishing political
cynicism and alienation. [Continues…] This widespread recognition that access to public deliberative processes and the ballot is a baseline of any genuine
democracy points to the most curious irony of the conversation movement: portions of its constituency. Numbering among the most fervid dialogic loyalists have been some
feminists and multiculturalists who represent groups historically denied both the right to speak in public and the ballot. Oddly, some feminists who championed the slogan
"The Personal Is Political" to emphasize ways relational power can oppress tend to ignore similar dangers lurking in the appropriation of conversation and dialogue in public
deliberation. Yet the conversational model's emphasis on empowerment through intimacy can duplicate the power networks that traditionally excluded females and nonwhites
and gave rise to numerous, sometimes necessarily uncivil, demands for democratic inclusion. Formalized participation structures in deliberative processes obviously
cannot ensure the elimination of relational power blocs, but, as Freeman pointed out, the absence of formal rules leaves relational power unchecked and
potentially capricious. Moreover, the privileging of the self, personal experiences, and individual perspectives of reality intrinsic in the conversational paradigm mirrors
justifications once used by dominant groups who used their own lives, beliefs, and interests as templates for hegemonic social premises to oppress women, the lower class, and
people of color. Paradigms infused with the therapeutic language of emotional healing and coping likewise flirt with the type of psychological diagnoses once ascribed to
disaffected women. But as Betty Friedan's landmark 1963 The Feminist Mystique argued, the cure for female alienation was neither tranquilizers nor attitude adjustments
fostered through psychotherapy but, rather, unrestricted opportunities.102
Rules are necessary to give discussions direction and closure --- the alternative is endless talking that does nothing to
combat structural oppression
Tonn ‘05
(Mari Boor, Professor of Communication – University of Maryland, “Taking Conversation, Dialogue,
and Therapy Public”, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Vol. 8, Issue 3, Fall)
Second, whereas Schudson focuses largely on ways a conversational model for democracy may mute an individual's voice in crafting a
resolution on a given question at a given time, I draw upon insights of Dana L. Cloud and others to consider ways in which a therapeutic,
conversational approach to public problems can stymie productive, collective action in two respects.17 First, because conversation has no clearly defined goal,
a public conversation may engender inertia as participants become mired in repeated airings of personal experiences without a mechanism to lend such
expressions direction and closure. As Freeman aptly notes, although "[u]nstructured groups may be very effective in getting [people] to talk
about their lives[,] they aren't very good for getting things done. Unless their mode of operation changes, groups flounder at the point where
people tire of 'just talking.'"18 Second, because the therapeutic bent of much public conversation locates social ills and remedies within
individuals or dynamics of interpersonal relationships, public conversations and dialogues risk becoming substitutes for policy formation
necessary to correct structural dimensions of social problems. In mimicking the emphasis on the individual in therapy, Cloud warns, the
therapeutic rhetoric of "healing, consolation, and adaptation or adjustment" tends to "encourage citizens to perceive political issues, conflicts, and
inequities as personal failures subject to personal amelioration."19
Wrong --- “resolved” followed by a colon reflects a legislative forum like the government --- that’s our Army Officer School
evidence. Prefer our interpretation --A) Most contextual --- their’s confuses ‘resolved’ as a statement of action for a Resolution --- a formal legislative process.
