Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 13:29:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: Phil Kerpen <kerpen@cross-x.com>
To: submit@hsdebate.com
Subject: The Problem of Plan-Contingent Counterplans
Below is the original first draft of my PCC paper (with one minor
modification to an abuse example). In addition to copy editing I plan
major revisions and publication early next year in the Cross-X handbook.
The major revisions will be to clarify and extend the genealogy of generic
critiquing as it relates to PCCs, clarify examples, and deal more
explicitly with the "severs certainty" argument. (I see it as identical
to severs immediacy.) I am also considering breaking this into two
separate pieces, one dealing with the theoretical issues surrounding PCCs,
and another dealing more broadly with negative supergenerics as a tool of
privilege. I will also include a debate-ready companion block that
operationalizes my arguments.
The Problem of Plan-Contingent Counterplans
Phil Kerpen
(Phil Kerpen is a policy debate theorist, frequent judge, and operator of
cross-x.com and hsdebate.com.)
Debate theory develops in an ad-hoc fashion to regulate the excesses of
debate practice. During the period of time immediately following
innovations in practice, debaters often offer theory arguments that don't
quite fit the new practice; as a result, the arguments fail when perhaps
they should succeed. An egregious example of this phenomenon is spreading
very rapidly throughout high school debate this year--the consult
counterplan. The consult counterplan may or may not be a plan-inclusive
counterplan, depending on whether a mechanical or textual standard is used
for competition. It is an example of a class of arguments I wish to
identify as plan-contingent counterplans. Plan-contingent counterplans
(PCCs) are uniquely harmful for debate, and suffer serious analytical
problems. This essay will outline what a PCC is, and why it is not a
legitimate argument form. It will then explore more broadly the
argumentative context in high school debate that has allowed these
arguments to thrive.
What is a PCC?
A plan-contingent counterplan is a counterplan that makes the affirmative
plan contingent on some external event that the negative chooses. (I call
this prior condition the antecedent in the form of the PCC.) The
antecedent may be the passage of a piece of legislation (traditional
delay), the approval of an individual or country (consult), the completion
of a referendum or a study, or any other event. Notably, most of my
examples are arguments long dismissed as theoretically illegitimate by a
broad consensus of debate theorist, coaches, and students. Prior analysis
has tended to evaluate these arguments and their theoretical foundations
very narrowly, ignoring the analytic similarities between them. All PCCs
rely on suspect theory arguments to beat permutations, and then claim to
enact the affirmative plan, capturing the advantages of the case and the
additional benefit of the antecedent action of the counterplan.
There is no viable distinction between PCCs depending on what the
antecedent action of the counterplan is. Some advocates claim that the
existence of literature supporting consultation with foreign actors
differentiates those PCCs from other examples, such as delay or
referendum. This argument fails for two reasons: first, many contingent
counterplans have literature--certainly every politics disadvantage based on
political capital or focus is in itself literature supporting making the
plan contingent on a legislative vote taking place, referendums and
consultations often have advocates, but that doesn't mean all of these
arguments should be allowed. Secondly, the existence or lack of specific
literature is not relevant to whether the argument form is analytically
sound. If, on the basis of evidence, we conclude that some PCCs have
theoretical legitimacy, it would follow that the analytical foundation of
PCCs is sound, and thus all PCCs over a reason to reject the affirmative
plan.
Plan-Contingent Counterplans Are Illegitimate
Since all PCCs are analytically indistinct, we can analyze their
legitimacy as a class of arguments, without respect to what the specific
antecedent is. There are three theoretical aspects of PCCs that warrant
exploration: textual plan-inclusivity, mechanical plan-inclusivity, and
fairness.
Textual Inclusivity
Textual plan-inclusivity is the most immediate and glaring problem with
PCCs. A PCC includes the affirmative plan, verbatim, adding to it only
conditions on which it is made contingent. In essence then, a PCC is
itself a permutation; it contains the entire plan. The only escape from
this argument for negatives is the claim that text should not be used as
the benchmark for competition, but that view is highly problematic.
