Peterson Performance Neg

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Performance Neg – Index
Performance Neg – Index................................................................................................................. .........1
1NC Framework 1/3.............................................................................................................. ....................2
1NC Framework 2/3.............................................................................................................. ....................4
1NC Framework 3/3.............................................................................................................. ....................5
2NC/1NR Framework Overview 1/2................................................................................ ........................6
Framework Extensions – Simulations Good.................................................................................... ........9
Framework Extensions – Concrete Meaning Key................................................................. ................10
Framework Extensions – Defending Resolution as Proposition Key........................... ........................11
McGowan Countercriticism 1/2....................................................................................................... .......12
McGowan Countercriticism 2/2....................................................................................................... .......13
Block Overview on McGowan CounterK..................................................................... .........................14
McGowan K Extension: 1NC #2.................................................................................................... .........15
Policy Debate Good - Activism............................................................................................................ ....16
Policy Debate Good – Education.................................................................................... ........................17
Policy Debate Good – Education.................................................................................... ........................18
Policy Debate Good – Testing of Issues........................................................................... .......................19
Policy Debate Good – Tolerance........................................................................................ .....................20
Policy Debate Good – Inclusion............................................................................................. .................21
Policy Debate Good – Real World Decision-making........................................................ .....................22
Performance Politics Anti-Educational....................................................................................... ...........24
Performance Politics Anti-Educational....................................................................................... ...........25
Performance Politics = Complicity............................................................................................ .............26
Performance Politics Bad – Citizenship/Volunteerism Turn......................................... .......................27
Performance Politics Bad – Failure to Act................................................................................ .............28
Performance Politics Bad – Anti-Democratic/Silencing.................................................................. ......29
Performance Politics Bad – Personal Experience Only Bad............................................................. ....30
Performance Politics Bad – Personal Experience Only Bad............................................................. ....31
State/Statist Discussion is Good................................................................................................ ..............32
Capitalism Links.............................................................................................................................. ........36
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Total Critique Bad – Krishna................................................................................................................. .37
A2 Martyrdom – Framework Procedural........................................................................................... ...38
A2 Martyrdom – Reject Culture Standpoint............................................................................. ............39
A2 Martyrdom – Tolerance Turns............................................................................................. .............40
A2 Bleiker – No change..................................................................................................... ......................41
Ethnography Bad............................................................................................................................... ......42
A2 “It Hurts So Good”............................................................................................................ ................43
A2 “It Hurts So Good”............................................................................................................ ................44
A2 “It Hurts So Good”............................................................................................................ ................45
A2 “It Hurts So Good”............................................................................................................ ................46
A2 “It Hurts So Good”............................................................................................................ ................47
A2 “It Hurts So Good”............................................................................................................ ................48
Speed Good Block........................................................................................................................ ............49
Counterfactual Procedural...................................................................................................................... 50
1NC Framework 1/3

The arguments presented in the 1AC are all interesting and informative – the question we are here to answer
is whether they are a reason for you to vote for them in this round. We establish that this debate will function
as a comparison of methodologies – they have presented a method of presentation in the 1AC that they feel is
justified in this context. We will offer a competing methodology that we feel is more appropriate for the
context of academic debate. We will establish a multiplicity of reasons as to why this is true and why it
warrants a ballot for the negative. But, there are a few things we need to establish first:
A. Concrete advocacy stemming from resolution

1. In order for a debate to effectively occur, each side must present a concrete advocacy in the first
constructive and defend that advocacy throughout the rebuttal speeches. This is true for a couple of
reasons:
a. Ground/Fairness: The First Affirmative Constructive is the foundation for the round. They
choose the arguments they will defend and the negative challenges those arguments on a number
of levels. If you were to allow that ground to change in subsequent speeches or to be left totally
vague in the 1AC and cross examination, the negative would have no chance of winning the
debate because the affirmative would just listen to the negative speeches then shift their advocacy
to avoid our arguments. Not offering a plan text – or some concrete text to their alternative to the
status quo makes the affirmative a moving target and warrants a vote against the affirmative for
reasons of ground, fairness and predictability.
b. Education: One of the biggest educational benefits of debate is learning to defend your arguments
against challenges. Without a concrete advocacy, the only thing you learn how to do is run from
arguments by avoiding them. Requiring a concrete advocacy guarantees the debate will increase
both argumentative and advocacy skills.
In the 2AC and later speeches, you should be able to trace back responses directly to the 1AC advocacy. If
the links are not clear or their story changes you should vote immediately for the negative. The damage is
done and the trigger can not be “unpulled”.
2. The 1AC presentation and the cross examination of the 1AC should be binding. They should not be
able to use ambiguities in their advocacy or answers to claim they can “co-opt” our negative arguments.
This is the equivalent of a 2AC replan or an affirmative “floating PIC” - they either offer no text to their
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alternative or a text that is so ambiguous it becomes unpredictable. This should be rejected for reasons
identified above.
3. Competitive equity is key in this context. This activity takes place within a competitive forum where
winners and losers are identified. There are rules/norms for reasons of competitive equity – they are doing
the equivalent of taking Olympic boxing and turning it into Ultimate Fighting – Anything Goes. Their
interpretation lacks any protection for the negative team – we came prepared to box and their kicking us!
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1NC Framework 2/3
4. The resolution should guide affirmative action and negative preparation. As the negative, we prepare
against affirmatives that defend US Federal Government action to increase constructive engagement with
the governments five countries in the Middle East. We interpret this to mean that they must defend one or
more of the three branches of the federal government taking some legislative action to establish relations
with the governments of one or more of the countries in the resolution. If they no link out of arguments
that assume this it will prove them non-topical. Topicality is a voter for reasons of ground, fairness and
education.
B. Traditional debate is a valuable methodology

1. What is traditional policy debate?
The focus of traditional policy debate is for students to engage in discussions about the costs and benefits
of a specific policy action with the goal of solving some harm that exists. The method for this has been for
the affirmative to use the resolution as the source of “fiat” – they find a policy action that falls within the
limits established by the resolutional wording and they get to “simulate” the policy discussion of the costs
and benefits that taking that policy action would incur. The negative can challenge that action on a number
of levels – from topicality (whether their action falls within the limits established by the resolution),
opportunity costs (through the advocacy of counterplans or critiques with alternatives), disadvantages to
adopting the policy action, and/or solvency arguments that claim their action would make the world worse
or does not solve the problems identified. The affirmative must then defend their policy action against the
attacks.
2. Why is traditional policy debate beneficial?

a. Debates with a policy focus have numerous benefits that are not seen in discussions that fail to
demand advocacy of a particular policy position
Keller, Whittaker, and Burke, 2001. [Thomas E., James K., and Tracly K., Asst. professor School of
Social Service Administration U. of Chicago, professor of Social Work, and doctoral student School of
Social Work, “Student debates in policy courses: promoting policy practice skills and knowledge through
active learning,” Journal of Social Work Education, Spr/Summer, EBSCOhost]
Based on a review of the literature, the authors’ experience conducting debates in a course, and the
subsequent evaluation of those debates, the authors believe the development of policy practice skills and
the acquisition of substantive knowledge can be advanced through structured student debates in policy-oriented
courses. The authors think debates on important policy questions have numerous benefits: prompting students
to deal with values and assumptions, encouraging them to investigate and analyze competing alternatives,
compelling them to advocate a particular position, and motivating them to articulate a point of view in a
persuasive manner. We think engaging in these analytic and persuasive activities promotes greater
knowledge by stimulating active participation in the learning process.
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1NC Framework 3/3

b. Policy practice involves fundamental critical thinking skills absent from their methodological
framework
Keller, Whittaker, and Burke, 2001. [Thomas E., James K., and Tracly K., Asst. professor School of
Social Service Administration U. of Chicago, professor of Social Work, and doctoral student School of
Social Work, “Student debates in policy courses: promoting policy practice skills and knowledge through
active learning,” Journal of Social Work Education, Spr/Summer, EBSCOhost]
Policy practice encompasses social workers' "efforts to influence the development, enactment,
implementation, or assessment of social policies" (Jansson, 1994, p. 8). Effective policy practice involves
analytic activities, such as defining issues, gathering data, conducting research, identifying and prioritizing
policy options, and creating policy proposals (Jansson, 1994). It also involves persuasive activities intended
to influence opinions and outcomes, such as discussing and debating issues, organizing coalitions and task
forces, and providing testimony. According to Jansson (1984,pp. 57-58), social workers rely upon five
fundamental skills when pursuing policy practice activities:
* value-clarification skills for identifying and assessing the underlying values inherent in policy positions;
* conceptual skills for identifying and evaluating the relative merits of different policy options;
* interactional skills for interpreting the values and positions of others and conveying one's own point of
view in a convincing manner;
* political skills for developing coalitions and developing effective strategies; and
* position-taking skills for recommending, advocating, and defending a particular policy.
These policy practice skills reflect the hallmarks of critical thinking (see Brookfield, 1987; Gambrill, 1997).
The central activities of critical thinking are identifying and challenging underlying assumptions, exploring
alternative ways of thinking and acting, and arriving at commitments after a period of questioning, analysis,
and reflection (Brookfield, 1987). Significant parallels exist with the policy-making process--identifying the
values underlying policy choices, recognizing and evaluating multiple alternatives, and taking a position
and advocating for its adoption. Developing policy practice skills seems to share much in common with
developing capacities for critical thinking.
c. Switch-side debate teaches us to investigate an issue from multiple perspectives. This increases
education and allows us to become better advocates and coalition builders.
3. We are not exclusive of their advocacy. They will claim that traditional debate excludes their arguments, but
this isn’t true. There are topical, concrete advocacies that would allow a discussion of their issues and using
alternative presentation formats. As long as this is true, there is no reason to accept their interpretation – the only
risk of exclusion is through voting affirmative.
4. Defending Federal Government action is key. We are all citizens of the United States, with responsibilities in
that role. If we don’t agree with the things the USFG does, this is a forum where we can test alternative
methods of government action. In their world, the government has been, is, and will always be a bad agency
that is doomed to fail. In our world, we can look at the alternative forms that government action can take and
find ways of improving it. Their position is nihilistic and should be rejected.
5. They pick and choose which limits/norms are acceptable – proving their advocacy is a moving target. I
would venture to guess they would not allow us to ignore the time limits in the debate and continue our
speeches after the timer sounds. They also ground their 1ac in the resolutional wording – proving that they see
at least REASON if not total justification for having a topic and for following norms. Don’t let them say they
are escaping the system when they are obviously participating in the system.