Ignoring resolutional context justifies throwing out the whole topic altogether
Heidt ‘05
(David, Debate Coach – Emory U., “Re: [eDebate] Re: Zomp and James”, 4-8,
http://www.mail-archive.com/edebate@ndtceda.com/msg32084.html)
Its not a framer's intent argument. Its a context argument. The interpretations of "resolved" that speak to people's ability to personally get off about the topic
are stupid (really) b/c they assume "resolved" in the context of a specific agent--ie, "I am resolved to never post on edebate again"--which is different
from "Resolved: I should never post on edebate again". The first is a statement of action. The second is a resolution. "Resolved" in the context of a
debate topic just means that the community expressed an opinion by voting for a topic.from dictionary.com: 3. A formal resolution
made by a deliberative body. Or here's more ev from the Lousiana House: http://house.louisiana.gov/house-glossary.htm 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) The debate community is
obviously not the legislative body this evidence refers to, but I doub't you'll come up with another definition of "resolved" that both applies it to the
resolutional context and even comes close to an alternate interpretation. This is clearly the origin of the word. Now, you can maybe make
the argument that context doesn't matter, that we should all make up our own interpretations of what words mean because that's truly
liberating, and that you really need to prefer our interpretation b/c its vital to our ability to topically defecate in debate--but any
determination that context doesn't matter is also a determination to just ignore the topic altogether. The same reasons to prefer your alternate interpretation of
resolved easily justify preferring an alternate, made up interpretation of any other word in the topic. I guess when you say that most no plan teams you've
seen are topical, you must really mean that these no plan teams just assert they're germane to the topic b/c at one point they said the word "energy", or
maybe just "the", or that they're topical b/c "U.S." means "us" or "resolved" means "ignore everything after the colon". They may have an outrageous
interpretation of certain words, but that doesn't make them topical.
B) Predictable --- every debate practice supports our interpretation
Parcher ‘01
(Jeff, Former Debate Coach – Georgetown, February, http://www.ndtceda.corn/archives/2001
02/0790.html)
(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 constituent parts See Syns at *analyze* (emphasis in original) 4. Find a solution
to. See Syns at *Solve* (emphasis in original) 5. To dispel: resolve a doubt. - n 1. Firmness 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 statement of a decision, as by a legislature. (3) The resolution is obviously a question. Any other conclusion is utterly
inconceivable. 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 desirability 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 committee somewhere to adopt their own group resolution. It's not the end point of
a resolution adopted by a body - it's the preliminary 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.
AT: Narratives Good
Policy-oriented and research-intensive debate is critical to empower minority students
Warner and Bruschke ‘01
(Ede, Professor – U Louisville and Jon, Professor – Cal State Fullerton, “’Gone on Debating’:
Competitive Academic Debate as a Tool of Empowerment in Urban America”)
Education has long been a key facet of empowerment. Galston (1996) has firmly located education at the center of empowerment: “For many
younger Americans, empowerment comes through post-secondary education and advanced training” (p. 60). “Education” is not a static variable,
however, and there can be little doubt that the type of education one receives (both its content and its means of transmission) makes a
profound difference. What are the characteristics of an empowering education? The possibilities are, of course, multifaceted, and to
capture the richness of the concepts we quote Ira Shor (1992) at some length here: Empowering education invites students to become skilled
workers and thinking citizens who are also change agents and social critics. Giroux (1988) described this as educating students “to fight for a
quality of life in which all human beings benefit.” He went on to say, “Schools need to be defended, as an important public service that
educates students to be critical citizens who can think, challenge, take risks, and believe that their actions will make a difference in the
larger society” (214). Further, McLaren (1989) discussed the pedagogy as “the process which students learn to critically appropriate
knowledge existing outside their immediate experience in order to broaden their understanding of themselves, the world, and the
possibilities for transforming the taken-for-granted assumptions about the way that we live” (186). Banks (1991) defined empowerment
in terms of transforming self and society: “A curriculum designed to empower students must be transformative in nature and help students to
develop the knowledge, skills, and values needed to become social critics who can make reflective decisions in effective personal, social, political,
and economic action” (131). (pp. 16-17). Beyond the curricular issues, the manner in which education is conducted should be
empowering. In contrast to the traditional, top-down, and lecture-oriented model of educational communication, an empowering
classroom must see student growth as “an active, cooperative, and social process” (Shor, 1992, p. 15). Friere (1993) has taken a similar
view and criticized what he deems “narrative sickness” in our schools. Broken down, this compendium of definitions include at least
