Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 16:31:57 EST
From: Jcmallios@aol.com
Reply-To: ld-l@europe.std.com
To: ld-l@europe.std.com
Subject: Current problems with LD and Proposed Solutions
I hope students, but more importantly coaches, read this post (even if it's a
bit long, but hey, most of the partners are out of the office today and I
have some time on my hands). LD is facing an identity crisis. LD is
increasingly becoming a dumbed down version of policy debate. My students
(though they are probably sometimes guilty of it themselves) and coaches I
know have been complaining about this issue for some time now. In this post,
I will not only isolate some of the bigger problems, but present solutions
that we as a community can potentially adopt to solve this problem.
Whatever your opinions about LD theory & history are, Lincoln Douglas Debate
was created as a distinct alternative to policy debate. It is not a refuge
for people who wanted to do policy but didn't like the idea of dealing with a
partner because they are socially maladjusted. LD is no more one-man policy
than it is dueling oratories.
While both LD and Policy value some of the same skills, they also emphasize
different skills (just as extemp and oratory do). LD was created to focus on
skills that that Policy debate had come to de-emphasize -- rhetoric,
presentation, values, and writing, among other things. The decision to make
LD debate a values debate was a deliberate one- debating about ethics
inherently de-emphasizes the need for evidence and speed and instead
emphasizes rhetoric and argumentation. Could you imagine two philosophy
professors arguing with one another and having one say, "sure, you make an
intelligent and well reasoned argument, but do you have any evidence to
contradict my Plato card?" They would be laughed off the tenure track.
With that observation in mind (as LDers are fond of saying) lets' "move on"
to the point of my post.
The Problem
At every debate round I have judged at national level tournaments in the past
two years, I have observed LD slowly turning into poor man's policy.
1. Speed: Rounds have gotten demonstrably faster. We all know that a 1AR
sometimes has to go a little fast to cover arguments but debaters are
choosing speed and quantity of argument above rhetoric, analysis, and quality
of argument.
2. Spreading: There are several examples of how spreading has increased
dramatically:
- Two minute Negative Cases designed to spread Affirmatives out of the
round.
- Responding to one argument with five or more arguments. Rounds are
increasing more an issue of "what was dropped" rather than "what was argued."
3. Case Stacking Gone Awry: The original idea behind case stacking was to
write a contention that was so well developed that it contained subtle
preemptions and different impacts that would make defending the contention
easier. Nevertheless, the intention was always that the contention was one
argument. Debaters have warped the concept of case stacking, interpreting it
to mean "I will put multiple, unrelated arguments together but label them as
one contention." What happens then is inevitable. The opponent attacks one
or two of the arguments, believing that they have "covered" the contention,
only to hear the "case stacker" stand up and scream with unadulterated glee
that miraculously, his opponent missed the entire point of the contention,
which was buried somewhere around the so-and-so card near the bottom, and
thus has dropped the contention completely! Huzzaahhh!!! Intellectually
dishonest, at best.
4. The death of reasoning: Evidence is a good thing. And sure, there are
claims that require hard evidence. But more and more debaters use evidence
as a cheap attack against well-reasoned arguments. If a student reads a law
review article, understand the logic, and then write a speech using similar
reasoning in their own words, I think it is laughable to discredit it because
I did not say "Bob Smith, (a law student writing an article because he is
trying to become Editor-In-Chief and make sure he gets that $140,000 salary)
writes in the Urban Law Journal that..."
5. The death of writing: Debaters increasingly write cases similar to
"Tag-quote-tag-quote-tag-quote" without piecing together pieces of evidence
with the debater's own words, analysis, and rhetoric. As a result, students
do not develop their writing skills. (Let me temper these remarks by saying
I think evidence and research are good things, but like the Force, have their
dark sides as well.)
6. Oral Critiques: I think it is great that judges give an oral critique
when it focuses on skills and maybe some flaws in a debater's argumentation.
Now that LDers are demanding to receive verbal RFD's. The problem is that
several judges, notably college-age level judges, become overly concerned
with making sure their decision is perceived as valid. Oftentimes they will
vote on dropped arguments because that provides an easy way of justifying a
decision, regardless if it the right decision.
What can be done to solve the problem?
1. Repeat after me: "I am an intelligent adult even if I decide that I
won't drop debaters because they didn't address the fifth one-sentence blippy
response off of contention three when they did an excellent job debating,
addressing relevant arguments, and persuading me of their position. And I am
not afraid to say this in a critique." In courts, judges, while they are
bound by evidence and the law, nevertheless retain enough guided autonomy
that they are not required to believe anything a lawyer says simply because
it was said and not responded to by his adversary.
2. According to Aristotle, a fellow Hellene, there are three parts of an
argument - logos (what you say), pathos (how you say the argument and the
feelings it engenders in the listener) and the "ethos" of the speaker.
Coaches and institute teachers should spend time focusing on pathos and ethos
as much as they spend time teaching logos.
3. Judges should be amenable to voting on intuitive arguments that draw upon
common sense and real-world knowledge. I remember the card that was
prevalent during the hate speech topic that stated that hate speech lead to a
myriad of problems, including hypertension and even suicide. 95% percent of
the debaters read this laundry list of problems, then ranted and raved about
their evidence that showed the physical harms of hate speech. What evidence?
Three conclusory sentences backed by no analysis whatsoever? Quoting 4-5
conclusory sentences from a law review does not make a "warrant" to a "claim"
simply because they are someone else's conclusory sentences. I think the
intuitive argument that it is preposterous to say that using an epithet leads
to suicide is an argument that should be respected even though it is
intuitive.