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2NC/1NR Framework Overview 1/2
They have lost this round on two levels – first, they have not properly answered the competitive equity debate
established in the 1NC. They have not provided you with a concrete advocacy that clearly divides ground in a
fair and equitable manner. Instead, they have chosen to shift arguments from the 1AC in order to co-opt our
argumentation from the 1NC – extend our voters on the A. subpoint for fairness, ground and education. In
addition, they have failed to be responsive to the justification for traditional policy debate in the 1NC. Extend
our original Keller, Whittaker and Burke evidence about the importance of advocating particular policy
positions. In addition,
Structured student debates promote competence in policy practice, develops skills that
translate into political activities like testifying before legislative committees, and stimulates
critical thinking
Keller, Whittaker, and Burke, 2001. [Thomas E., James K., and Tracly K., Asst. professor School of Social Service
Administration U. of Chicago, professor of Social Work, and doctoral student School of Social Work, “Student
debates in policy courses: promoting policy practice skills and knowledge through active learning,” Journal of
Social Work Education, Spr/Summer, EBSCOhost]
SOCIAL WORKERS HAVE a professional responsibility to shape social policy and legislation (National Association of Social
Workers, 1996). In recent decades, the concept of policy practice has encouraged social workers to consider the ways in which
their work can be advanced through active participation in the policy arena (Jansson, 1984, 1994; Wyers, 1991). The
emergence of the policy practice framework has focused greater attention on the competencies required
for social workers to influence social policy and placed greater emphasis on preparing social work students
for policy intervention (Dear & Patti, 1981; Jansson, 1984, 1994; Mahaffey & Hanks, 1982; McInnis-Dittrich, 1994). The
curriculum standards of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) require the teaching of knowledge and skills in the
political process (CSWE, 1994). With this formal expectation of policy education in schools of social work, the
best
instructional methods must be employed to ensure students acquire the requisite policy practice skills and
perspectives.
The authors believe that structured student debates have great potential for promoting competence in policy
practice and in-depth knowledge of substantive topics relevant to social policy. Like other interactive
assignments designed to more closely resemble "real-world" activities, issue-oriented debates actively
engage students in course content. Debates also allow students to develop and exercise skills that may
translate to political activities, such as testifying before legislative committees. Finally, and perhaps most
importantly, debates may help to stimulate critical thinking by shaking students free from established
opinions and helping them to appreciate the complexities involved in policy dilemmas.
This evidence can not be captured by them because they fail to focus attention on
competencies related to influencing social policy and preparing students for policy
intervention. But, the biggest point of difference between our methodology and theirs falls
in the last sentence of this evidence – they fail to shake themselves free from their
established opinions and appreciate complexities involved in policy dilemmas by
stubbornly refusing to be affirmative in the debate because it would go against some of their
established beliefs and would require recognition of complex policy prescriptions. This in
turn creates an activity where critical thinking skills are greatly diminished – the authors
continue: [evidence is on next page]
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that critical thinkers acknowledge the
R.W. Paul (as cited in Gambrill, 1997) states
imperative to argue from opposing points of view and to seek
to identify weakness and limitations in one's own position.
Critical thinkers are aware that there are many legitimate
points of view, each of which (when thought through) may
yield some level of insight. (p. 126)
John Dewey, the philosopher and educational reformer, suggested that the initial advance in the
development of reflective thought occurs in the transition from holding fixed, static ideas to an attitude of
doubt and questioning engendered by exposure to alternative views in social discourse (Baker, 1955, pp. 36-
40). Doubt, confusion, and conflict resulting from discussion of diverse perspectives "force comparison,
selection, and reformulation of ideas and meanings" (Baker, 1955, p. 45). Subsequent educational theorists have
contended that learning requires openness to divergent ideas in combination with the ability to synthesize
disparate views into a purposeful resolution (Kolb, 1984; Perry, 1970). On the one hand, clinging to the certainty
of one's beliefs risks dogmatism, rigidity, and the inability to learn from new experiences. On the other hand,
if one's opinion is altered by every new experience, the result is insecurity, paralysis, and the inability to take effective action. The
educator's role is to help students develop the capacity to incorporate new and sometimes conflicting ideas and experiences into a
coherent cognitive framework. Kolb suggests that, "if the education process begins by bringing out the learner's beliefs and
theories, examining and testing them, and then integrating the new, more refined ideas in the person's belief systems, the learning
process will be facilitated" (p. 28).
The authors believe that involving students in substantive debates challenges them to learn and grow in the
fashion described by Dewey and Kolb. Participation in a debate stimulates clarification and critical evaluation of
the evidence, logic, and values underlying one's own policy position. In addition, to debate effectively
students must understand and accurately evaluate the opposing perspective. The ensuing tension between
two distinct but legitimate views is designed to yield a reevaluation and reconstruction of knowledge and
beliefs pertaining to the issue.
Finally, the switch side debating encouraged by forcing affirmatives to defend resolutional action
even if they might disagree with it is necessary to us reaching full personhood and developing a
healthy and inclusive society like the one they advocate
Ehninger, 1970. [Douglas, Former U. of Iowa communication studies professor, Speech Monographs]
But this process is also reflexive, for insofar as we treat the “other” as a person rather than as an “object,” we become persons ourselves; while
insofar as we fail to do so, our own “personhood” is to that extent diminished. The attributes of freedom and responsibility that are
defining of the “person” are not absolutes with the respect to the “other” but are states that are reached only in
“relationship.” Relation, inclusion, experience from the opposite side, the capacity to comprehend the contradiction
which opposition entails, these are not merely descriptive of the human condition; they are constitutive. The I
attains to its full potential only when, and only to the extent that, it meets the “other” as a Thou. Argument as a way
of “living through a common experience from the other side” as a reciprocal honoring of the “person” rather than as a
unilateral exploitation of the biological or economic individual, is, therefore, a way of gaining “freedom” and “responsibility”: by
granting “freedom” and “responsibility”; a way of achieving “personhood” for oneself by bestowing “personhood”
upon another. Johnstone has remarked that the creature who refuses to argue or to listen to arguments, must, of
necessity, remain something less than human. Because man is by nature a social animal he attains complete humanity
only when he enters into such relationships as argument provides. The ultimate justification of argument as method, therefore,
lies not in any pragmatic test of results achieved or disasters avoided. Rather it lies in the fact that by introducing the arguer “into a
situation of risk in which open-mindedness and tolerance are possible,” it paves the way toward personhood for the
disputants, and through them and millions like them opens the way to a society in which the values and
commitments requisite to “personhood” may some day replace the exploitation and strike which now separate man from
man nation from nation.
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The Affirmative may try to claim that they do not exclude traditional forms of debate, but you
should note multiple things that mean they do, whether they say they do or not:
1. They refuse to advocate action by the US Federal Government.
2. They refuse to articulate a clear description of what they “defend” in the 1AC – this is
crucial to us being able to make ARGUMENTS in response to them and having an
actual DEBATE.
This lack of concrete identification of a policy option has costs both competitively and educationally
– and for that reason, we believe that the negative’s framework of a combination of traditional
substance with stylistic variety is better for competitive equity, inclusion of others in debate and
educational opportunities.
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Framework Extensions – Simulations Good
Simulations that include a perspective “from the inside” or the position of a participant are valuable learning
tool
Bernstein, Scheerborn, and Ritter, 2002. [Jeffrey L., Sarah, and Sara, Asst. prof. in Dept. of Political Science and
juniors in political science, “Using simulations and collaborative teaching to enhance introductory course,” College
Teaching, Winter]
Simulations can be a useful instructional tool in any classroom constexts. McKeachie (1994, 163) argues that “the chief
advantage of games and simulations is that students are active participants rather than passive observers. Students must
make decisions, solve problems, and react to the results of their decisions.” Dekkers and Donatti (1981) suggest that
simulations have a positive effect on student motivation, a critical factor when one is teaching a required introductory course.
Parente (1995, 75) argues that simulations can “build an environment from which students can learn experientially.
Therefore, students analyze situations form the inside, or the position of a participant.” By making students active
learners, we motivate them to learn the material and succeed in the class. They also learn to view the material with a
more critical eye as they make decisions themselves rather than passively accepting those made by others.
Simulations like debate have been around for centuries and have been proven to be effective in both
international crises and policy planning
May, 1997. [Danna Garrison, “Active learning for gifted students,” Gifted Child Today Magazine, Mar/Apr,
Proquest]
Simulations have been used for centuries. They may be traced back to India more than 1,500 years ago, where the
ancient game of chess was first played. Chess was created as a simulation game that dealt with a battle between two
nations. Later, a Prussian modified the game, changing the original pieces into representations of actual military
units and the game board into a map with models of combat areas. This military chess game has been modified
recently for computer war games used in training military personnel. Researchers have found that simulations are
effective in anticipating and preventing possible future international crises and are aids in policy planning in such
varied fields as health care and transportation (Lee, 1994).
Debate as simulation has a number of advantages that their methodology fails to capture – they do not
require (and even tend to negate) library and scientific research skills, predicting outcomes and analyzing
alternative strategies – all things that are encouraged in traditional debate
May, 1997. [Danna Garrison, “Active learning for gifted students,” Gifted Child Today Magazine, Mar/Apr,
Proquest]
Advantages of simulations include the use of critical and creative thinking skills such as predicting outcomes,
analyzing alternative strategies, and making decisions in a safe, non-threatening environment as well as library and
scientific research skills, written and verbal communication skills, and leadership skills. Simulations motivate
students by using self-discovery. They gain empathy for real-life decisions and a better understanding of the effects
of various situations (Lee, 1994). Evidence has shown that simulations increase students' tolerance and their level of
acceptance of others' thoughts and ideas (Dukes & Seinder, 1978). Throughout the simulation, students are able to
work at different levels that match their experience and abilities.