three requirements for an empowering education. First, students must learn to engage knowledge in a critical way. They must be able
to listen carefully to a point of view, examine its strong and weak points in a dialectical way, and then choose for themselves their own
beliefs about a subject. They must “approach received wisdom and the status quo with questions” (Shor, 1992, p. 17). Second, they
must be social critics. Essentially, they must apply the same dialectical stance toward the world they live in and the public policies they
are asked to live by and participate in enacting. Third, students must agents of change who are willing to take risks, and believe that those actions
can make a difference. Ostensibly, the more comfortable students are in participating with the systems that produce change the more willing they will be as
risk takers and change agents. Running through all themes is a critical approach, a dialectical thinking process whereby students develop
“habits of inquiry and critical curiosity” (Shor, 1992, p. 15). In sum, empowerment is the ability to change one’s own life and one’s
community, empowerment occurs at both individual and community levels, and the most crucial role education can play in relation to
empowerment is teaching students the skills of critical intellectual engagement. What remains is to discover how academic debate fits into this
scheme of empowerment. [Continues…]
Academic debate facilitates the development of students as social critics because of its policy oriented and research intensive nature. Although learning
to think dialectically certainly might have some transferable skill that would allow students to evaluate questions of governance, no such
transfer is even necessary. Students are directly debating questions of policy, and evaluating the effectiveness, morality, and desirability of
different governmental actions and the possibility of non-governmental alternatives. Because all debates begin with an affirmative
indictment of the status quo, all policy debates invoke questions of what the current social order is like and how it can be improved.
Even when negative, students may offer “counter-plans” that provide alternative policy arrangements or philosophical critiques that ask
the judge to “re-think” social orders and evaluate the affirmative plan in that new light. The research intensive nature of debate facilitates all
these processes, and not only requires that students develop a broad base of knowledge about particular policy questions but also teaches them how to obtain
knowledge on any policy question that they encounter. Debate teaches students to become agents of change and risk takers because of its competitive, timepressured, and interscholastic nature. Because debate is competitive, it can be terrifying. Students must engage in a public speaking event,
then face the challenges of their opponent, and then immediately receive evaluation by a judge. Students who can face and overcome
those challenges and those fears are seldom afraid of public dialogue in any other context, be it a political rally, city board meeting,
electoral campaign, legal proceeding, or town hall meeting. The time pressured nature of the activity adds another element of challenge
which, when mastered, makes other public discourse seem mundane by comparison. Finally, the interscholastic nature of debate makes
students comfortable in dialogues with others of different backgrounds. Although there is no single, easy solution to the problem of
confronting an institution controlled by someone that “we do not know and whose values we often do not share,” debate at least gives
students the experience of competing against someone from a different socioeconomic level.
Instrumental Affirmation Good
Rigged game --- the Aff will always win their ideas are good in the abstract --- only when tied to concrete policy applications
can real debate begin
Ignatieff ‘04
(Michael, Professor of Human Rights – Harvard, Lesser Evils, p. 20-1)
As for moral perfectionism, this would be the doctrine that a liberal state should never have truck with dubious moral means and should
spare its officials the hazard of having to decide between lesser and greater evils. A moral perfectionist position also holds that states
can spare their officials this hazard simply by adhering to the universal moral standards set out in human rights conventions and the
laws of war. There are two problems with a perfectionist stance, leaving aside the question of whether it is realistic. The first is that
articulating nonrevocable, nonderogable moral standards is relatively easy. The problem is deciding how to apply them in specific
cases. What is the line between interrogation and torture, between targeted killing and unlawful assassination, between preemption and
aggression? Even when legal and moral distinctions between these are clear in the abstract, abstractions are less than helpful when
political leaders have to choose between them in practice. Furthermore, the problem with perfectionist standards is that they contradict
each other. The same person who shudders, rightly, at the prospect of torturing a suspect might be prepared to kill the same suspect in a
preemptive attack on a terrorist base. Equally, the perfectionist commitment to the right to life might preclude such attacks altogether
and restrict our response to judicial pursuit of offenders through process of law. Judicial responses to the problem of terror have their
place, but they are no substitute for military operations when terrorists possess bases, training camps, and heavy weapons. To stick to a
perfectionist commitment to the right to life when under terrorist attack might achieve moral consistency at the price of leaving us
defenseless in the face of evildoers. Security, moreover, is a human right, and thus respect for one right might lead us to betray another.