Mechanical competition, which is the view that the actions advocated in
the counterplan must compete with the actions of the plan, is the popular
alternative to textual competition. But the mechanics of plans and
counterplans are open widely to interpretation, and ultimately nearly
wholly arbitrary. Most plans (although perhaps this is an error by
affirmatives) contain broad catch-all language about implementation,
intent, and guarantees that bracket the specifics of implementation. In
fact, the purpose of fiat is to bracket the specific mechanics of the plan
and focus instead on the text and its desirability. If we think of the
plan text as a bill being proposed, the debate focuses exclusively on
whether it should be approved. If it should be approved in the context of
larger bill including other language, the affirmative has still proven
that it should be approved. Textual competition guarantees that a
permutation is always possible--even seemingly contradictory laws could be
written on the books at the same time, the question is what would result.
Mechanical competition reduces all competition to antiquated questions of
exclusivity, since actions always compete for scarce resources and
desirability arguments interact with implementation. As the most evocative
example, it seems impossible to demonstrate that steal the funding is not
a legitimate argument form under a mechanical standard of competition.
The textual view of competition does not, as is often said, preclude the
running of plan-inclusive counterplans (PICs). This is important to note
because defenders of PCCs often try to equivocate their counterplans with
PICs, which affirmatives should not allow them to do. PCCs are a subset of
PICs, and excluding them should not exclude their far more legitimate
cousins. The two basic sorts of PICs are PICs that are the plan text plus
more (Plan+ PICs) and PICs that are only some of the plan text (Plan-
PICs). A Plan- PIC derives its competition, and thus, its legitimacy, by
being less than the plan, excluding some text that is in the plan. While
Plan- PICs are certainly still controversial, there is a consensus in
their favor for good reason; they prove that the plan should not be
enacted, as written, in favor of another option. They meet the form of the
basic logical claim of all counterplans: The counterplan should be done,
and the counterplan having been done, the plan would be a bad idea. Plan+
PICs can never disprove the plan using that logic, because they already
include the plan. Permutations can illustrate the difference in stark
terms--the standard do both permutation of a Plan- PIC is the same as the
plan, whereas the standard permutation of a Plan+ PIC is the same as the
counterplan. It would be difficult indeed for the negative to prove that
the counterplan is a better option than itself. On the mechanical view of
competition, Plan+ PICs may compete because while the counterplan contains
the text of the plan, it signifies different action. I think this just
illustrates the arbitrariness inherent in that view of competition, but it
is a view that must be considered.
Mechanical Inclusivity
Even on the mechanical view of competition, many PCCs contain the entirety
of the affirmative plan, or so much of it that what is excluded is
unspecified and thus insulated from attack. Thus, to the extent that the
counterplan solves the case, it concomitantly fails to compete. For people
who would prefer competition to be a purer procedural matter, this is an
unsettling possibility. But it makes no sense to adopt a mechanical view
of competition and then try to explain away to ugly reality that it
necessitates competition that is on a sliding scale with counterplan
solvency; the textual competition view should be clearly superior to such
purists. So, if competitive is viewed mechanically rather than textually,
the negative can only demonstrate competition if they win that less than
the entire plan would be enacted under the counterplan.
In practice negative teams have had success claiming precisely the
opposite; that the PCC results in the plan being enacted unchanged,
following the advantageous antecedent. Negatives are able to do this
because counterplan debates are typically highly abstracted. Without
relying on debate theory sleight of hand, it would be impossible to
explain how a course of action including the actions of the plan is a
reason to reject those very actions. But in typical counterplan debates,
the argument is not presented in that simple analytical form. PCCs have
presumptive legitimacy, and affirmatives attack them with permutations.
Negatives stock answers to permutations are: 1. The claim that counterplan
tests the word resolved in the resolution, and 2. the claim that
permutations sever part of the plan or add some new action, engaging in
intrinsicness testing. I will deal with each in turn.
The topicality claim is disingenuous at best. The teams advancing it
typically run topical counterplans, and they base most of their defense of
PCCs on the claim that the plan is the exclusive focus of the debate. Most
glaringly, it assumes the word resolved it part of the resolution, which
it clearly is not. The resolution is, by definition, the thing that is to
be resolved. The purpose of debate is to decide whether the resolution
should be resolved in the affirmative or negative. By convention, the
resolution is often introduced by the word resolved, to indicate that it
is the object of a formal debate. The claim that the plan must meet the
word resolved is roughly analogous to the claim made by college teams this
year that a piece of evidence that says terrorism is very topical means
that it is topical in debate; they both define the language used by debate
theory and practice rather than the resolution itself. Furthermore, even
if the counterplan is nontopical, that does not prove that it makes a
logically coherent argument against adopting the plan or the resolution.