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Framework Extensions – Concrete Meaning Key
We don’t seek to exclude all alternative interpretations – but their interpretation alone leaves us without a
foundation for decision, judgment, prescription or action – ours is the only interpretation that provides you
with a guide for action and a justification for a ballot
Jarvis, 1999. [DSL, Prof. of International Relations and Business at U. of Sydney, International Relations and the
Challenge of Postmodernism]
As scholars reconstituted under this “appropriate posture,” or in later writings a “critical posture of estrangement,” we would
be condemned to read, to play with words, to interpret without purpose, and to sit amid a solipsistic intertext where
words, meanings, referents, signifiers, authors, and subjects have no meaning or reality other than those we would
construct individually.” With the knowledge that there is no true knowledge because of the absence of secure ground upon
which to build knowledge, we would abandon the Enlightenment project and squander away our time in linguistic play as
“floating signifiers” vied for our attention among the simulacra of images that each of us consumed. Knowing that we
could not know, the task at hand would devolve into one of repudiating the entire stock of knowledge, understanding,
and practices that constitute International Relations and developing instead an historical amnesia that favored “a view
from a far, from up high.”” Even interpretation, Ashley insists, method permissible to most postmodernists, would eventually
have to be abandoned along with theory.43 Since “there is no there there” to be explained, and since interpretation
would be but another method of affixing intrinsic meaning to a metaphysical nonreality, it too would have to be
abandoned. In this newly constituted enterprise, nothing would await discovery, nothing would have intrinsic meaning,
nothing would actually be present other than “absence,” and hence nothing could be named. The state would not really
exist, subjects would be transcendental fabrications who chase their empty identity throughout history, and history
would be a mere interpretation, yet another “practice of domination.”” Within this nihilistic history, subversive
postmodernists would have us devolve our disciplinary enterprise into a form of philosophical mentalism, an attempt “to resist
the metaphysical temptation in our culture, to assume that something so important must be namable and that the name must
indicate a definite referent, an already differentiated identity and source of meaning that just awaits to be named.” 45 Only
minds situated amid their various contexts would exist and reality would be constituted not through the “realm of
immediate sense experience” or “by direct observation of an independently existing world of ‘facts,’” but through
the thoughts of the mind.’ What, then, would we be left with and what could this newly constituted enterprise offer? As
Ashley freely admits, it could offer little. It could not “claim to offer an alternative position or perspective” since there
would be no secure ontological ground upon which these could be established.” Nor could it offer alternative interpretations
save it would attempt to impose “interpretation upon interpretation” and capture history by imposing fixed meanings and
understandings. Least of all could if offer theory, the very tyranny of modernist narratives that tends to “privilege” and
“marginalize.” Absent any theoretical legacy or factual knowledge, we would be forced into an endless intertextual
discourse predicated on the consumption of words and the individual thoughts they evoke: a kind of purified anarchism
albeit in a perpetual state of self-dispersal.” We would live in a world of relativistic knowledge claims, each “true” to those that
think it, but its truthfulness unobtainable to those who would read it or wish to communicate it. Above all, we would be left
without theory-knowledge as a basis for decision, judgment, prescription, and action, surrendering us to “a view
from afar, from up high.” But as Nicholas Onuf asks, “What does this leave for dealing with those close at hand?” 49
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Framework Extensions – Defending Resolution as Proposition Key
The necessity in debate to provide a warrant for the resolution is necessary to gain a full
understanding of it – their advocacy excludes understanding of the resolution by refusing it
before understanding it
Scott, 1999. [David, Prof. of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins, Refashioning futures: criticism after postcoloniality]
Contrary to the rationalist view (as prevalent among contemporary anti-essentialist postmodernists as among the essentialists they
attack), you cannot simply read off the error of a proposition without the prior labor of reconstructing the question to
which it aims to respond. This is because propositions are never answers to self-evident or “perennial” questions –
for Collingwood there are no such things – and therefore you cannot assume in advance that you know the question in
relation to which the text constitutes itself as an answer. Collingwood’s logic of question and answer has perhaps not
received the attention it deserves. One thinker who has made much of it, however, is Quentin Skinner. It is from Collingwood,
Skinner writes in the course of responding to a number of his own critics, that he has derived his most “fundamental assumptions
as an intellectual historian.” This is the assumption that “the history of thought should be viewed not as a series of attempts to
answer a canonical set of questions, but as a sequence of episodes in which the questions as well as the answers have frequently
changed.” Reading Collingwood though the language of J.L. Austin, Skinner argues that in order to understand a proposition
you have to understand a proposition you have to understand it not merely in its internal logical status but as a
“move in an argument.” You have, therefore, to grasp why it was “put forward” in the way that it was in the first
place, and to do this you have to “recapture the presuppositions and purposes that went into making it.”
Assuming the resolution is the wrong artifact for criticism only serves to replicate the
problems the affirmative is trying to solve
Scott, 1999. [David, Prof. of Johns Hopkins Anthropology, Refashioning futures: criticism after postcoloniality]
However, it seems to me that the force of the antifoundationalist claim is considerably undermined (if not
completely discredited) when it is taken to authorize a simple anti-essentialism according to which hitherto existing
strategies of criticism are found out, admonished, and dismissed for their epistemological naivete. Much of what
goes under the name of postmodernism in contemporary cultural theory turns on this effort to demonstrate the
essentialism of an adversary as though the assumption of an essence by itself were cognitively, morally, and
politically unsupportable. Something very curious is at work here. In their zeal for their own version of
epistemological purity, the anti-essentialists show themselves unable to put away or suppress their own desire for
mastery, for certainty, for the command of an essential meaning. It were as though, as Stuart Hall has put it, if they
go on “thinking about Heidegger and Derrida long enough [they] will come to a moment when all will be
transparent, and … will hold.” In effect, then, what starts out being a welcome humbling of certain hegemonic
regimes of Truth turns out to be little more than the adoption of an updated counter-design procedure, a counter-
rationalism, a counter-claim to the right way for criticism to carry on.
ADI 12
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McGowan Countercriticism 1/2
We offer the following “Acting Out” countercriticism:
(1) Their performance is an attempt to SHOW their rejection of symbolic authority – but they are
“acting-out” not acting authentically – their performance demonstrates their investment in the
symbolic authority, not a rejection of it. You should vote against them to symbolically make them
“go away” as Plato advises
Todd McGowan, Assistant professor of English at the University of Vermont, 2004
(The End of Dissatisfaction?)
In response to the command to enjoy, contemporary cynicism is an effort to gain distance from the
functioning of power, to resist the hold that power has over us. Hence, the cynic turns inward and
displays an indifference to external authorities, with the aim of self-sufficient independence. Symbolic authority –
which would force the subject into a particular symbolic identity, an identity not freely chosen by the
subject herself – is the explicit enemy of cynicism. To acknowledge the power of symbolic authority over
one’s own subjectivity would be, in the eyes of the cynic, to acknowledge one’s own failure to enjoy fully,
making such acknowledgement unacceptable. In the effort to refuse the power of this authority, one must
eschew all trappings of conformity. This is why the great Cynical philosopher Diogenes made a show of
masturbating in public, a gesture that made clear to everyone that he had moved beyond the constraints of
the symbolic law and that he would brook no barrier to his jouissance. By freely doing in public what others feared to do, Diogenes
acted out his refusal to submit to the prohibition that others accepted. He attempted to demonstrate that
the symbolic law had no absolute hold over him and that he had no investment in it. However, seeming to
be beyond the symbolic law and actually being beyond it are two different – and, in fact, opposed – things
and this difference becomes especially important in the contemporary society of enjoyment. In the act of making a show of one’s
indifference to the public law (in the manner of Diogenese and today’s cynical subject), one does not gain distance from
that law, but unwittingly reveals one’s investment in it. Such a show is done for the look of the symbolic
authority. The cynic stages her/his act publicly in order that symbolic authority will see it. Because it is
staged this way, we know that the cynic’s act – such as the public masturbation of Diogenes - represents a case of
acting-out, rather than an authentic act, an act that suspends the functioning of symbolic authority. Acting-out always
occurs on a stage, while the authentic act and authentic enjoyment – the radical break from the constraints
of symbolic authority – occur unstaged, without reference to the Other’s look. In the History of
Philosophy, Hegel makes clear the cynic’s investment in symbolic authority through his discussion of
Plato’s interactions with Diogenes:
In Plato’s house [Diogenes] once walked on the beautiful carpets with muddy feet, saying, “I tread on the
pride of Plato.” “Yes, but with another pride,” replied Plato, as pointedly. When Diogenes stood wet
through with rain, and the bystanders pitied him, Plato said, “If you wish to compassionate him, just go
away. His vanity is in showing himself off and exciting surprise; it is what made him act in this way, and
the reason would not exist if he were left alone.”
Though Diogenes attempts to act in a way that demonstrates his self-sufficiency, his distance from every external authority, what he attains
however, is far from self-sufficiency. As Plato’s ripostes demonstrate, everything that the cynic does to distance
himself from symbolic authority plays directly into the hands of that authority. Here we see how cynicism
functions symptomatically in the society of enjoyment, providing the illusion of enjoyment beyond social
constraints while leaving these constraints completely intact.
ADI 13
Performance Neg
McGowan Countercriticism 2/2
(2) Their confidence in their own radicality turns on itself – they can not be truly radical until they
realize just how radical they AREN’T – affirming their performance will only lead to apathy and an
erosion of the public world
(The End of Dissatisfaction?)
This recoil from the constitutive lie is simply the manifestation of hostility toward the social order and its constitutive hold over us.
Such hostility develops because we perceive the social order as a continued threat to our ability to sustain
our private enjoyment, not because we are actually revolting against symbolic authority. What we fail to
see – and what psychoanalysis takes pains to point out – is that no matter how private we feel this enjoyment to be, it is
always located within the symbolic order. The social order is not the enemy of this imagined enjoyment –
nor is it threatened by it. What we imagine as our radicality is actually that which locates us firmly under
the sway of symbolic authority. Our experience as subjects today is dramatically misleading; it prompts us to
feel, almost inevitably, as if we are radical beings. The society of commanded enjoyment does offer us the opportunity to
realize this feeling of radicality in action, though few of us actually do. Instead, we remain content with our isolated, private
enjoyment and the image of radicality. But the isolation of private enjoyment and its seeming radicality are never as isolated or as
radical as all that. Recognizing this is the incipience of a politics with more at stake than my private
enjoyment, because politics as such can only begin when we grasp just how radical we aren’t. The command
to enjoy does open up this political possibility. However, we don’t engage in radical political activity as long as we
remain confident that we are already radical. Instead, we retreat into apathy, and as we do, the public
world erodes.
ADI 14
Performance Neg
Block Overview on McGowan CounterK
Extend the first piece of McGowan 2004 evidence - There are several important
implications in this piece of evidence:
First, the choice to act out while on the stage of a debate round by “rejecting the symbolic
law and authority” of the topic, etc. is simply a reinvestment in that symbolic law and
authority. A real, authentic action would occur unstaged without reference to a ballot or
the judge or the community.
Second, the performance actually serves as a mask – creating the illusion that they move
beyond social constraints while leaving those constraints completely intact.
Finally, they frame the ballot as a means of demonstrating compassion for their “project”
or argument, but as Plato shows, this is just another demonstration of their own pride, and
it would be better to just go away than to acknowledge their alleged suffering or symbolic
stance, which is, at least partially, a self-created phenomenon.
ADI 15
Performance Neg
McGowan K Extension: 1NC #2
Their incivility is directed toward the wrong targets – their actions are an expression of complete
docility not radical protest
(The End of Dissatisfaction?, pages 187-190)
Nonetheless, incivility and aggressiveness do have another side to them, a side that has remained largely unexplored. These symptoms
are indicative of a subjective disposition within the society of enjoyment willing to challenge the dictates of
symbolic authority. In this sense, contemporary incivility and aggressiveness hold out the possibility for producing radicalized
subjects, subjects unwilling to accept injustice or a lack of freedom simply because symbolic power authorizes it. This
dimension of subjectivity in the society of enjoyment manifests itself, for instance, in the protests that have met the
recent meetings of the World Bank. Such protests stem from an ability to be uncivil and a refusal to accept enforced
dissatisfaction that the turn to the society of enjoyment informs. The problem is, however, that we too often direct
our incivility toward the wrong targets, not toward the figures of symbolic authority but toward the victims of it.