And effective engagement with government policy is key to prevent atrocities.
Boggs 97 (Carl Boggs, The great retreat: Decline of the public sphere in late twentieth-century America National University, Los Angeles Theory and
Society 26: 741-780
The decline of the public sphere in late twentieth-century America poses a series of great dilemmas and
challenges. Many ideological currents scrutinized here - localism, metaphysics, spontaneism, postmodernism, Deep Ecology - intersect with and reinforce each other. While these currents have deep origins in popular movements
of the 1960s and 1970s, they remain very much alive in the 1990s. Despite their different outlooks and trajectories, they all share one thing in
common: a depoliticized expression of struggles to combat and over- come alienation. The false sense of
empowerment that comes with such mesmerizing impulses is accompanied by a loss of public engagement,
an erosion of citizenship and a depleted capacity of individuals in large groups to work for social change. As this
ideological quagmire worsens, urgent problems that are destroying the fabric of American society will go
unsolved - perhaps even unrecognized - only to fester more ominously into the future. And such problems (ecological crisis, poverty,
urban decay, spread of infectious diseases, technological displacement of workers) cannot be understood outside the larger
social and global context of internationalized markets, finance, and communications. Paradoxically, the widespread retreat from politics, often
inspired by localist sentiment, comes at a time when agendas that ignore or side- step these global realities
will, more than ever, be reduced to impotence. In his commentary on the state of citizenship today, Wolin refers to the
increasing sublimation and dilution of politics, as larger numbers of people turn away from public concerns
toward private ones. By diluting the life of common involvements, we negate the very idea of politics as a
source of public ideals and visions.74 In the meantime, the fate of the world hangs in the balance. The unyielding
truth is that, even as the ethos of anti-politics becomes more compelling and even fashionable in the United States, it
is the vagaries of political power that will continue to decide the fate of human societies. This last point demands
further elaboration. The shrinkage of politics hardly means that corporate colonization will be less of a reality, that
social hierarchies will somehow disappear, or that gigantic state and military structures will lose their hold
over people's lives. Far from it: the space abdicated by a broad citizenry, well-informed and ready to
participate at many levels, can in fact be filled by authoritarian and reactionary elites - an already familiar
dynamic in many lesser- developed countries. The fragmentation and chaos of a Hobbesian world, not very far
removed from the rampant individualism, social Darwinism, and civic violence that have been so much a part of the American landscape, could be the
prelude to a powerful Leviathan designed to impose order in the face of disunity and atomized retreat. In this
way the eclipse of politics might set the stage for a reassertion of politics in more virulent guise - or it might help further rationalize the existing power structure.
In either case, the state would likely become what Hobbes anticipated: the embodiment of those universal,
collective interests that had vanished from civil society.
Debating about the state does not mean capitulating to it --- discussing government policy creates critical understanding that
facilitates resistance against its worst abuses
Donovan and Larkin ‘06
(Clair and Phil, Australian National University, Politics, Vol. 26, No. 1)
We do not suggest that political science should merely fall into line with the government instrumentalism that we have identified, becoming a 'slave social
science' (see Donovan, 2005). But, we maintain that political scientists should be able to engage with practical politics on their own terms and should be able to
provide research output that is of value to practitioners. It is because of its focus on understanding, explanation, conceptualisation and classification that political
science has the potential to contribute more to practical politics, and more successfully. As Brian Barry notes, 'Granting (for the sake of argument) that [students of
politics] have some methods that enable us to improve on the deliverances of untutored common sense or political journalism, what good do they do? The answer to that
question is: not much. But if we change the question and ask what good they could do, I believe that it is possible to justify a more positive answer' (Bany, 2004, p. 22). A clear
understanding of how institutions and individuals interact or how different institutions interact with each other can provide clear and useful insights that
practitioners can successfully use, making - or perhaps remaking - a political science that 'directs research efforts to good questions and enables incremental
improvements to be made' (ibid., 19). In this sense, political science already has the raw material to make this contribution, but it chooses not to utilise it in this way: no
doubt, in part, because academics are motivated to present their findings to other academics and not the practitioners within the institutions they study.
