Useful Debate Cards

Yes, there is. This is not an arg thathas a file but it can be conceived as a framework argument. Before I go on,let’s have a talk about how the Role of the Judge argument, and its far morepopular friend the Role of the Ballot, is (mis)used now.If you’ve been inmore than ten rounds over the past few years it’s pretty much guaranteed thatyou’ve run into a team that reads a Role of the Ballot claim inside a round.Usually it goes something like “The Role of the Ballot is to endorse theteam that best contests patriarchy.” The Role of the Ballot is then used as atechnical reason to prefer the team that read it, either as pure techne (”Theydropped the Role of the Ballot, so you have to vote for us.”) or as acontextualizing claim on the impact debate. Role of the Judge arguments areusually deployed in a similar way, telling the judge that they should vote forthe team that best does X. This is the modern equivalent of the old “decision-rule,” or D-Rule, argumentthat used to be popular on a number of Ks, and most especially the Cap debate.The D-rule was a way to frame the ballot around a singular issue, often theinevitability of the collapse of capitalism, and then say that the judge’s job wasto make decision that best served that issue, say by endorsing the best path tocollapse capitalism.

The problem with deploying the argumentlike this is that it doesn’t give the team running it anything that they shouldnot already have on the impact level. Say, for instance, a team has won that theaffirmative is anti-black and they thenwin that anti-blackness is the master-trope of all violence and needs to be contestedthrough their alternative, do they need anything else to make this a completeargument? No.  The impact speaks foritself and should provide the contextualization necessary for the judge tounderstand their obligation to oppose anti-blackness, adding a role of thejudge/ballot that says that the judge is obliged to do that merely restates theobvious.  Let’s go a step deeper, saythat the Affirmative in this round is a Fem Aff and they’ve read a Role of theJudge which says their job is to “fight patriarchy in every instance,” and thenegative drops the role of the judge in the 1NC, has the negative lost? No.Because the K links to both the role of the judge and the Aff, and even amoderately adept 2NC/1NR should be able to contextualize that in the lens ofthe K the Role of the Judge links to perpetuating anti-blackness and needs tobe rejected by endorsing the alternative.

 So, what’s the better way to run Roleof the Judge/Ballot arguments? Well, it’s to provide actual roles for theballot and judge.  Instead of restatingwhat the judge should vote on (“The Role of the Judge is to oppose capitalism!”or “The role of the ballot is to vote for the team that best opposesspeciesism.”), describe how the judge should imagine their participation insidethe round, how they should understand their interaction with the debaters, andwhat the ballot means beyond a win/loss. Frame their understanding of argumentsso that the debate falls into a broader context of your choosing. For example,by saying that “The Role of the Judge is to be an activist for social change.” thejudge is then made to relate to arguments in a very specific way, ways that deprioritizecertain arguments (e.g. Politics DAs) while prioritizing others (e.g. CriticalImpacts). Roles of the judge like “policy-maker”, “educator”, or simply “criticof the argument” all have a variety of benefits (which you should think out andexplain) and a long history inside the debate literature that you can use toyour advantage as the round befits.

 To combine the two arguments together,imagine the role of the ballot as describing what sort of tool the ballot oughtbe and the role of the judge as describing what kind of construction worker thejudge is. Is the judge using a hammer to build a better tomorrow? A saw to teardown structures that confine us? Etc. By deploying these args in this way,saying for instance “The role of the ballot is to endorse political movementsand the role of the judge is to be an activist for social equality.,” the judgeunderstands what you expect from them, how to relate to the round, and how tocontextualize arguments in regards to the ballot and what a win means.

 Finally, how to run these args? By simplystating them, and then explaining why your role of the judge/ballot is good.Imagine it as almost directly akin to a FW debate, give your role of the judgeand the reasons why your role of the judge should be endorsed by the judge. Thenwhen the other team reads their role of the judge (if they do) give reasons toprefer yours to theirs. A note, once you begin to understand your own roles ofthe judge you can permute the other team’s role as well. For instance, if yourRole of the Judge is to be an educator and the Neg’s is to vote for the teamthat  contests patriarchy you can winthat your role can subsume theirs and that the education about the worldproduces far better understandings of how to comprehend, and then contest,Patriarchy.

Thinking about doing debate in college? Read this, it can be the best life decision you ever make.

So, here’s one of my favorite answers to soft Policy Framework. Enjoy.

Calls to focus ethics on action ties us to the back of the ‘praxis tiger’, where every time ethics and action might conflict action will always win out over ethics. Only by engaging in thought and reflection are we able to understand both our world and then the possibility of ethical action.