I remember two good stories that may put this in perspective. A debater
approached a well-respected coach, and began to berate him, labeling him as
an interventionist judge. In the middle of the argument, he stated, "If I
tell you that the world is flat, and my opponent says nothing, then you have
to buy the argument!!" To which the coach responded to with a grin and a
smile as he walked away, "But the world is round Mike, its round."
In a second story, I forget the resolution, but it had to do with
pornography. The affirmative had excellent evidence showing that the mere
sight of pornography triggered an enzyme that lead to violence. The crafty
negative pointed out that although he had taken AP Biology, he had never
heard of this porno-amino theory. He asked the Affirmative how fast the
enzyme worked. Instantaneously was the affirmative's answer. Mass violence?
That's what the evidence says, said the Affirmative. As a joke, one of the
Negative's friends had given him a Playboy before the round. He went to his
briefcase, and held up the centerfold to the crowd for 30 silent (and stun
filled) seconds. He then asked "Anyone feeling violent?" Uproarious
laughter. Round over. An extreme example, but you get my point.
4. We should encourage, not discourage, students to learn how to write their
thoughts as much as they rely on evidence. Making our students better
writers will ultimately lead to better (and clearer) debate rounds.
5. We should encourage students (through coaching and our decisions) to
crystallize. Any law student will tell you, any lawyer will tell you (and
this lawyer is telling you) that even the most complex legal cases ultimately
come down to 2-4 distinct issues. That's it. Voting on the 5th dropped
response off of a contention neither debater talked about very much, is in my
mind, ludicrous. Simply labeling dropped arguments as "voters" without
explaining how the different arguments relate to one another is not
crystallizing and it does not resolve issues. No lawyer, in his summations,
addresses every issue. He or she addresses the salient issues, and lets the
extraneous ones drop by the wayside. Debaters and judges should do the same.
I saw a brilliant round at St. Marks that exemplified this idea, between two
debaters who shall remain nameless, yet I understand that they both have
excellent reputations. The Affirmative got the Negative to concede that if
he was able to meet two burdens, he should win the round. In 1AR, instead of
covering the flow and addressing meaningless arguments, the Affirmative only
covered arguments that related to proving those two burdens. The Negative,
in turn, did the same. The result was a slow, well argued, well developed
debate round centering on 2 issues, where ultimately the only thing the
judges had to do, was in effect, say that one debater persuaded them more
than the other.
6. Judges should not be afraid to say what they really think in critiques.
I can't tell you how many judges I talk to feel compelled to make up
"reasons" in their RFD to appear "credible" in front of debaters, then when I
see them in the coaches lounge they say "All I wanted to say was that I
thought the Negative was simply more persuasive than the negative." Why not
say that, if it is applicable. Triple layered chocolate ckae is a guilty
pleasure. Being persuaded is not.
7. Let's pick some different topics. Research heavy topics are great, but
what about varying them with more philosophical ones (i.e. Contribution to
Society is a true measure of individual worth.) Or how about completely
different resolutions. The most fun resolution I ever debated in HS was at
the Manchester tournament "That Abraham Lincoln was a better president than
FRD."
8. Refuse to read evidence after a round. It only encourages poor
communication. This activity should teach our kids to c-o-m-m-u-n-i-c-a-t-e.
The Benefits
Teaching our children about good writing, rhetoric, the value of impassioned
delivery, the importance of persuasion and the value of a good joke in a
speech will not only help them, but it will make rounds more interesting and
dare I say fun to watch? Try to remember the last time when you picked up a
kid not because they met the value criteria better, but because they truly
persuaded you somewhere deep down in your gut. If you can remember, it's a
beautiful thing.
I have been around LD as a debater, an Institute teacher, and a coach. I am
old enough to look at the activity from the perspective of an adult, but I am
not so far removed from my days as a debater that I have forgotten (well, not
completely forgotten) what it was like to do a 1AR. I am not writing this in
an attempt to puff my feathers, but I am writing it so that people can
appreciate that I am not some coach who doesn't know what its like to debate,
nor am I some debater, sitting in rocking chair on the porch, whining about
the "good old days" and these "young whippersnappers."
What am I going to do to solve this problem? Besides write this post, I will
tell you.
>From now on, I am going to take organized notes. I don't think that I am
going to "flow" in the usual sense. Its not because I can't, or that I'm too
old, but as Kirby Chin likes to say "if I can't remember the argument at the
end of the round it wasn't worth remembering."
I will take notes, keep track of arguments, but I won't "flow" in the sense
that I will huddle over a flow pad like some scibner with poor posture.
Making sure I caught the seventh response. In return, I am going to spend my
time listening and thinking about what the students are arguing.
I think as a result of doing these things, we can teach our children more,
not feel like judging is such a drag, and encourage adult judges from beyond
outside the debate world to come and judge. Lawyers, doctors, bankers,
teachers and housewives with intelligence are just as qualified to judge
debate rounds as people in the activity. We should provide an environment
where they feel comfortable doing so. If we do, maybe we can get that 5th
round off, talk to some of our friends in the activity about our lives, and
not feel like we just went through Chinese water torture at the end of the
day because we had to sit through 14 rounds.
James Mallios, Esq.
Assistant LD Coach at Bronx Science
The opinions I expressed as my own and in no way represent some position
statment on the part of the Bronx Science debate team as a whole.
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