The claim that permutations add or remove small parts of the plan as a
result of the antecedent is a more difficult one because it is true on its
face. Obviously, on the textual view of competition such modifications are
irrelevant because the plan hasn't been changed. But what about the
mechanical view? This is an excessively weak argument when both teams
already agree that the PCC will result in unaltered passage of the plan,
since the permutation of enacting the counterplan then mechanically
includes the entire plan. Even if there are modifications to the plan
under the permutation, that does not mean that the plan itself has been
changed. The actions of the plan are all still advocated under the
permutation, which is still do both, but in the case of modifications made
to the plan under the PCC, is no longer synonymous with the counterplan.
In addition to all of the actions of the plan, the permutation adds the
modifications that result from the PCCs antecedent. This is a standard
mechanical permutation, and should be evaluated on its policy merits, not
theoretical objections.
Even if the affirmative permutation is engaging in intrinsicness testing,
it is justified by the PCC for several reasons. First, counterplans
themselves are merely tests of the intrinsicness of affirmative
advantages. Secondly, the plan-inclusivity of the counterplan justifies
intrinsicness, since its theoretical foundation is on focusing debate
narrowly, and because it allows the affirmative to re-level the ground
lost to the counterplan. Thirdly, plan-contingency uniquely justifies
intrinsicness, because it tests the desirability of the plan under
different hypothetical antecedents, which is no different from imagining
other potential policy changes as tests of the intrinsicness of negative
disadvantages. If the negative offers the PCC conditionally, that further
justifies intrinsicness testing arguments, because conditional
counterplans assume a hypothetical search for truth in which each side
envisions multiple options to rigorously test the plan or resolution.
The ultimate fall-back argument for PCCs is that permutations are
unacceptable because they sever the immediacy of the plan. This argument
is questionable analytically, but utterly indefensible because of its
consequences. Analytically, it assumes that the affirmative advocacy of
the plan or resolution is time-bound, that they must always defend that
the plan should be enacted immediately. Most resolutions, including the
current national topic, include no language that makes them time-bound.
The resolution simply state that a particular agent should take a
particular action--it has a who and a what but no when. The main reason to
pretend the resolution says immediately even though it doesn't is to allow
the negative to run time-bound disadvantages. While some have certainly
argued that such disadvantages are undesirable, I think that time-bound
disadvantages are good because they create an incentive to continually
update files and be aware of changes in the world. So, on those grounds,
affirmatives should defend prompt enactment of the plan in the context of
status quo. But not so in the context of counterplans. The function of a
counterplan is to defend a hypothetical world superior to the status quo
and the world of the plan, and conclude that, in that hypothetical world,
the plan should not be enacted. This is the essence of testing the
opportunity costs of the plan. Immediacy becomes a moot issue when the
baseline for comparison is not the status quo but the counterplan. Again,
the logic behind a counterplan is that the plan should not be done because
the counterplan should be done, and having the counterplan the plan would
be undesirable. A permutation argument that shows that after doing the
counterplan, the plan should be done (or even would be done, in the case
of a PCC permutation) clearly defeats the foundation of the counterplan.
Fairness
The consequences of accepting the severs immediacy argument, and of
accepting PCCs in general, is that the 1AC is essentially a wasted speech.
In the world of PCCs, even the smallest disadvantage is a reason to vote
negative, because the negative can always over a PCC that makes passage of
the plan contingent on the brink of the disadvantage. Moreover, the
astonishing breadth of potential antecedents for PCCs makes preparation
for all of them impossible--the antecedent could be consultation with any
country on the planet, studies by any number of experts, referendums,
delays for any number of causes, etc. If PCCs are acceptable, the negative
should always win on the following argument:
Counterplan: The USFG should enter into prior binding consultation with
the aff solvency authors on whether or not to do the plan. The USFG
should then implement all of their recommendations.
Net benefit: They'll definitely pass the plan because it's their idea.
And they'll do it better:
1. The plan is short and vague, the counterplan would allow the authors to
formulate a highly detailed, sophisticated proposal that would address
every possible problem.
2. They won't be bound by the topic, allowing the policy to be broader in
scope and tailored more precisely to the authors' ideas.
