Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 22:53:50 -0500
From: david breshears <d.breshears@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU>
To: EDEBATE@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: disciplinary infidelity
As promised, this is the paper presented at the NCA convention. The
footnotes didn't recover, but all quotes from Berube are from "Criticizing
Kritiks: Textual Analysis Re-examined," Contemporary Argumentation and
Debate 18(1997). Thanks to Max, Brian, Joel & Tuna, as well as everyone who
participated in a great discussion. We could've used another hour of
conversation. I hope this list will suffice.Comments are appreciated, but
you probably won't hear much from me until after finals.
If anyone wants me to email a more readable version as an attachment, just
drop me an address.
Thanks for reading,
Dave
Disciplinary Infidelity:Breaching the Insular Discourse of Academic Debate
David Breshears
University of Texas - Austin
presented at the
National Communication Association
National Convention
Chicago, Illinois
November 22, 1997
The advent of kritiking has been celebrated as an opportunity for
argumentative innovation and reviled as a threat to academic debate. While
proponents have responded by exploring the nexus of philosophy,
anthropology, sociology, law, science and politics, expanding fields of
research and argumentation along the way, critics have decried kritiking as
a dangerous turn away from traditional practices toward ^Ópostmodern^Ô
argumentation. To these skeptics, kritiking represents a breach in the
insular discourse of academic debate, an act of disciplinary infidelity
deserving of both concern and contempt. By appealing to the traditional
argumentative burdens and pre-established disciplinary boundaries of the
activity, these critics employ a conservative strategy of recuperation to
insulate and sustain a static conception of both argumentation and debate.
In a recent edition of Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, David Berube
suggests that, ^Ó^Åkritiks as argumentative strategies^Ånot only yield little,
if any useful understanding, but also they confound and obscure meaning as
well.^Ô According to Berube, ^Ó^Åthe kritik is nearly worthless and has
little, if any, truthvalue in academic debating.^Ô
This paper contends that Berube substantially underestimates the force and
value of kritiking, a limitation which severely undermines his dismissal of
this argumentative strategy. Furthermore Berube^Òs equation of kritiking
with textual analysis represents yet another recuperative tactic designed to
maintain disciplinary integrity, rather than an advance our theoretical
understanding of kritiking. If Berube^Òs article is a meta-kritik of
kritiking, then I offer this counter-meta-kritik in order to demonstrate the
disciplinary function of his project, and to operationally construct an
alternative to his understanding of kritiking as textual analysis.
Berube^Òs theoretical conception of kritiks as a unique argumentative form
allows him to construct an easy target for his meta-kritik. According to
Berube, ^ÓKritiks have a ^Óspecial disposition^Ô which is prior to the
resolution of substantive issues and, as such, they are ^Ópre-fiat
arguments.^Ô In other words, ^Ókritiks^Ô are functionally distinct from
substantive issues, such as the consideration of the advantages and
disadvantages of an affirmative plan. This distinction is further evidenced
by his suggestion that the task of the critic is to examine, ^Å^Óthe text of
the affirmative debate and ask(s) whether the affirmative is sufficiently
guilty^Åto trigger the decision rule embodied in the kritik.^Ô This
conception of kritiking, however, is predicated on the false assumption that
these arguments may be disassociated from the substantive issues from which
they sprang. Many examples of kritiking demonstrate fundamental objections
which are not prior to and divorced from consideration of the substantive
issues in the debate, but are inextricably linked to any such evaluation.
For example, the kritik of normativity, drawn from the works of Pierre
Schlag, does not ^Óblame^Ô the affirmative for having committed an ethical
sin. Rather, this argument problematizes the Liberal Humanist Subject,
assumed to be both the author and agent of the plan. The implication of
this radical, epistemological critique is not a decision rule, per se, but
the demonstration of the intellectual indefensibility of action in the
absence of an account of this ethereal agent. In this instance, the judge^Òs
task is not to assess whether the affirmative^Òs guilt is sufficient to
trigger the implications of the kritik. Instead, the implications are
inextricably bound up in the link to the substantive issues. The resolution
of this issue, then, is not a matter of choice between the decision rule of
the kritik and the substantive impact of the case, since the existence of
the former disallows the possibility of the latter. While this may seem a
minor point, it is the construction of this weak position which
simultaneously enables his indictment of kritiking as textual analysis and
insulates his appeals to the truthvalue of debate from arguments that challenge
the very possibility of such a project. As such, I have suggested this
more complicated understanding of kritiking as both an introduction to my
criticism of Berube^Òs meta-kritik of textual interpretation, and the
foundation for rejection of his conception of the truthvalue of debate.
Berube argues that kritiks must, ^Ó^Åmeet the fundamental standards of good
argument,^Ô including falsifiability and the ability to enhance truthvalue.