 Sloterdijk 88 (Peter Sloterdijk, Professor of philosophy and media theory at the University of Art and Design Karlsruhe Critiqiue of Cynical Reason. ISBN: 978-0816615865. P. 539-541)//UDC

  In view of these developments, the claim of classical philosophy to be more "serious" than mere life does not look good. Since modern thinking no longer entrusts itself with the translation of self-knowledge into worldly knowledge, and of world experience into self-experience, philosophy has had to withdraw from theories of "objective reason" into those of "subjective reason." The ground is thus taken from under the feet of the ancient holistic pathos, and philosophy sinks into the apparent truncatedness and groundlessness of the subjective. The truth is, however, that this subjective element establishes and unfolds itself in the process of modern civilization to such an extent that it was able to gain as much of a foothold as seemed necessary for its self-preservation. "Subjectivity" cast its nets over the "object" worlds and transformed excessively powerful first nature into a tamed second nature. Herein lies the source of modernity: The latter fosters the unfolding of the "subjective" to the relatively objective, of that which has no foothold to something that provides for itself its own foothold—the transformation of the world's wildness into what we make and think through. Modern philosophies that set themselves the task of grasping these transformations are those we rightly think of as the "rational" philosophies: social philosophies, philosophies of science, philosophies of labor, of technology, of language. They link up directly with the producing, acting, thinking, and speaking of a subjectivity that has become sure of itself. Therefore, philosophy that does not speculate past the structures of the modern world is basically practical philosophy. As such, it must equate what is intelligible in the world with what is rationally feasible, thinkable, examinable, and articulable. In the theory of subjective reason, the world is paraphrased as the content of our doings. Subjectivity has been turned fully into praxis.

The glaring poverty of modern practical philosophy, which would really like to produce something sound, above all, a universally binding, rigorously grounded ethics, and cannot for the life of it manage to do so, is, however, nothing other than the poverty of subjective reason as such. The latter finds a foothold in itself only to the extent that it uninterruptedly pursues its activistic fury of "praxis." Modern reason knows itself to be tied to the back of the praxis tiger. As long as the latter runs its course in a predictable way, subjective reason remains in relative balance. But woe betide when it gets caught in one of its notorious crises and becomes frenzied due to resistances or profitable prey. Then it lets its praxis rider know that with ethical tranquilizers alone, a predatory animal of its dimensions cannot be brought under control. Practical philosophy that tries to be respectable thus develops against its will into a seminar for modern tiger management. There it is discussed whether it is possible to talk reasonably with the beast or whether it would be better if a few of the tendentially dispensable riders were sacrificed to the stubborn systemic brute. In these taming conversations of subjective reason with the praxis tiger, cynicism is inevitably in play, which, with the appeal to reason, lets it be known with a wink that it did not mean it so seriously. The superficial view of things, in addition, confirms this stance. Where thinking has to agonize, especially over the projects of praxis that were unleashed with its own aid and have become autonomous, there subjective reason, even as reason, is treated with irony and suspected of being merely subjectivity that keeps on tearing along. With incessant irony, modern philosophizing, which had once been so sure of itself, shrinks to a circuslike rationalism that, in its efforts to train the praxis tiger, proves itself to be embarrassingly helpless. If the philosophers themselves, in time, also become somewhat addled in this occupation, then, given how things are, it is no wonder. In order to visualize the curiosity, philosophy, in the modern world, one has to recall an ancient episode, when a Greek Diadochian prince, to reciprocate for the gift of two elephants from an Indian maharaja, sent back two very sensible philosophers.

In the twilight of late enlightenment, the insight gains shape that our "praxis," which we always held to be the most legitimate child of reason, in fact, represents the central myth of modernity. The demythologization of praxis that thereby falls due forces radical corrections in the self-understanding of practical philosophy. The latter must now become clear about the grave extent to which it had been taken in by the myth of activity and how blindly it had given itself over to its alliance with rational activism and constructivism. In this blinding, practical reason could not see that the highest concept of behavior is not "doing" but "letting things be," and that it achieves its utmost not by reconstructing the structures of our doing but by penetrating the relations between doing and desisting. Every active deed is etched in the matrix of passivity; every act of disposing over something remains dependent on the stable massiveness of what is not at our disposal; every change is borne also by the reliable perseverance of what is unchanged; and everything that is calculated rests on the indispensable base of what is unpredictably spontaneous.

At this point, the most modern reflection of the classical "know thyself” is recovered. It leads us in a quasi-neoclassical movement of thought to the point where we can see how the producing, reflecting, active self is inlaid in a passive self that cannot be manipulated by any deed. All subjectivities, competences, activisms, and illusions of doers are still borne by this deeper layer. And no matter how much activity belongs to our essence, it nevertheless has basically the structure of "letting-oneself-do." The insight that "feasibility" has structural limits, has, since its processing by enlightenment, lost its antienlightenment tone and by no means necessarily ends up in the maliciously joyful impotence philosophies with which the conservatism of the church has long since pursued its business. Now it can be revealed that reason and praxis do not belong exclusively together, but that in a nonpraxis, a refraining from acting, a letting happen and a nonintervention, higher qualities of insight can come to expression than in any deed, no matter how well thought through.