The existence of literature, a standard that should be suspect because of
its arbitrariness, fails to preclude an explosion of possible antecedents
because there are easily hundreds of possibilities that are
literature-based, including all time-bound disadvantages.
But even if the affirmative has a large number of well-evidenced reasons
that the PCC is a bad idea, they have still suffered a stunning loss of
ground. PCCs make 1AC entirely irrelevant and guarantee that the debate
will take place on whatever ground the negative chooses. While some other
arguments may have this effect, such as critiques or Plan- PICs, those
arguments are analytically sound, and thus inherently limited in number.
That an argument can be applied to every case on every topic, and does not
even have to be weighed against the affirmative case, makes the argument
prima facie illegitimate absent compelling arguments in its defense. In
the case of PCCs, there are no such arguments that can justify making 1AC
irrelevant.
Many PCCs, with antecedents likes studies or consultation, also avoid
clash at the level of modifications to the plan that would be made during
the antecedent conditions. Since these modifications are themselves
contingent, it is impossible for the affirmative to even identify them,
let alone make offensive arguments against them.
How Did We Get Here?
I will admit that I was shocked at how popular PCCs have become in
national circuit high school debate. At the Ohio Valley Invitational, I
judged six PCC debates, five consultation counterplans and one national
referendum counterplan. I spoke with many coaches, judges, and debaters
about them, and no one I spoke with tried to defend these arguments as
legitimate, although nearly everyone said that their teams run them. Why?
Because everyone is voting on them. I have a theory about why that is
happening.
Critiques operated for the last several years as great equalizers; their
strategic value derived from the way they effectively shifted the locus of
debate from the plan to more abstract issues on which the negative were
experts. What critiques can do often and imperfectly, plan-contingent
counterplans can do reliably and perfectly, regardless of the plan--they
shift the locus of the debate to the desirability of the antecedent
action, relegating 1AC to irrelevance. This makes great strategic sense,
but why aren't affirmatives beating the theoretical legitimacy of PCCs for
the very reason that this automatic shifting of the locus of debate is
unfair, which it patently is?
One hypothesis is that supergenerics, and ungrounded abstract theory, are
a way of maintaining hierarchy in high school debate. Just as college
teams are expanding the possibilities of the debate format, and
questioning the rigidities of form, high school debate seems to be
retreating into a highly abstract, rigid formalism that allows arguments
like PCCs without any reflection on the consequences they have on the
community. The last haven of unprivileged programs, the last ground they
could hope to excel on, is their affirmative cases. To accept PCCs is to
steam-roll over those cases, those areas of specialized knowledge, and
replace them with a homogenized ground on which the elites can always
maintain their advantages.
This is precisely how consult counterplans are being deployed. Elite
programs adopted them as a way to bracket 1AC without confronting any of
its claims. As a consequence of the ethos of these teams and their
technical superiority, they were able to compel judges to vote for PCCs
with such regularity, despite their analytical weaknesses, that they moved
consensus in their favor. After the judge pool consensus was established,
many non-elite teams began to run PCCs, but they are always already at a
disadvantage when they debate elite teams on the ground of consultation
counterplans, because those teams are concentrating much of the material
advantage of their privilege on preparing for debate on that ground.
This hypothesis is based on my personal observations and the anecdotes of
others, and there are certainly other viable explanations. Nonetheless,
there is a real possibility that less-privileged teams would benefit from
a shift in judging norms away from PCCs. And it is my hope that
affirmatives will be successful using theory arguments drawn from this
essay to accomplish that goal.
Conclusions
Plan-contingent counterplans are increasingly popular and extremely
problematic. Affirmative teams confronted with them should not rely on
attacking supersets or subsets of PCCs, but the analytical basis of PCCs
themselves. Attacking them as plan-inclusive counterplans would exclude
many legitimate Plan- PICs. Attacking the narrow, specific type of PCC in
the round obscures the broader, compelling problems with PCCs. Teams
running particular PCCs, like consultation, will surely claim that they
can defend a theory of counterplans that allows theirs but excludes other
PCCs like delay and study; this is a dubious claim. Those arguments are not
analytically distinct, and if plan-contingent counterplans are a bad
thing, and the counterplan the negative runs is plan-contingent, external
considerations cannot change those facts.
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