Because kritiks involve the highly subjective process of textual
interpretation, he suggests, they are incapable of satisfying these
requirements: ^ÓThe elusiveness of fixed textual validation demonstrates the
futility of turning to other texts to validate, especially affirm, later
interpretations.^Ô These statements, as well as his repeated references to
the logical framework of Pierce and the scientific method of Popper,
indicate that Berube wishes to construct a scientific standard for the
evaluation of argument. Viewed from such a perspective, textual analysis is
certainly problematic. However, Berube conveniently ignores the fact that
debate as an activity is always engaged in this very process. Unlike
science, the falsification or validation of arguments in debate is not
simply a matter of presenting objective, factual evidence in support of
one^Òs position. Instead, we draw support from various sources, weaving
together an interpretive pastiche in support of our positions. As such, I
contend that no argument can withstand these overly-rigorous demands.
Moreover, the standards to which Berube holds kritiks seem to pose a similar
problem for any other argument, lending further credibility to this
argument. In suggesting the evils of such relativistic interpretivism,
Berube asserts that, ^ÓDeference to tomes of literature is a scoundrelous
retreat for an advocate unwilling or unable to articulate warrants for an
argument.^Ô This global indictment of our activity is especially ironic in
light of his later claim that kritiking diverts attention from the real duty
of debaters - research. Perhaps even more telling is his contention that:
"Experts whose writings are strung together to form a narrative might be
appalled to learn their bits of information have been used as blocks of
information drawing claims very unlike those they attempted to communicate
to their model readers." Again, which first affirmative constructive,
disadvantage, counterplan, case hit or topicality argument is immune from
such a criticism? While there may be a truthvalue in the process of
debating and resolving issues of public policy, it is certainly not a search
for the scientific truth implied by Berube.
Finally, Berube contends that the ^Ódeep textual analysis^Ô necessitated by
kritiking, ^Ó^Åproduces overstanding and overinterpretation, marginalizes
textual voices, fails to discriminate between different readers, devalues
rhetorical truthvalue and space, and invalidates the dialogic contract in
academic debate.^Ô Borrowing from Culler, Berube argues that
overinterpretation is analogous to overeating: ^Ó^Åthere is proper eating or
interpreting, but some people don^Òt stop when they should. They go on eating
or interpreting in excess, with bad results.^Ô Similarly, the excessive
tendencies of textual analysis also produce overstanding, which ^Ó^Åconsists
of pursuing questions that the text does not post to its model reader.^Ô
Berube contends that arguments represent efforts by individuals to convey an
idea to a model reader, and that this process is confused when overstanding
and overinterpretation occur. Because we each interpret, construct and
advocate texts differently, he argues, textual analysis only invites
confusion, obstructing the ^Óconstructive role of the critic as addressee,^Ô
which involves, ^Ósimply constructing the meaning of the utterance.^Ô
However, the appropriation of this dialogic model of communication into the
unique context of debate is more problematic than Berube allows. If the
ideal dialogic exchange involves the unproblematic communication of ideas to
a model audience, any negative response to an affirmative claim would seem
to upset the balance intended by this model. Moreover, this model suggests
the uncritical acceptance of the affirmative^Òs interpretive authority, a
move which places the negative in a uniquely vulnerable position by allowing
the affirmative interpretation to serve as the default by which the critic
evaluates the round. This dialogic model is complicated by the fact that a
debate round is not a simple, dyadic relationship between speaker and
audience, but a dynamic context in which multiple, competing interests are
engaged. While overinterpretation and overstanding may complicate the
critic^Òs role, this complication is necessitated by the nature of the
activity, a necessity which renders Berube^Òs appeal to ^Óthe dialogic
contract^Ô in debate meaningless. Furthermore, Berube^Òs concern that this
complication will marginalize textual voices seems both ironic and slightly
disingenuous, given that his appeal to the authority of the affirmative
interpretation reinscribes the intellectual stranglehold which kritiking has
sought to displace.
With all of this said, it may be asked whether this particular essay
deserves the attention indicated by this response. Certainly, there are
more compelling criticisms of kritiking. However, as the title suggests, I
am concerned with a particular type of reaction to this argumentative
innovation. Although Berube justifies his unqualified rejection of kritiking
by appeal to the problems of textual analysis, the conclusion of his essay
suggests that his true concerns lie elsewhere. These closing statements, I
suggest, justify a closer interrogation of his arguments. Berube concludes
the article by stating:
"Too much academic debate theory is based on power rather than reason.
Kritiks are used as big sticks to avoid one of the duties closely associated
with debating - research. Advocates argue their kritiks almost irrespective
of their opponents^Ò positions. By using overtotalizing rhetoric, they
engage mini-max extended arguments and overclaim the power of their
criticism. In other instances, they use kritiks to batter less experienced
readers."
While these arguments may be valid criticisms of kritiking, they are not
conclusions drawn from the analysis advanced in Berube^Òs essay. He offers
no evidence to support his claims that kritiking discourages research, that
debaters utilize these arguments irrespective of their opponents positions,
that they use overtotalizing rhetoric to overclaim the power of their
criticism, or that they use these arguments to batter less-experienced
opponents. As such, I suggest that these statements are further proof that
this essay represents a recuperative tactic intended to maintain
disciplinary integrity against invasion of this threat of kritiking.
Instead, I suggest that this paper is an operational example of the utility
of a critical approach to argumentation. Conceived as an argumentative
style, rather than an argument form, kritiking becomes a way of engaging
texts, authors and arguments in order to reveal the implications imbedded
therein.
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