Our ancient main witness, Diogenes of Sinope, the illuminated beggar, the self-sufficient, ironic representative of the pathos of nature, is to be cited one last time, he who, with his "restraint," had founded a model for those ancient European virtues of forbearance, from which modernity, with its activist ethos of self-assertion has turned away as radically as possible. Among the innumerable anecdotes documenting the impulse of his teaching, one in particular shines forth with profundity:

He praised those who want to marry and do not, those who want to sail off and do not, those who want to be active in affairs of state and refrain from doing so, who want to educate children and do not, who prepare themselves to enter into the services of a prince and hold off. (Diogenes Laertius, vol. VI, p. 29)

The way we all learn is by asking!

Wipeout- Impact turn to extinction DAs. Makes the argument that human extinction is a good thing, usually based on ecological destruction arguments. Occasionally you’ll also see technology based impact turns (e.g. Humans are developing Nanotechnology now, nanotech leads to von Neumann machines that consume all life on the planet and then the galaxy, galactic extinction outweighs planetary extinction). 

De-dev: Economic collapse is good. Usually based around the idea of ‘upswing wars’, which say that wars occur when economic growth is occurring and that the next big economic growth spurt leads to war (or other structural problems) which trigger a more catastrophic economic collapse.

Speciesism: The claim that privileging humans over non-humans (read: ‘animals’) is problematic on a number of levels, and that we should instead approach humans and non-humans as being equal in consideration and regard.

So there are a couple ways to run a Heideggerian critique inside the debate space. The way it tends to be run the most often is a critique of the way we enframe ourselves in the world using technology.

To understand what that means you have to understand a little bit about the background inside Heideggerian thought. To make a long story short Heidegger wanted to take philosophy back to its roots and come to an understanding of how we approach the world, and what everything means, from scratch. The problem he found with philosophy as it stood was that it asked a lot of questions about what it meant to be something but the question of what it meant to be was never asked. This meant that the way that people could only understand the world through other things, most especially technology and the way we come to understand the world through the products and tools 'we' make.

A way imagine this, and it's trite and overused but bear with me, is a window frame. When you look at the world through a window all you can see is what is inside the window frame. Whatever is outside the window gets left out of your understanding of the world at that moment (in this analogy: whatever doesn't fit into our understanding of the world through technology, nationalism, etc.) and, perhaps more importantly, everything inside the frame gets understood in terms of that window. When it comes to technology in specific it means that everything we come to find in the world becomes seen as another piece of technology to use, to exploit, and to be made valuable and never as something, or someone, who exists in their own right. This is what the phrase standing reserve means, everything becomes something that stands around in wait (reserve) for us to come use it, like a gas pump[/cliche].

There are a couple of impacts to this. The biggest one is usually that turning the world into a standing reserve makes life controllable  and causes a slew of bad things to happen to the life we imagine controlling, see: Dillon 99. The second level question is that if they can prove that your view of the world is enframed in a problematic way then all of your conclusions, even if they seem logical from your standpoint, are flawed. This means in a debate sense not only do they get an impact but you don't get anything to weigh against them unless you can win that the way you understand operating in the the world is good.

Before I go on there are two things to make clear. First, this is a simple explanation of Heidegger in debate. I'm leaving out a lot of other things like the question of calculability, technology vs. technological thought, to say even less of the overly analyzed question of the 'dasein'. These are discussions to have with your coach, with other judges, and to read about. Second, Heidegger's actual writing is much more complicated than debate Heidegger. He wrote very extensively and in a very detailed and tortuous way, and cannot simply be summarized in a nine minute speech (or a quick tumblr post). Arguably, and this is according to Heidegger, we can't even understand him properly because we are discussing him in English and not German. His thoughts on language, translation, and understanding being very complex. 

So, next. How to answer him?

There are a number of ways, and I'll give three:

First, Heidegger was a Nazi. I don't mean this in the sense that he was a touch unsavory in his political beliefs. I mean this in that there are pictures of him with an armband with a swastika on it making the Nazi salute, that he worked as a rector for a German University when the Nazis were in power, and he wrote a bunch of speeches praising Hitler. Now there are two ways to make this argument. One is to say "Heidegger was a Nazi and evil!", this is a stupid argument, and if you don't know why google 'ad hominem'. The second is to discuss how trying to break down and overcome the way we understand the world leads to 'revolutionary' politics like Nazism where we lose touch with our effect on the world in the revolutionary moment. This leads to a productive discussion and you can find a number of philosophers discussing this in a variety of ways.

The second is that this quest for a perfect understanding of the world before action justifies paralysis that leads to direct harms in the world. It's a simple argument to make, and true. The longer we sit around and navel gaze the harder it gets to reverse global warming and the more people die from poverty. The Schatz 12 article which I posted a card from before makes this claim directly in it and deserves to be read and cut. 

There are easily half a dozen wipeout files floating around out there.