This is even more important for people that don’t become policymakers.
Keller ‘01
(Thomas, Professor of Social Work Education, Journal of Social Work Education, Spring/Summer)
Experiential learning, in the form of the practicum placement, is a key element in social work education. However, few social work
students enroll in political or policy oriented practicum. In a survey of 161 CSWE-accredited programs (131 BSW, 30 MSW), Wolk and
colleagues (1996) found that less than half offered practice in government relations (BSW=20%, MSW=47%) and even fewer had
placements in policy advocacy/development (BSW=15%, MSW=33%). Moreover, programs typically reported only one or two students
participating in these types of placements, with the largest representation at a single school being 9 out of 250 MSW students (Wolk et
al., 1996). Because few students receive policy-related field education, introducing students to policy relevant skills and experiences via active learning exercises in
the classroom assumes greater importance. Bonwell and Eison (1991) describe the general characteristics of active learning in the classroom:
Students are involved in more than listening. Less emphasis is placed on transmitting information and more on developing students'
skills. Students are involved in higher-order thinking (analysis, synthesis, evaluation). Students are engaged in activities. Greater
emphasis is placed on students' exploration of their own attitudes and values. (p. 2) Experiential learning in the classroom may involve case
studies, role plays, debates, simulations, or other activities that allow students to make connections among theory, knowledge, and experience (Lewis &
Williams, 1994). These active learning strategies encourage students to think on their feet, to question their own values and responses to situations, and to
consider new ways of thinking in contexts which they may experience more intensely and, consequently, may remember longer (Meyers &
Jones, 1993).
Avoiding a discussion of praxis is not an innocent choice—it is a strategic decision that is
utilized by supposed anti-establishment rhetors like the former Grand Wizard of the KKK,
David Duke, in his run for governor of Louisiana
Aden, Assistant Professor at Ohio University, 1994
( Roger "The enthymeme as postmodern argument form: Condensed, mediated argument then and now."
Argumentation & Advocacy 31, no. 2: 54. Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost)
In a postmodern age, elements of an argument can be omitted easily since audience members possess and/or
believe in a larger number of"commonly accepted facts" (or, "already said fragments"). Moreover,
enthymemes--especially in postmodern cultures--encourage individual interpretations, As Medhurst and
DeSousa illustrate in their analysis of the enthymematic nature of political cartoons, individuals create their
own understandings of these abbreviated forms of public argument. And, as most public arguments in a
postmodern age must be condensed to be carried by mediated channels, it stands to reason that public figures
rely on audience members "filling in the blanks" of these abbreviated arguments. Thus, audiences in
postmodern cultures process public arguments, in theory, much the same as Aristotle suggested that classical
audiences processed public arguments. Speakers offer arguments that use already accepted notions as
foundations, knowing that audiences will take these notions for granted in constructing their understandings of
the arguments. While Aristotle may have envisioned more interpretive convergence in his less complex culture,
the process of comprehending public arguments in classical and postmodern cultures appears to be remarkably
similar in theory.To test this theory in practice, I examine David Duke's use of enthymeme in his 19 May 1989,
appearance on the Donahue television show shortly after his election to the Louisiana State Assembly.[1]
DAVID DUKE'S ENTHYMEME David Duke relies on a number of cultural factors in constructing his
enthymeme. First, he recognizes that a number of voters harbor strong prejudices toward people different than
themselves. James J. Brady, chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party told the New York Times during Duke's
1991 gubernatorial campaign: "Part of his vote is just a hard-core racist vote where if there was some candidate
further to the right of Duke they'd be with him. That's probably 30 percent of his vote" (Toner A7). Second,
Duke's constant bashing of welfare programs and affirmative action appeals to economically-frustrated
working class white voters (Toner A1). Pollster Stan Greenberg, for instance, reported finding during the
gubernatorial campaign, "great frustration among white men who have not gone to college, whose incomes are
dropping in real terms . . ." (Toner A1). Finally, Duke's "candor" in discussing his beliefs sets him off as
something of an anti-establishment figure. "GOP consultant Jim Innocenzi says Duke's success is no