The contemporary tendency toward incivility has the ability to assist us in contesting and freeing ourselves from
symbolic authority, but only when we first recognize the extent of our allegiance to this authority today in the
society of commanded enjoyment. Too often incivility is nothing more than the contemporary expression of
complete docility.
ADI 16
Performance Neg
Policy Debate Good - Activism
Policy discussion, specifically the advocacy of specific policy options is the hallmark of the
critical thinking skills that allow us to become more affective real world activists.
Keller, Whittaker, and Burke, 2001. [Thomas E., Asst. professor School of Social Service Administration U. of
Chicago, James K., professor of Social Work, and Tracy K., doctoral student School of Social Work, “Student
debates in policy courses: promoting policy practice skills and knowledge through active learning,” Journal of
Social Work Education, Spr/Summer]
Policy practice encompasses social workers' "efforts to influence the development, enactment, implementation, or
assessment of social policies" (Jansson, 1994, p. 8). Effective policy practice involves analytic activities, such as
defining issues, gathering data, conducting research, identifying and prioritizing policy options, and creating policy
proposals (Jansson, 1994). It also involves persuasive activities intended to influence opinions and outcomes, such
as discussing and debating issues, organizing coalitions and task forces, and providing testimony. According to
Jansson (1984, pp. 57-58), social workers rely upon five fundamental skills when pursuing policy practice
activities: * value-clarification skills for identifying and assessing the underlying values inherent in policy
positions; * conceptual skills for identifying and evaluating the relative merits of different policy options; *
interactional skills for interpreting the values and positions of others and conveying one's own point of view in a
convincing manner; * political skills for developing coalitions and developing effective strategies; and *
position-taking skills for recommending, advocating, and defending a particular policy. These policy practice skills
reflect the hallmarks of critical thinking (see Brookfield, 1987; Gambrill, 1997). The central activities of critical
thinking are identifying and challenging underlying assumptions, exploring alternative ways of thinking and acting,
and arriving at commitments after a period of questioning, analysis, and reflection (Brookfield, 1987). Significant
parallels exist with the policy-making process--identifying the values underlying policy choices, recognizing and
evaluating multiple alternatives, and taking a position and advocating for its adoption. Developing policy practice
skills seems to share much in common with developing capacities for critical thinking.
Role-playing debates promote prepare us for real world activism by giving us a better
understanding of how policy works, making us affective agents to achieve change. This
allows us as individuals to become actors who could indeed transform international
politics.
Joyner 1999 [Christopher, Professor international Law @ University of Georgetown, “Teaching International Law:
Views from an international relations political scientist”].
The debate exercises carry several specific educational objectives. First, students on each team must work together
to refine a cogent argument that compellingly asserts their legal position on a foreign policy issue confronting the
United States. In this way, they gain greater insight into the real-world legal dilemmas faced by policy makers.
Second, as they work with other members of their team, they realize the complexities of applying and implementing
international law, and the difficulty of bridging the gaps between United States policy and international legal
principles, either by reworking the former or creatively reinterpreting the latter. Finally, research for the debates
forces students to become familiarized with contemporary issues on the United States foreign policy agenda and the
role that international law plays in formulating and executing these policies. 8 The debate thus becomes an excellent
vehicle for pushing students beyond stale arguments over principles into the real world of policy analysis, political
critique, and legal defense.
ADI 17
Performance Neg
Policy Debate Good – Education
Debate is key to cognitive thinking and education on real world topics—switch side debate
is especially critical to education.
Muir, 1993 (Star A, Department of Communications at George Mason University, “A Defense of the Ethics of
Contemporary Debate”, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 26, No. 4, pg. 282-285)
The debate over moral education and values clarification parallels in many ways the controversy over switch-side debate. Where values
clarification recognizes no one set of values, debate forces a questioning and exploration of both sides of an issue. Where
cognitive-development emphasizes the use of role playing in the inception of moral judgment, debate requires an empathy for alternative points
of view. Where discussion provides an opportunity for expressions of personal feelings, debate fosters an analytic and
explicit approach to value assessment. Freeley describes the activity this way:
Educational debate provides an opportunity for students to consider the significant problems in the
context of a multivalued orientation. They learn to look at a problem from many points of view. As
debaters analyze the potential affirmative cases and the potential negative cases, including the
possibility of negative counterplans, they being to realize the complexity of most contemporary
problems and to appreciate the worth of a multivalued orientation; as they debate both sides of a
proposition under consideration, they learn not only that most problems of contemporary affairs have
more than one side but also that even one side of a proposition embodies a considerable range of
values.
The comparison between moral education and debate is useful because it contextualizes the process of moral development within an
educational setting. Several objections have been raised about the practice of moral education, and these objections have direct relevance to the
issue of switch-side debate. A view of debate as a form of moral education can be developed by addressing questions of
efficacy, of isolation from the real world, and of relativism.
The first issue is one of effectiveness: Do clarification activities achieve the espoused goals? Social coercion and peer pressure, for
example, still occur in the group setting, leaving the individual choice of values an indoctrination of sorts.27 Likewise, the focus of clarification
exercises is arguably less analytic than expressive, less critical than emotive.28 The expression of individual preferences may be guided by
simple reaction rather than by rational criteria. These problems are minimized in the debate setting, especially where advocacy is not aligned with
personal belief. Such advocacy requires explicit analysis of values and the decision criteria for evaluating them.
In contemporary debate, confronted with a case they believe in, debaters assigned to the negative side have several options:
present a morass of arguments to see what arguments "stick," concede the problem and offer a "counterplan" as a
better way of solving the problem, or attack the value structure of the affirmative and be more effective in defending a particular
hierarchy of values. While the first option is certainly exercised with some frequency, the second and third options are
also often used and are of critical importance in the development of cognitive skills associated with moral judgment. For
example, in attacking a case that restricts police powers and upholds a personal right to privacy, debaters might question the reasoning of scholars
and justices in raising privacy rights to such significant heights (analyzing Griswold v. Connecticut and other landmark cases), offer alternative
value structures (social order, drug control), and defend the criteria through which such choices are made (utilitarian vs. deontological premises).
Even within the context of a "see what sticks" paradigm, these arguments require debaters to assess and evaluate
value structures opposite of their own personal feelings about their right to privacy. Social coercion, or peer pressure to adopt
certain value structures, is minimized in such a context because of competitive pressures. Adopting a value just because everyone else does may
be the surest way of losing a debate.
A second objection to debate as values clarification, consonant with Ehninger's concerns about gamesmanship, is the
separation of the educational process from the real world. A significant concern here is how such learning about morality will be
used in the rest of a student's life. Some critics question whether moral school knowledge "may be quite separate from living moral experience in
a similar way as proficiency in speaking one's native language generally appears quite separate from the knowledge of formal grammar imparted
by school.” Edelstein discusses two forms of segmentation: division between realms of school knowledge (e.g., history separated from science)
and between school and living experience (institutional learning separate from everyday life). Ehninger's point, that debate becomes a
pastime, and that application of these skills to solving real problems is diminished if it is viewed as a game, is
largely a reflection on institutional segmentation.
The melding of different areas of knowledge, however, is a particular benefit of debate, as it addresses topics of
considerable importance in a real world setting. Recent college and high school topics include energy policy, prison reform, care for
the elderly, trade policy, homelessness, and the right to privacy. These topics are notable because they exceed the knowledge
boundaries of particular school subjects, they reach into issues of everyday life, and they are broad enough to force
students to address a variety of value appeals. The explosion of "squirrels," or small and specific cases, III the 1960s and 1970s has
had the effect of opening up each topic to many different case approaches. National topics are no longer of the one-case variety (as in 1955's "the
U.S. should recog nize Red China"). On the privacy topic, for example, cases include search and seizure issues, abortion, sexual privacy,
tradeoffs with the first amendment, birth control, information privacy, pornography, and obscenity. The multiplicity of issues pays
special dividends for debaters required to defend both sides of many issues because the value criteria change from
round to round and evolve over the year. The development of flexibility in coping with the intertwining of issues is
an essential component in the interconnection of knowledge, and is a major rationale for switch-side debate.]
ADI 18
Performance Neg
Policy Debate Good – Education

Switch side debate fosters moral responsibility and reaps the educational benefits of debate
—sounding persuasive is not enough.
Firm moral commitment to a value system, however, along with a sense of moral identity, is founded in
reflexive assessments of multiple perspectives. Switch-side debate is not simply a matter of speaking persuasively or
organizing ideas clearly (although it does involve these), but of understanding and mobilizing arguments to make an
effective case. Proponents of debating both sides observe that the debaters should prepare the best possible case
they can, given the facts and information available to them. This process, at its core, involves critical assessment
and evaluation of arguments; it is a process of critical-thinking not available with many traditional teaching
methods. We must progressively learn to recognize how often the concepts of others are discredited by the concepts
we use to justify ourselves to ourselves. We must come to see how often our claims are compelling· only when
expressed in Slur own egocentric view. We can do this if we learn the art of using concepts without living in them.
This is possible only when the intellectual act of stepping outside of our own systems of belief has become second
nature, a routine and ordinary responsibility of everyday living. Neither academic schooling nor socialization has yet
addressed this moral responsibility, but switch-side debating fosters this type of role playing and generates reasoned
moral positions based in part on values of tolerance and fairness .
Yes, there may be a dangerous sense of competitive pride that comes with successfully advocating a position
against one's own views, and there are ex-debaters who excuse their deceptive practices by saying ''I'm just doing
my job." Ultimately, however, sound convictions are distinguishable from emphatic convictions by a consideration
of all sides of a moral stance. Moral education is not a guaranteed formula for rectitude, but the central tendencies of
switch-side debate are in line with convictions built on empathic appreciation for alternative points of view and a
reasoned assessment of arguments both pro and con. Tolerance, as an alternative to dogmatism, is preferable, not
because it invites a relativistic view of the world, but because in a framework of equal access to ideas and equal
opportunities for expression, the truth that emerges is more defensible and more justifiable. Morality, an emerging
focal point of controversy in late twentieth-century American culture, is fostered rather than hampered by
empowering students to form their own moral identity.]
ADI 19
Performance Neg
Policy Debate Good – Testing of Issues
Switch side debate allows us to debate issues, not necessarily endorse them—this gives us
space to experiment with different ideas.
