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Comment by jsmcgd | Hacker News Reader

Why do the debate organisers tolerate this? If the debate is X versus Y, why allow someone to say we should really be discussing Z? Imagine this in any other competitive arena like sport where during a match some team starts playing another sport entirely. There's nothing wrong with debating critical theory but not if that's not what's being debated. It should be an automatic fail, just as it would be if you're supposed to debating in a certain language and you refuse to do so. This just seems like deliberate sabotage/propaganda masquerading as sincere communication. As much fault lies with the organisers as with those who wish to deliberately pervert the debate.

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The article explains it. Students like these formats bc they fit with their interests and politics, students graduate, the ones that were most active in debate become judges and reinforce that these topics will be rewarded

It's runaway natural selection.

AMC series math contests have a bit of the same problem -- pushing the material format more and more toward memorizing extremely insider arcana over a meaningful survey of the field of study.

There is a fundamental weakness in the fascist-adjacent proscription of orthodoxy while forbidding anything that may challenge or question it. That is not liberalism, it is an echo chamber lacking contact and ability to deal with the whole world.

I also disapprove of the tendency to muzzle people with prior restraint because they raise controversial points because somehow "harmony" is more important than insightful and authentic discourse on topics of greater import because someone "might be offended" or "will encourage negative interactions". If only certain topics can be discussed while others cannot, that is a lack of freedom.

We should all have a healthy allergic reaction when things start being argued for and against via extremely general negative terms applied in a subjective way, i.e:

> "fascist-adjacent proscription of orthodoxy".

Every sport has rules, within which great skill can be demonstrated by being able to work within the rules, but in difficult and unexpected ways.

Debates with rules such as "remain relevant to the topic" or "make arguments for A over your opponents arguments for B", are legitimate competitions, that develop legitimately useful skills.

It is not "muzzling" to allow anyone to say whatever they want, but judge their achievements based on the rules of engagement that define a debate competition.

There are no police on a basketball court stopping players from throwing the ball wherever they want. They just won't get points for not putting the ball in the basket.

"This is not liberalism" is not an argument for or against anything.

Are you not forbidding forbiddance? Is that not a form of orthodoxy itself?

Forbiddance exists in that the judge can decide whom to vote for. Actually halting a debate midround because they broke some tenuous topic rule is a much more aggressive action

This absolutely happens. Running a K (kritik) is a risk because if the judge decides that you’re full of shit, they can basically just ignore your case. Your opponent can make an argument to throw the kritik out, and then you’re dead in the water

As a debate student that goes to dozens of tournaments a year, arguing about the same policy topic over and over can get very dry. When I was in high school debate, I found these diverse literatures exciting and stimulating, which made my passion for debate much stronger.

It seems like there should be a place for both: one where diverse literature and meta-debate is both accepted and maybe even the point (e.g. make the premise actual critical to the Ks), and another where you are expected to argue for or against a position you don’t agree with. I think there’s tremendous value in having to steelman positions you think are fundamentally bad/incorrect, but I think you’re also right that there’s potential growth value in looking into deeper and different theory systems entirely.

But I think it’s generally a bad thing all around for the Ks to infiltrate literally all debate and crowd out anything else (in the same way the speed-talking phenomenon was [is?] a fundamentally bad thing for debate).

> It seems like there should be a place for both: one where diverse literature and meta-debate is both accepted and maybe even the point (e.g. make the premise actual critical to the Ks), and another where you are expected to argue for or against a position you don’t agree with.

There are many regional circuits in this country where running a kritik is an instant loss.

Aside from that: debate and meta-debate are not meaningfully separable. If arguments are being made, then there will be an argument about how to evaluate the arguments.

Meta-debate is not unique to debates that contain critical theory. See e.g. http://open-evidence.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/file... which is full of meta-arguments that happen when there isn't any critical theory introduced into the round.

Once you ask the question "what is fiat?" -- which becomes necessary far before any critical theory arrives on the scene -- the door is open to "perhaps pretending something happens and then evaluating the effects isn't the best way to test a resolution".

My basic thought about how academic debate should work:

1. Students should be allowed to choose their own arguments as often as possible.

2. Judges should try to be as impartial as possible and should evaluate student's arguments rather than impose their own opinion. (Pedagogic debate and non-pedagogic debate serve very different purposes. The emphasis on the student's performance rather than the judge's understanding of the world is motivated by pedagogic considerations, and obviously isn't how debates should be evaluated in the real world.)

3. The kids are fine. I promise that seeing a bit of critical theory isn't going to rot their brains.

Nothing to add or disagree with, just appreciate learning more about debate. Thanks for the in-depth response!

I do want to clarify that

> 3. The kids are fine. I promise that seeing a bit of critical theory isn't going to rot their brains.

This was not my argument at all, though I think it was the writer’s. Hopefully it didn’t come across that way.

I disagree about speed talking being apriori bad, but agree it has crowded out everything else on the national circuit.

The same is simpoy not true of critical theory in debate which has been around for a long time and is not the winning argument in anywhere near close to a majorit of rounds.

> As a debate student that goes to dozens of tournaments a year, arguing about the same policy topic over and over can get very dry.

That brings up a good point. We probably need to differentiate between a student debate as part of a class vs extracurricular debating.

Students participating in a classroom debate only get so many minutes of exposure; each is valuable. Tighter boundaries would seem to be called for there.

Yes :) As someone very familiar with high school debate, this article is exclusively talking about the extracurricular variety.

The purpose of a K is not to argue that you should be arguing about Z, it's to say, "X is based on this fundamental assumption, and that assumption is flawed in this way..."

A Neg team running a K has to link directly to the Aff's plan or argument, or they'll just 'no-link' it and move on.

On the K-Aff side, they need to convince the judge(s) that some fundamental assumption of the Topic itself is flawed, which you still have to directly engage with the Topic in order to do.

There is no such thing as a K debate which just says "I'm arguing about some unrelated thing instead".

Many tournaments (especially on the West Coast) and their organizers enjoy and encourage kritical debate. (That's what they did in high school -- Kritical debate was born in Policy Debate, and spread to other formats, so many coaches have that previous experience) Many on the East Coast ban it entirely, or heavily discourage it. At some level, there are almost two different leagues. The "tech" debaters even have their own championship, of sorts (NPDI).

You must be talking about a particular event (parli?) because the K is on all coasts in policy

Yea, I'm talking about parli. (I presume the article was generally focused on parli as the author is a relatively well-known parli debater.)

I think most of her examples are drawn from policy and ld

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