aberration. 'Everybody knows everything they want to know about Duke . . . from his sex life to face lift, and
they don't care,' he says. 'Things are so bad down there that regardless of everything, he at least represents a
change'" (Nichols, 1A; ellipses original). Duke's success in planting himself in anti-establishment soil, I argue,
is directly related to the first and second factors listed in the previous paragraph, for the establishment against
which Duke rails is the government-sponsored program of incentives to promote equality. His antiestablishment rhetorical appeal is actually a sophisticated enthymeme that combines elements of populism,
white supremacy, victimage, and mortification. On one level, Duke displays himself as a champion of the
common person (populism) by attacking government programs like affirmative action and welfare which
supposedly limit economic opportunities for whites (victim-age). At a second level, Duke's attacks on minoritytargeted programs like welfare and affirmative action, along with his pride in his white heritage, promote
prejudice (white supremacy) but he also accepts the blame for white supremacist feelings by repudiating the
KKK and calling his past a "youthful indiscretion" (mortification). Together, these strategies constitute an
enthymeme that allows Duke to appeal to prejudice without overtly doing so.
C) We must reject this logic to prevent the worst forms of aversive racism that go unchallenged
throughout society.
Aden, Assistant Professor at Ohio University, 1994
( Roger "The enthymeme as postmodern argument form: Condensed, mediated argument then and now."
Argumentation & Advocacy 31, no. 2: 54. Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost)
The Enthymeme. Because Duke's rhetoric features subjects deeply ingrained in the American psyche--ethnic
origin, work ethic, government's role in society, etc.--I argue that he creates an enthymeme that omits both a
generalization and an inference. Observation: Government actions, especially welfare and affirmative action,
hurt whites economically and socially. Generalization: Minorities are the cause, and recipients, of these
government programs. Inference: Minorities are the cause of the social and economic problems suffered by
whites. I claim that Duke's overall message is an enthymeme because he, like most Americans, must know that
some members of his target audience of white voters will supply the missing generalization and inference. The
generalization is accepted as true by many white voters, especially those younger voters who do not possess
knowledge of the context that led to the establishment of these programs. Even older white voters can easily
acknowledge that minorities "cause" these government programs to continue since the civil rights movement
supposedly accomplished its objectives with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 over a quarter of a
century ago. Recent debate over affirmative action, for instance, seems to center on whether it has made up for
past prejudice rather than whether it is needed to prevent present prejudice. The inference, then, is a logical
conclusion if one accepts as true the observation and generalization so Duke need not utter it. Thus, Duke's
only chore in constructing this enthymeme is to persuade his potential supporters of the truth of the
observation. Since observations require the smallest inferential leap among the parts of an enthymeme, and
since dissatisfied white voters are looking for populist explanations of their economic condition that provide
outside entities as scapegoats, Duke's observation--and enthymeme--likely find a receptive audience. With
voters young and old, Duke relies on the "already said" to provide both the political cover he desires and the
political response he craves. The political advantages of the enthymeme are numerous. Initially, Duke can
appeal to frustrated white voters by illuminating an entity to blame for their current problems while offering a
populist-tinged hope for the future. Next, he can appeal to latent and manifest prejudice without creating voter
discomfort over their bigotry-tinged votes. Voters can resolve any cognitive dissonance in favor of highmindedness: they are rebelling against government programs not people; they are not articulating the
prejudicial inference of the enthymeme--it remains unstated; and Duke has accepted any remaining blame
through mortification. Third, Duke assumes little political risk. He does not state the controversial portions of
his enthymeme. He is not forced to argue the inferential leaps between its parts and thus risk exposure. He can
also deny white supremacy because he has employed mortification. "And by the way, is David Duke creating
the polarization [between ethnic groups], or are these unfair policies of racial discrimination--massive racial
discrimination sponsored by the government against white people--is that what's causing the polarization?"