Contemporary Debate”, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 26, No. 4, pg. 288)
The role of switch-side debate is especially important in the oral defense of arguments that foster tolerance without
accruing the moral complications of acting on such beliefs. The forum is therefore unique in providing debaters with attitudes of tolerance without committing them
to active moral irresponsibility. As Freeley notes, debaters
are indeed exposed to a multivalued world, both within and between the
sides of a given topic. Yet this exposure hardly commits them to such “mistaken” values. In this view, the divorce
of the game from the “real world” can be seen as a means of gaining perspective without obligating students to
validate their hypothetical structure through immoral actions.
Imagining what someone else would do is the epitome of switch side debate—it’s key to
critiquing our assumptions.
The values of tolerance and fairness, implicit in the metaphor of debate as a game, are idealistic by nature.
They have a much greater chance of success, however, in an activity that requires students to examine and
understand both sides of an issue. In his description of debating societies, Robert Louis Stevenson questions the
prevalence of unreasoned opinion, and summarizes the judgment furthered in this work:
Now, as the rule stands, you are saddled with the side you disapprove, and so you are forced, by
regard for your own fame, to argue out, to feel with, to elaborate completely, the case as it stands
against yourself; and what a fund of wisdom do you not turn up in this idle digging of the vineyard!
How many new difficulties take form before your eyes! How many superannuated arguments
cripple finally into limbo, under the glance of your enforced eclecticism! . . . It is as a means of
melting down this museum of premature petrifactions into living and impressionable soul that we
insist on their utility.")
ADI 20
Performance Neg
Policy Debate Good – Tolerance
Debating fosters tolerance for opposing views by forcing us to debate both sides of an issue.
Values clarification, Stewart is correct in pointing out, does not mean that no values are developed. Two very important values—
tolerance and fairness—inhere to a significant degree in the ethics of switch-side debate. A second point about the charge of
relativism is that tolerance is related to the development of reasoned moral viewpoints. The willingness to recognize the existence of
other views, and to grant alternative positions a degree of credibility, is a value fostered by switch-side debate:
Alternately debating both sides of the same question ... inculcates a deep-seated attitude of tolerance toward differing points of
view. To be forced to debate only one side leads to an ego-identification with that side.... The other side in contrast is seen only
as something to be discredited. Arguing as persuasively as one cane for completely opposing views is one
way of giving recognition to the idea that a strong case can generally be made for the views of earnest
and intelligent men, however such views may clash with one’s own . . .. Promoting this kind of
tolerance is perhaps one of the greatest benefits debating both sides has to offer.
The activity should encourage debating both sides of a topic, reasons Thompson, because debaters are "more likely to realize that
propositions are bilateral. It is those who fail to recognize this fact who: become intolerant, dogmatic, and bigoted. "While Theodore Roosevelt
can hardly be said to be advocating bigotry, his efforts to turn out advocates convinced of their rightness is not a position imbued with tolerance.
At a societal level, the value of tolerance is more conducjye to a fair and open assessment of competing ideas.
John Stuart Mill eloquently states the case this way:
Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for
purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right. ... the
peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race .... If the opinion is right, they are
deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer
perception and livelier impression of the truth, produced by its collision with error.
At an individual level, tolerance is related to moral identity via empathic and critical assessments of differing
perspectives. Paul posits a strong relationship between tolerance, empathy, and critical thought. Discussing the function of argument in
everyday life, he observes that in order to overcome natural tendencies to reason egocentrically and sociocentrically, individuals must gain
the capacity to engage in self-reflective Questioning, to reason dialogically and dialectically, and to "reconstruct
alien and opposing belief systems empathically. "Our system of beliefs is, by definition, irrational when we are incapable of
abandoning a belief for rational reasons; that is, when we egocentrically associate our beliefs with our own integrity. Paul describes an intimate
relationship between private inferential habits, moral practices, and the nature of argumentation. Critical thought and moral identity, he
urges, must be predicated on discovering the insights of opposing views and the weakness of our own beliefs. Role
playing, he reasons, is a central element of any effort to gain such insight.]
Switch side debate prevents relativism while respecting different beliefs.

The first response to the charge of relativism is that switch-side debate respects the existence of divergent beliefs, but
focuses attention on assessing the validity of opposing belief systems. Scriven argues that the "confusion of pluralism, of the
proper tolerance for diversity of ideas, with relativism-the doctrine that there are no right and wrong answers in ethics or religion-is perhaps the
most serious ideological barrier to the implementation of moral education today.” The process of ethical inquiry is central to such moral
education, but the allowance of just any position is not. Here is where cognitive-development diverges from the formal aims of values
clarification. Where clarification ostensibly allows any value position, cognitive-development progresses from
individualism to social conformity to social contract theory to universal ethical principles. A pluralistic
pedagogy does not imply that all views are acceptable:
It is morally and pedagogically correct to teach about ethics, and the skills of moral analysis rather than
doctrine, and to set out the arguments for and against tolerance and pluralism. All of this is undone if you also
imply that all the various in compatible views about abortion or pornography or war are equally right, or likely to be right, or
deserving of respect. Pluralism requires respecting the right to hold divergent beliefs; it implies neither
tolerance of actions based on those beliefs nor respecting the content of beliefs.
ADI 21
Performance Neg
Policy Debate Good – Inclusion
We believe that debate should be about including perspectives – we advocate a rejection of one-
sided, dogmatic representations of what debate “should” or “should not” be and instead embrace
multiple styles. But, we believe that style is not substance and switch-side debates should still occur.
The value of this is seen in Best and Kellner, 1998 [Department of Philosophy at University of Texas-El
Paso, 1998 Steven & Douglas, http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/illuminations/kell28.htm, “Postmodern Politics and the
Battle for the Future”] :
The postmodern turn which has so marked social and cultural theory also involves conflicts between modern and
postmodern politics. In this study, we articulate the differences between modern and postmodern politics and argue
against one-sided positions which dogmatically reject one tradition or the other in favor of partisanship for either the
modern or the postmodern. Arguing for a politics of alliance and solidarity, we claim that this project is best served
by drawing on the most progressive elements of both the modern and postmodern traditions. Developing a new
politics involves overcoming the limitations of certain versions of modern politics and postmodern identity politics
in order to develop a politics of alliance and solidarity equal to the challenges of the coming millennium.
ADI 22
Performance Neg
Policy Debate Good – Real World Decision-making
Switch side debate is key to becoming an informed citizen—focus on technique and

strategy is the only way to gain education and become involved in the real world.
The isolation of debate from the real world is a much more potent challenge to the activity. There are indeed
"esoteric" techniques, special terminologies, and procedural constraints that limit the applicability of debate
knowledge and skills to the rest of the student's life. The first and most obvious rejoinder is that debate puts students
into greater contact with the real world by forcing them to read a great deal of information from popular periodicals,
scholarly books and journals, government documents, reports, newsletters, and daily newspapers. Debaters also
frequently seek out and query, administrators, policymakers, and public personae to gain more data. The constant
consumption of material by, from, and about the real world is significantly constitutive: The information grounds the
issues under discussion, and the process changes the relationship of the citizen to the public arena. Debaters can
become more involved than uninformed citizens because they know about important issues, and because they know
how to find out more information about these issues.
Switch-side debating is not peripheral to this value. A thorough research effort is guided in large part by the knowledge that both sides of the issues must be
covered. Where a particular controversy might involve affirmative research among conservative sources, the negative must research the liberal perspective. Where
scientific studies predominate in justifying a particular policy, research in cultural studies may be necessary to counter the adoption of the policy. Debating a ban on
the teaching of creationism in public schools, for example, forces research on the scientific consensus on evolution, the viability of theological grounds for public
A primary value of switch-side debate, that of encouraging research skills is
policy, and a consideration of the nature of science itself.
fundamentally an attachment to the "real world," and is enhanced by requiring debaters to investigate both sides of
an issue.
A second response to the charge of segmentation is the proclivity of debaters to become involved in public
policy and international affairs. Although the stereotype is that debaters become lawyers, students seeking other
professional areas also see value in the skills of debate. Business management, government, politics, international
relations, teaching, public policy, and so on, are significant career options for debaters. In surveys, ex-debaters
frequently respond that debate was the single most educational activity of their college careers. Most classes
provide information, but debate compels the use, assimilation, and evaluation of information that is not required in
most classrooms. As one debate alumnus writes: "The lessons learned and the experience gained have been more
valuable to me than any other aspect of my formal education. "31 It is no wonder, then, that surveys of Congress and
other policy-making institutions reveal a high percentage of ex-debaters. The argument that debate isolates
participants from the “Real world" is not sustained in practice when debaters trained in research, organization,
strategy, and technique are consistently effective in integrating these skills into success on the job.]
Debate is key to forming effective public decisions and tying education to the real world.
A third point about isolation from the real world is that switch-side debate develops habits of the mind and
instills a lifelong pattern of critical assessment. Students who have debated both sides of a topic are better voters, Dell writes, because of "their
habit of analyzing both sides before forming a conclusion. "33 O'Neill, Laycock and Scales, responding in part to Roosevelt's indictment, iterated the basic position in
1931:
Skill in the use of facts and inferences available may be gained on >either side of a question without regard to convictions. Instruction ~and
practice in debate should give young men this skill. And where these matters are properly handled, stress is not laid on getting the ·speaker to
think rightly in regard to the merits of either side of these questions-but to think accurately on both sides.
Reasons for not taking a position counter to one's beliefs (isolation from the "real world," sophistry) are largely outweighed by the benefit of such mental habits
throughout an individual's life.
The jargon, strategies, and techniques may be alienating to "outsiders," but they are also paradoxically integrative as well. Playing the game of
debate involves certain skills, including research and policy evaluation, that evolve along with a debater's
consciousness pf the complexities of moral and political dilemmas. This conceptual development is a basis for the
formation of ideas and relational thinking necessary for effective public decision making, making even the game of
debate a significant benefit in solving real world problems.
ADI 23
Performance Neg
ADI 24
Performance Neg
Performance Politics Anti-Educational
Their stance is anti-educational – it decreases critical debate and free discussion and drives us
toward personal hostilities and self-censorship and forces the judges hand in giving preference to
the opinion of the person who is most oppressed (because they can’t vote for both teams)
Patai and Koertge, 1994. [Daphne and Noretta, professor University of Massachusetts Amherst and
professor of Women’s Studies University of Indiana, Professing Feminism: Cautionary tales from the
strange world of Women’s Studies]
Classical psychotherapy (like traditional mothering) is a very demanding endeavor. But a sort of “I’m OK – you’re
OK, but men are horrible” latter-day variant of it is – as we have seen – very popular in the pedagogy of Women’s Studies. On
this model, women “empower” themselves primarily by realizing that all their troubles result from patriarchy, and that the key to
greater self-esteem is held by feminist political analysis. This can only be developed in association with other women, for many
feminists – as we discuss in greater detail in later chapters – claim that traditional schooling emphasizes such
“masculine” cognitive virtues as rationality and objectivity, to the detriment of women’s own “feminine”
cognitive faculties such as empathy and subjectivity. Students are also told that their lives provide
valuable data, and they are encouraged to “own,” and take responsibility for, their personal
opinions.