Duke ingenuously queries the Donahue audience (Donahue 10).
SSD Good
Benefits of switching sides comparatively outweigh its drawbacks
Muir ‘93
(Star, Professor of Communication – George Mason U., “A Defense of the Ethics of Contemporary
Debate”, Philosophy & Rhetoric, Vol. 26, No. 4, p. 292)
Contemporary debate, even in the context of a vigorous defense, does have its drawbacks. It tends to overemphasize logic and tactics and to
downplay personal feelings; it is by nature competitive, and therefore susceptible to competitive impulses and techniques (such as rapid speaking
and a multiplicity of arguments); and it can desensitize debaters to real human problems and needs through continual labeling and
discussion of abstract issues on paper. These problems, however, are more than matched by the conceptual flexibility, empathy, and familiarity with
significant issues provided by switch-side debate.
Switch-side debate develops a unique educational flexibility --- arguing both sides allows students to see the interconnection
between varied subjects
Muir ‘93
(Star, Professor of Communication – George Mason U., “A Defense of the Ethics of Contemporary
Debate”, Philosophy & Rhetoric, Vol. 26, No. 4, p. 282-5)
The debate over moral education and values clarification parallels in many ways the controversy over switch-side debate. Where values clarification
recognizes no one set of values, debate forces a questioning and exploration of both sides of an issue. Where cognitive-development emphasizes
the use of role playing in the inception of moral judgment, debate requires an empathy for alternative points of view. Where discussion provides an opportunity for expressions
of personal feelings, debate fosters an analytic and explicit approach to value assessment. Freelev describes the activity this way: Educational debate provides an opportunity
for students to consider the significant problems in the context of a multivalued orientation. They learn to look at a problem from many points of view. As debaters analyze the
potential affirmative cases and the potential negative cases, including the possibility of negative counterplans, thev being to realize the complexity of most contemporary
problems and to appreciate the worth of a multivalucd orientation; as they debate both sides of a proposition under consideration, they learn not only
that most problems of contemporary affairs have more than one side but also that even one side of a proposition embodies a
considerable range of values. The comparison between moral education and debate is useful because it contextualizes the process of moral development within an
educational setting. Several objections have been raised about the practice of moral education, and these objections have direct relevance to the issue of switch-side debate. A
view of debate as a form of moral education can be developed by addressing questions of efficacy, isolation from the real world. and of relativism. The first issue is one of
effectiveness: Do clarification activities achieve the espoused goals? Social coercion and peer pressure, for example, still occur in the group setting, leaving the individual
choice of values an indoctrination of sorts. Likewise, the focus of clarification exercises is arguably less analytic than expressive, less critical than embroyonic. The expression
of individual preferences may be guided by simple reaction rather than by rational criteria. These problems arc minimized in the debate setting, especially where advocacy is
not aligned with personal belief. Such advocacy requires explicit analysis of values and the decision criteria for evaluating them. In contemporarv debate, confronted with a
case they believe in, debaters assigned to the negative side have several options: present a morass of arguments to see what arguments "stick," concede the problem and offer a
"counterplan"a s a better way of solving the problem, or attack the value structure of the affirmative and be more effective in defending a particular hierarchy of values. While
the first option is certainly exercised with some frequency, the second and third motivations arc also often used and are of critical importance in the development of cognitive
skills associated with moral judgment. For example, in attacking a case that restricts police powers and upholds a personal right to privacy, debaters might question the
reasoning of scholars and justices in raising privacy rights to such significant heights (analyzing Griswold v. Connecticut and other landmark cases), offer alternative value
structures (social order, drug control), and defend the criteria through which such choices are made (utilitarian vs. deontological premises). Even within the context of a "see
what sticks" paradigm, these arguments require debaters to assess and evaluate value structures opposite of their own personal feelings about their right to privacy. Social
coercion, or peer pressure lo adopt certain value structures, is minimized in such a context because of competitive pressures. Adopting a value just because everyone else does