Taken in conjunction, these propositions result in a serious curtailment of the possibilities
for critical debate. The standard procedure of at least trying to separate intellectual positions and
arguments from the individuals who propose them, so that the former may be examined
dispassionately, is explicitly blocked. No claim is evaluated without identifying the person who
originated it, and any judgments about the merits of the claim automatically reflect on the person making
it. According to this way of looking at things, people and their feelings can never be divorced from their
ideas. To argue otherwise is to run the risk of being dismissed as “male-identified” and, hence subject to “compartmentalized
thinking.”
From a feminist pedagogical perspective, there are two ways to resolve the conflict that occurs
when people make opposing claims. One can say that each person has her own perspective and all
opinions are equally valid (a standard move in family therapy), or one can give preference to the opinion of the
person who is most oppressed. Critical discussion becomes difficult, if not impossible, in either
circumstance. When feminist classrooms manage to avoid breaking down into personal hostilities and
censoriousness, they often do so only by sacrificing free and frank intellectual discussion at the altar of an
appropriate feminist ambience.
ADI 25
Performance Neg
Performance Politics Anti-Educational
Their philosophy - based in total rejection - is hypocritical and anti-educational
Patai and Koertge, 1994. [Daphne and Noretta, professor University of Massachusetts Amherst and
professor of Women’s Studies University of Indiana, Professing Feminism: Cautionary tales from the
strange world of Women’s Studies]
Students sometimes act as if the invitation to engage in a wholesale condemnation of nonfeminist

writings and ideas were to be taken literally. Why should they have to read Darwin, Marx, or Freud when
those authors wrote only sexist nonsense? A historical shift has clearly taken place when a Women’s
Studies student feels justified in submitting a paper (as reported by a political science professor we
interviewed) consisting of the single line: “Freud was a cancer-ridden, cigar-smoking misogynist.” And
how reassuring the thought that one can ignore all science, all economic theory, and all technology
because, after all, these brainchildren of “malefactors” just oppress women, as some Women’s Studies
students now write on their affordable, efficient word processors while listening to a CD while their
wrinkle-free jeans are being washed in the Laundromat and their Stouffer’s spinach soufflé is heating up
in the microwave.
What young female students in search of meaningful education most need is broad exposure to
countervailing ideas. In a normal program of studies they would indeed receive such exposure, at the very
least through distribution requirements in a comprehensive arts and sciences curriculum. But TOTAL REJ encourages
them to discredit everything that is not feminist, and the highly charged moralistic atmosphere cultivated by
Women’s Studies throws up hard-to-surmount barriers around the student who might wish to explore other
points of view. One pernicious result of this game is the absence from many Women’s Studies programs of
anything like encouragement of a love of learning. It is very difficult, after all, to invite students to
develop curiosity and the desire to learn while hurling anathemas against the academy.
Turn: Debate is inroads to the democratic participation in choosing the content of our
education and is based upon participatory dialogue that is imperative to the praxis of
education.
Hendricks, 1994. [Sarah, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, “Review of
Pedagogy of Hope: Pedagogy of the Oppressed,”
http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~dschugurensky/freire/freirebooks.html]
Likewise, Freire maintains a progressive vision premised upon the democratic participation of families, social
organizations and communities in choosing the content of education. In the same way that language must begin
with an understanding of popular discourse, so too should the programmatic content of education be chosen by the
people. The simultaneous reading of both context and text, or what Freire terms a “reading of the world and a
reading of the word” (p. 105), is integral to the content of problem-posing education. Freire’s vision of
“democratizing the power of choosing content” (p. 100) does not imply the complete withdrawal of the educator.
Rather, a dialogical relationship between both the educators and the educands will ensure that the content is situated
within the people’s “reading of the world” (p. 111), and within an environment in which the educator can also offer
his or her own analysis of the world.4 This formulates Freire’s defence of adult literacy education which empowers
people to engage in dialectical solidarity through a critical awareness of the world. Moreover, Freire asserts that the
acquisition of language developed through the democratization of education is instrumental to the formation of
identity: “Dialogue is meaningful precisely because the dialogical subjects, the agents in the dialogue, not only
retain their identity, but actively defend it, and thus grow together” (p. 117). Problem-posing education which is
based upon participatory dialogue is imperative to the praxis of education and thus directly relates to the people’s
assertion of their human rights, or, in Coben’s words, their “battle for citizenship”.5 For Freire, democratic popular
education provides the means of empowering people to own their language and thus attain citizenship (p. 39).6
Thus, the importance of a dialogical relationship which merges teacher and student is reaffirmed in Pedagogy of
Hope through Freire’s defence of popular discourse and the democratization of content in education.
ADI 26
Performance Neg
Performance Politics = Complicity
Linking personal struggles to institutional changes is crucial aspect of change
Brecher & Costello, 1994. [Jeremy and Tim, expert on labor and social movements and Director of the
Massachusetts Campaign on Contingent Work, Global Village or Global Pillage: Economic
Reconstruction from the Bottom Up, p. 116]
Most struggles start with the specific problems of particular people in particular places, but are also often
instances of more general problems. Linking specific struggles to more basic institutional changes is a
crucial aspect of the process of change. For example, the struggles against toxic dumping in poor
communities and communities of color in the United States aim to prevent sickness of those directly
affected, but they are also part of the movements for environmental protection and social justice.
Similarly, the strikes and organizing campaigns of workers in the Philippines, China, Guatemala, Korea,
and other repressive countries are efforts to address their immediate problems, but also assertions of basic
human rights. The Nestle boycott sought to save the lives of Third World babies by reducing
inappropriate use of substitutes for mothers’ milk, but it also put the question of corporate responsibility
on the global agenda. Specific fights and campaigns can be conducted in ways that build support for
more basic institutional changes.
Linking specific acts of resistance to an alternative program is a way to demonstrate that struggles do not
just represent special interests, but rather common human interests.
ADI 27
Performance Neg
Performance Politics Bad – Citizenship/Volunteerism Turn
They claim that their advocacy excludes statist action or statist interpretations of the resolution.
We believe it is the assumption that criticizing situations is enough to solve problems that is the
foundation of our generation’s lack of political involvement – this was shown through research done
by the National Association of Secretaries of State New Millenium (NASS) survey in 1999:
[http://www.stateofthevote.org/survey/NASS_execsumm.html, Summary of Findings]
Young people today are generally apprehensive about their future and cautious in their dealings with
others. They are also decidedly focused on personal rather than public goals; youth volunteerism rates are
high but these volunteer activities most often take the form of social service rather than public service.
There are two ways that this performance links to this – first, it distinctly focuses on the personal
rather than the public implications of _________________________. There are both personal and
political implications to _________________________________, but their affirmative excludes the
examination of these public implications and the suggestion of public goals for solving this problem.
The stark contrast between this focus on the personal instead of the public is seen not only in the
choices that youth make about politics, but in the choices they make for service to their
communities and beyond. Once again, the NASS states:
While youth today are actually more involved in volunteering than their peers were a decade ago, these
volunteer activities are heavily focused on social services and one-on-one interaction within their
community. As this study reveals, youth have primarily an individualistic frame of mind.
The framework of the affirmative to reject any discussion of the implications of government action
and instead provide a purely individualistic frame feeds this lack of broader community
involvement and public service.
ADI 28
Performance Neg
Performance Politics Bad – Failure to Act
Their argument is a mythical politics of magical, dialectical maneuvers – they fail to see the
complex realities rather than a simulacrum* constructed as the artifact of an overarching system
Elshtain, 1997. [Jean Bethke, Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the
U. of Chicago, Real Politics: At the Center of Everyday Life]
But has it not always been the case with ideological thinking? Is not the whole purpose of such thinking
one sustained act of systematic deflection – away from the local (how petty!), the particular (how
insignificant!), the concrete (how uninspiring!) in favor of a glorious surge toward the universal, the
abstract, the marvels of a future perfect or nearly so world. Havel is right: if we can’t see “individual,
specific things, we can’t see anything at all,” and ideological thinking has functioned to stop us seeing
individual, specific things. Politics as a realm of concrete responsibility gives way to politics as a sphere
of magical dialectical maneuvers aimed at curing the universe of all its woes. And does it not look great
on paper! Where the ideologist mystifies and tried to unify, the thinker and actor devoted to politics
without cliché tries to demystify and diversity, to look at the messy, complex realities of this situation,
here and now, rather than some simulacrum constructed as the artifact of an overarching system or
schema.
*simulacram (sim·u·la·crum) - An image or representation. An unreal or vague semblance (from

answers.com)
ADI 29
Performance Neg
Performance Politics Bad – Anti-Democratic/Silencing
Turn: Their goal of “raising consciousness” or forcing us to “identify our preconceptions” soon
evolves into attempting to eliminate all opponents – this destroys democratic politics and demonizes
those who have differing opinions/perspectives
A politics beyond cliché is one in which the political actor refuses what Havel calls a “messianic
role,” an avant-garde arrogance that knows better and must run around ceaselessly with furrowed brow
“raising the consciousness” of all those “unconscious” bumpkins out there – one’s fellow citizens.
Authentic political hope, by contrast, laughs at the notion that somehow glorious heroes or vanguard
parties or grasping “the totality” will save the day and, instead, endorses Havel’s hope that human beings,
in taking responsibility for a concrete state of affairs, might “see it as their own project and their own
home, as something they need not fear, as something they can – without shame – love, because they have
built it for themselves.” My hunch is that some folks, when they read such words, are a bit embarrassed and
tempted to see Havel as a nice guy but, surely, a bit naïve! As if projecting a classless society or perpetual
peace were not naïve – and dangerously so at that. For promoters of these latter projects grow impatient
fast with the human beings who appear to stand in the way of attaining one’s fondest ends. There is a
further temptation to eliminate opponents who rather quickly turn into “enemies.” But that is not the way
of democratic politics, of a politics stripped of cliché where everything has a neat label on it telling us whether it
is “left” or “right” and hence whether we are enjoined to cheer or to hiss.
ADI 30
Performance Neg
Performance Politics Bad – Personal Experience Only Bad
Although our standpoints on debate, oppression and liberation may be in conflict, we must gain
knowledge of the other’s project in order to accomplish the goals of liberation. In addition,
personal experience alone excludes us from developing competencies in those areas that fall outside
of our personal access. This “competency-based” anti-racism, anti-sexism, and anti-imperialism is
important in order to insure our epistemology is informed. Focusing solely on only personal
experience excludes our ability develop these understandings and to be effective advocates for wide-
spread change.
Pryse, 1998. [Marjorie, Professor at Albany State University of New York, “Critical interdisciplinarity,
women’s studies, and cross-cultural insight,” NWSA Journal, Spring]
Sandra Harding’s (1995) work on standpoint theory and on what she calls “an epistemology from/for Rainbow Coalition politics”
(p. 125) can help us articulate knowledge claims for a cross-cultural critical and interdisciplinary Women’s Studies that respects
borders while crossing them, that works to prevent appropriation and exploitation. For Harding, seemingly diverse
liberatory movements have generated epistemology projects that their proponents can learn to view as
similarly constructed, even though the subjects/agents of subjugated knowledge often experience multiple
and frequently contradictory standpoints and may be “committed to two agendas that are themselves at
least partially in conflict-the liberal feminist, socialist feminist, Nicaraguan feminist, Jewish feminist” (p. 125). Yet
Harding writes:
[I]t is thinking from a contradictory social position that generates feminist knowledge. So the
logic of the directive to ‘start thought from women’s lives’ requires that we start our thought from
multiple lives that in many ways conflict with each other and have multiple and contradictory
commitments (p. 125).
Thus, she argues, “in an important controversial sense, the subject of feminist knowledge must know what
every other liberatory project knows “ because not only are gender, race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, and
nationality intertwined in the social construction of identity but also because the subjects/agents “of every
other liberatory movement must also learn how gender, race, class, and sexuality are used to construct
each other in order to accomplish their goals” (p. 126). Since for Harding and other standpoint theorists liberatory
knowledge is not essential, transcendental, or transhistorical but rather achieved through combined political and conceptual
struggle-as Harding (1995) writes, “all women have women’s experiences but only at certain historical moments
does anyone ever produce feminist knowledge” (p. 130)—the even greater struggle to understand liberatory
knowledges across the different standpoints that have generated these knowledges requires a particular
kind of interdisciplinary approach. Such a border-crossing requires the subjects/agents of one particular
standpoint epistemology to learn, through what Harding calls a “competency-based” anti-racism, anti-
sexism, and anti-imperialism, to see their lives from the standpoint of “others,” not in order to speak “as
or for” these “others,” but to be able to contribute distinctive forms of liberatory knowledge from their
own perspective, informed by other liberatory epistemologies (1991, p. 293; 1995, pp. 123-124, 126). Viewing a
feminist cross-cultural critical interdisciplinarity as a “standpoint methodology” for Women’s Studies thus raises the caution that
border-crossing not be used to legitimate the exploitative and imperialist behaviors of the new global social order.
ADI 31
Performance Neg
Performance Politics Bad – Personal Experience Only Bad
Personal action in the area of foreign policy is dangerous – and the level of strain that can be
handled is impossible to know
Bradley, 2001. [Curtis A., “The costs of international human rights litigation,” Chicago Journal of
International Law, Fall, Proquest]
The most significant cost of international human rights litigation is that it shifts responsibility for official
condemnation and sanction of foreign governments away from elected political officials to private
plaintiffs and their representatives.12 The plaintiffs and their representatives decide whom to sue, when to
sue, and which claims to bring. These actors, however, have neither the expertise nor the constitutional
authority to determine US foreign policy. Nor, unlike our elected officials, will these actors have the
incentive to weigh the benefits of this litigation against its foreign relations costs. There is simply no
reason to expect that, in pursuing their specific litigation goals, the plaintiffs and their lawyers will take
into account broader issues relating to the US national interest. Furthermore, these individuals lack the
accountability of elected officials for making bad foreign relations decisions.
Admittedly, foreign relations costs are difficult to measure. Strains in international relationships may
undermine a variety of cooperative ventures, ranging from trade, to environmental protection, to the war
on drugs, to arms control, to combating terrorism.13 They also may incrementally heighten the risk of
military conflicts and incrementally reduce US national security. But no one case is likely to create a
foreign relations crisis, and it is extremely difficult to know exactly how much strain any particular
lawsuit will create and what precise effects this strain will cause. It is our elected officials, however, and
not private litigants, who have the authority, expertise, and incentives to make these difficult evaluative
and predictive decisions and to balance the benefits of international condemnation against its potential
costs.
ADI 32
Performance Neg
State/Statist Discussion is Good
Making demands on the state is critical to progressive changes. History proves that non-
statist movements, such as their alternative, are total failures.
Grossberg, Professor of Communications at the University of Illinois, 1992 [Lawrence, We Gotta Get
Out of This Place, p. 390-391]
But this would mean that the Left could not remain outside of the systems of governance. It has sometimes to
work with, against and with in bureaucratic systems of governance. Consider the case of Amnesty International, an
immesely effective organization when its major strategy was (similar to that of the Right) exerting pressure directly on
the bureaucracies of specific governments. In recent years (marked by the recent rock tour), it has apparently
redirected its energy and resources, seeking new members (who may not be committed to actually doing anything;
memebership becomes little more than a statement of ideological support for a position that few are likely to oppose)
and public visibility. In stark contrast, the most effective struggle on the Left in recent times has been the dramatic
(and, one hopes continuing) dismantling of apartheid in South Africa. It was accomplished by mobilizing popular
pressure on the institutions and bureaucracies of economic and governmental institutions and it depended on a
highly sophisticated organizational structure. The Left too often thinks that it can end racism and sexism and
classism by changing people's attitudes and everyday practices (e.g. the 1990 Balck boycott of Korean stores in New
York). Unfortunately, while such struggles may be extremely visible, they are often less effective than attempts to
move the institutions (e.g.,banks, taxing structures, distributors) which have put the economic realtions of bleack
and immigrant populations in place and which condition people's everyday practices. The Left needs institutions
which can operate within the system of governance, understanding that such institutions are the mediating structures by
which power is actively realized. It is often by directing opposition against specific institutions that power can be
challenged. The Left assumed for some time now that, since it has so little access to the apparatuses of agency, its
only alternative is to seek a public voice in the media through tactical protests. The Left does in fact need more
visibility, but it also needs greater access to the entire range of apparatuses of decision making power. Otherwise the
Left has nothing but its own self-righteousness. It is not individuals who have produced starvation and the other
social disgraces of our world, although it is individuals who must take responsibility for eliminating them. But to
do so, they must act with organizations, and within the systems of organizations which in fact have the capacity (as
well as responsibility) to fight them.
Denying the centrality of the state destroys all hope of changing it. We must analyze state
policy in order to understand it and reorient it
Krause & Williams, 1997 Prof. Political Sci. at Geneva Graduate Institute of Int’l Studies and Asst. Prof.
Political Sci. at University of Southern Main [Keith and Michael, Critical Security Studies, Pg, XV-XVI]
These (and other) critical perspectives have much to say to each other in the construction of a critical theory of
international relations and, in turn, to contemporary security studies. While elements of many approaches may be
found in this volume, no one perspective dominates. If anything, several of the contributions to this volume stand
more inside than outside the tradition of security studies, which reflects our twofold conviction about the place of
critical perspectives in contemporary scholarship. First, to stand too far outside prevailing discourses is almost certain
to result in continued disciplinary exclusion. Second, to move toward alternative conceptions of security and security
studies, one must necessarily reopen the questions subsumed under the modem conception of sovereignty and the
scope of the political. To do this, one must take seriously the prevailing claims about the nature of security.
Many of the chapters in this volume thus retain a concern with the centrality of the state as a locus not only of
obligation but of effective political action. In the realm of organized violence, states also remain the preeminent
actors. The task of a critical, approach is not to deny the centrality of the state in this realm but, rather, to understand
more fully its structures, dynamics, and possibilities for reorientation. From a critical perspective, state action is
flexible and capable of reorientation, and analyzing state policy need not therefore be tantamount to embracing the
statist assumptions of orthodox conceptions. To exclude a focus on state action from a critical perspective on the
grounds that it plays inevitably within the rules of existing conceptions simply reverses the error of essentializing the
state. Moreover, it loses the possibility of influencing what remains the most structurally capable actor in
contemporary world politics.
ADI 33
Performance Neg

Failure to understand the state and interact with it guarantees our destruction
Spanier, Ph. D. from Yale and teacher at the University of Florida, 1990 [John, Games Nations Play, Pg.
115]
Whether the observer personally approves of the "logic of behavior" that a particular framework seems to suggest is
not the point. It is one thing to say, as done here, that the state system condemns each state to be continually
concerned with its power relative to that of other states, which, in an anarchical system, it regards as potential
aggressors. It is quite another thing to approve morally of power politics. The utility of the state-system framework is
simply that is points to the "essence" of state behavior. It does not pretend to account for all factors, such as moral
norms, that motivate states. As a necessarily simplified version of reality, it clarifies what most basically concerns and
drives states and what kinds of behavior can be expected. We, as observers, may deplore that behavior and the
anarchical system that produces it and we may wish that international politics were not as conflictual and violent as the
twentieth century has already amply demonstrated. We may prefer a system other that one in which states are so
committed to advancing their own national interests and protecting their sovereignty. Nevertheless, however much
we may deplore the current system and prefer a more peaceful and harmonious world, we must first understand the
contemporary one if we are to learn how to "manage" it and avoid the catastrophe of a nuclear war.
Ignoring the state prevents mediation needed to save millions

Hill, Professor of IR at LSE, 2000 [Christopher, Confronting the Political in International Relations, ed. Ebata]
The ineluctable tendency of those who wish to regulate the state to a position of lesser importance in international
relations is that of downgrading politics. This is often not intentional; those falling into Martin Wight's
`revolutionist' category, after all, might see the politics of international class struggle, of center-periphery relations, or
between clashing civilizations as rather more substantial that the politics of conventional interstate relations. But
generalizations of such high order of magnitude are difficult to cash in, in terms of cases, choices and mobilisable
political forces . They tend to remain at the systemic level, with a strong element of determinism and the identity of
the central actors never being quite clear. The idealists, who make up one part of this group, are by definition
calling for a new kind of politics and it is hardly fair to expect them to describe in detail what it might look like.
Still, it is clear that just as the international law and institutions school of the 1920s became increasingly remote from
the compelling political action arising of the ethical globalists can find it difficult to go beyond handwriting from a
distance. Although it is true, as Steve Smith has argued, that their central point is to challenge the conventional view
of politics (i.e. as what policy-makers do), it remains true that if you inherently distrust or demote the importance
of states and government, it is then difficult to give convincing guidance on how matters are to be carried forward in the
face of such dangerous problems of foreign policy as China's relations with Taiwan or the Arab- Israel dispute.
Problems of this kind- and no-one could dispute their significance for the lives of millions- in practice require a lead
from states, combing amongst themselves and with other actors, if any progress is to be made.