may be the surest way of losing a debate. A second objection to debate as values clarification, consonant with Ehninger's concerns about gamesmanship, is the separation of
the educational process from the real world. A significant concern here is how such learning about morality will be used in the rest of a student's life. Some critics question
whether moral school knowledge "may be quite separate from living moral experience in a similar way as proficiency in speaking one's native language generally appears quite
separate from the knowledge of formal grammar imparted by school." Edelstein discusses two forms of segmentation: division between realms of school knowledge (e.g.,
history separated from science) and between school and living experience (institutional learning separate from everyday life). Ehninger's point, that debate becomes a pastime,
and that application of these skills to solving real problems is diminished if it is viewed as a game, is largely a reflection on institutional segmentation. The melding of different
areas of knowledge, however. is a particular benefit of debate, as it addresses to is considerable importance in a real world setting. Recent college and high school
topics include energy policy, prison reform, care for the elderly, trade policy, homelessness. and the right to privacy. These topics are
notable because they exceed the knowledge boundaries of particular school subjects, they reach into issues of everyday life, and they are
broad enough to force student to address a variety of value appeals. The explosion of "squirrels," or small and specific cases. in the 1960s and 1970s has had
the effect of opening up each topic to many different case approaches. National topics are no longer of the one-case variety (as in 1955's "the U.S. should recognize Rcd
China"). On the privacy topic, for example, cases include search and seizure issues, abortion, sexual privacy, tradeoffs with the first amendment, birth control, information
privacy, pornography, and obscenity. The multiplicitv of issues pavs special dividends for debaters required to defend both sides of many issues because the value criteria
change from round to round and evolve over the year. The development of flexibility in coping with the intertwining of' issues is an essential
component in the interconnection of knowledge, and is a major rationale for switch-side debate.
Switch-side debate fosters tolerance and empathy toward others --- their framework inevitably degrades into dogmatism and
bigotry
Muir ‘93
(Star, Professor of Communication – George Mason U., “A Defense of the Ethics of Contemporary
Debate”, Philosophy & Rhetoric, Vol. 26, No. 4, p. 288-9)
The role of switch-side debate is especially important in the oral defense of arguments that foster tolerance without accruing the moral
complications of acting on such beliefs. The forum is therefore unique in providing debaters with attitudes of tolerance without committing them
to active moral irresponsibility. As Freeley notes, debaters are indeed exposed to a multivalued world, both within and between the sides of a
given topic. Yet this exposure hardly commits them to such "mistaken" values. In this view, the divorce of the game from the "real world" can be
seen as a means of gaining perspective without obligating students to validate their hypothetical value structure through immoral actions.'s
Values clarification, Stewart is correct in pointing out, does not mean that no values are developed. Two very important values—
tolerance and fairness—inhere to a significant degree in the ethics of switch-side debate. A second point about the charge of relativism is that
tolerance is related to the development of reasoned moral viewpoints. The willingness to recognize the existence of other views, and to grant
alternative positions a degree of credibility, is a value fostered by switch-side debate: Alternately debating both sides of the same question . . .
inculcates a deep-seated attitude of tolerance toward differing points of view. To be forced to debate only one side leads to an ego-identification
with that side. , . . The other side in contrast is seen only as something to be discredited. Arguing as persuasively as one can for completely
opposing views is one way of giving recognition to the idea that a strong case can generally be made for the views of earnest and
intelligent men, however such views may clash with one's own. . . .Promoting this kind of tolerance is perhaps one of the greatest benefits
debating both sides has to offer. 5' The activity should encourage debating both sides of a topic, reasons Thompson, because debaters are
"more likely to realize that propositions are bilateral. It is those who fail to recognize this fact who become intolerant, dogmatic, and bigoted.""*
While Theodore Roosevelt can hardly be said to be advocating bigotry, his efforts to turn out advocates convinced of their rightness is
not a position imbued with tolerance.