ADI 34
Performance Neg
Subversive strategies fail—it’s better to read the letter of the law against itself and work
within the system
Žižek, Institute for Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana, 1998 [Slavoj, “Why does the law need
an obscene supplement?” Law and the Postmodern Mind, p. electronic]
When, in the late eighteenth century, universal human rights were proclaimed, this universality, of course, concealed
the fact that they privilege white, men of property; however, this limitation was not openly admitted, it was coded in
apparently tautological supplementary qualifications like "all humans have rights, insofar as they truly are. rational
and free," " which then implicitly excludes the mentally ill, "savages," criminals, children, women.'. . So, if, in this
situation, a poor black woman disregards this unwritten-implicit, qualification and demands human rights, also for
herself, she just takes the letter of the discourse of rights "more literally than it was meant" (and thereby redefines its
universality, inscribing it into a different hegemonic chain). "Fantasy" designates precisely this unwritten framework
that tells us how are we to understand the letter of Law. The lesson of this is that-sometimes, at least-the truly
subversive thing is not to disregard the explicit letter of Law on behalf of the underlying fantasies, but to stick to this
letter against the fantasy that sustains it. Is-at a certain level, at least-this not the outcome of the long conversation
between Josepf K. and the priest that follows the priest's narrative on the Door of the Law in The Trial?-the uncanny
effect of this conversation does not reside in the fact that the reader is at a loss insofar as he lacks the unwritten
interpretive code or frame of reference that would enable him to discern the hidden Meaning, but, on the contrary, in
that the priest's interpretation of the parable on the Door of the Law disregards all standard frames of unwritten rules
and reads the text in an "absolutely literal" way. One could also approach this deadlock via. Lacan's notion of the
specifically symbolic mode of deception: ideology "cheats precisely by letting us know that its propositions (say, on
universal human rights)' are not to be read a la lettre, but against the background of a set of unwritten rules.
Sometimes, at least, the most effective anti-ideological subversion of the official discourse of human rights consists
in reading it in an excessively "literal" way, disregarding the set of underlying unwritten rules.
VI
The need for unwritten rules thus bears witness to, confirms, this vulnerability: the system is compelled to allow for
possibilities of choices that must never actually take place since they would disintegrate the system, and the function
of the unwritten rules is precisely to prevent the actualization of these choices formally allowed by the system. One
can see how unwritten rules are correlative to, the obverse of, the empty symbolic gesture and/or the forced choice:
unwritten rules prevent the subject from effectively accepting what is offered in the empty gesture, from taking the
choice literally and choosing the impossible, that the choice of which destroys the system. In the Soviet Union of the
1930s and 1940s, to take the most extreme example, it was not only prohibited to criticize Stalin, it was perhaps
even more prohibited to enounce publicly this prohibition, i.e., too state that one is prohibited to criticize Stalin-the
system needed to maintain the appearance that one is allowed to criticize Stalin, i.e., that the absence of this
criticism (and the fact that there is no opposition party or movement, that the Party got 99.99% of the votes at
elections) simply demonstrates that Stalin is effectively the best and (almost) always right. In Hegelese, this
appearance qua appearance was essential.
This dialectical tension between the vulnerability and invulnerability of the System also enables us to denounce the
ultimate racist and/or sexist trick, that of "two birds in the bush instead of a bird in hand": when women demand'
simple equality, quasi-"feminists" often pretend to offer them "much more" (the role of the warm and wise
"conscience of society," elevated above the vulgar everyday competition and struggle for domination ...)-the only
proper answer to this offer, of course, is "No, thanks! Better is the enemy of the Good! We do not want more, just
equality!" Here, at least, the last lines in Now Voyager ("Why reach for the moon, when we can have the stars?") are
wrong. It is homologous with the native American who wants to become integrated into the predominant "white"
society, and a politically correct progressive liberal endeavors to convince him that, he is thereby renouncing his
very unique prerogative, the authentic native culture and tradition-no thanks, simple equality is enough, I also
wouldn't mind my part of consumerist alienation! ... A modest demand of the excluded group for the full
participation at the society's universal rights is much more threatening for the system than the apparently much more
"radical" rejection of the predominant "social values" and the assertion of the superiority of one's own culture. For a
true feminist, Otto Weininger's assertion that, although women are "ontologically false," lacking the proper ethical
stature, they should be acknowledged the same rights as men in public life, is infinitely more acceptable than the
false elevation of women that makes them "too good" for the banality of men's rights.
ADI 35
Performance Neg

The fear of cooption prevents from changing the system for the better—transgressions, like
their alternative, only reinforces the system
Žižek, Institute for Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana, 1998 [Slavoj, “Why does the law need
an obscene supplement?” Law and the Postmodern Mind, p. electronic]
Finally, the point about inherent transgression is not that every opposition, every attempt at subversion, is
automatically "coopted." On the contrary, the, very fear of being coopted that makes us search for more and more
"radical," "pure" attitudes, is the supreme strategy of suspension or marginalization. The point is rather that true
subversion is not always where it seems to be. Sometimes, a small distance is much more explosive for the system
than an ineffective radical rejection. In religion, a small heresy can be more threatening than an outright atheism or
passage to another religion; for a hard-line Stalinist, a Trotskyite is infinitely more threatening than a bourgeois
liberal or social democrat. As le Carre put it, one true revisionist in the Central Committee is worth more than
thousand dissidents outside it. It was easy to dismiss Gorbachev for aiming only at improving the system, making it
more efficient-he nonetheless set in motion its disintegration. So one should also bear in mind the obverse of the
inherent transgression: one is tempted to paraphrase Freud's claim from The Ego and the Id that man is not only
much more immoral than he believes, but also much more moral than he knows-the System is not only infinitely
more resistant and invulnerable than it may appear (it can coopt apparently subversive strategies, they can serve as
its support), it is also infinitely more vulnerable (a small revision etc, can have large unforeseen catastrophic
consequences). Or, to put it in another way: the paradoxical role of the unwritten superego injunction is that, with
regard to the explicit, public Law, it is simultaneously transgressive (superego suspends, violates, the explicit social
rules) and more coercive (superego consists of additional rules that restrain the field of choice by way of prohibiting
the possibilities allowed for, guaranteed even, by the public Law). From my personal history, I recall the moment of
the referendum for the independence of Slovenia as the exemplary case of such a forced choice: the whole point, of
course, was to have a truly free choice-but nonetheless, in the pro-independence euphoria, every argumentation for
remaining within Yugoslavia was immediately denounced as treacherous and disloyal. This example is especially
suitable since Slovenes were deciding about a matter that was literally "transgressive" (to break from Yugoslavia
with its constitutional order), which is why the Belgrade authorities denounced Slovene referendum as
unconstitutional-one was thus ordered to transgress the Law ... The obverse of the omnipotence of the unwritten is
thus that, if one ignores them, they simply cease to exist, in contrast to the written law that exists (functions)
whether one is aware of it or not-or, as the priest in Kafka's The Trial put it, law does not want anything from you, it
only bothers you if you yourself acknowledge it and address yourself to it with a demand ...
ADI 36
Performance Neg
Capitalism Links
Turn: Capitalism controls their dissent – they end up entrenching the very system they try so hard
to subvert by becoming focused on their never ending self-fulfillment through non-conformity
Frank, 1997. [Thomas, editor of The Baffler, Commodify your Dissent]
Nobody wants you to think they’re serious today, least of all Time Warner. On the contrary: the Culture
trust is now our leader in the Ginsbergian search for kicks upon kicks. Corporate America is not an
oppressor, but a sponsor of fun, provider of lifestyle accoutrements, facilitator of carnival, our slang-
speaking partner in the quest for ever-more apocalyptic orgasm. The countercultural idea has become
capitalist orthodoxy, its hunger for transgression upon transgression now perfectly suited to an economic-
cultural regime that runs on ever-faster cyclings of the new; its taste for self-fulfillment and its intolerance
for the confines of tradition now permitting vast latitude in consuming practices and lifestyle
experimentation.
Consumerism is no longer about “conformity” but about “difference.” Advertising teaches us not
in the ways of puritanical self-denial (a bizarre notion on the face of it), but in orgiastic, never-ending self-
fulfillment. It counsels not rigid adherence to the tastes of the herd but vigilant and constantly updated
individualism. We consume not to fit in, but to prove, on the surface at least, that we are rock ‘n’ roll
rebels, each one of us as rule-breaking and hierarchy-defying as our heroes of the 60s, who now pitch
cars, shoes, and beer. This imperative of endless difference is today the genius at the heart of American
capitalism, an eternal fleeing from “sameness” that satiates our thirst for the New with such achievements of
civilization as the infinite brands of identical cola, the myriad colors and irrepressible variety of the cigarette rack at 7-Eleven.
An existential rebellion has become a more or less official style of Information Age capitalism, so
has the countercultural notion of a static, repressive Establishment grown hopelessly obsolete. However
the basic impulses of the countercultural idea may have disturbed a nation lost in Cold War darkness, they
are today in fundamental agreement with the basic tenets of Information Age business theory. So close
they are, in fact, that it has become difficult to understand the countercultural idea as anything more than
the self-justifying ideology of the new bourgeoisie that has arisen since the 1960s, the cultural means by which this
group has proven itself ever so much better skilled than its slow-moving, security-minded forebears at adapting to the accelerated, always-
changing consumerism of today. The anointed cultural opponents of capitalism are now capitalism’s ideologues.
The two came together in perfect synchronization in a figure like Camille Paglia, whose ravings are grounded in the absolutely
noncontroversial ideas of the golden sixties. According to Paglia, American business is still exactly what it was believed to have been in that
beloved decade, that is, “puritanical and desensualized.” Its great opponents are, of course, liberated figures like “the beatniks,” Bob Dylan, and
the Beatles. Culture is, quite simply, a binary battle between the repressive Apollonian order of capitalism and the Dionysian impulses of the
counterculture. Rebellion makes no sense without repression; we must remain forever convinced of
capitalism’s fundamental hostility to pleasure in order to consume capitalism’s rebel products as avidly as
we do. It comes as little surprise when, after criticizing the “Apollonian capitalist machine” (in her book Vamps & Tramps), Paglia applauds
American mass culture (in Utne Reader), the preeminent product of that “capitalist machine,” as a “third great eruption” of a Dionysian
“paganism.” For her, as for most other designated dissidents, there is no contradiction between replaying the
standard critique of capitalist conformity and repressiveness and then endorsing its rebel products – for
Paglia the car culture and Madonna – as the obvious solution: the Culture Trust offers both Establishment and Resistance
in one convenient package. The only question that remains is why Paglia has not yet landed an endorsement contract from a soda pop
or automobile manufacturer.
The analysis in this evidence is actually proven out through figures such as Zizek – who spout their
opposition to capitalism, but writes the copy for an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue. Their total
intolerance of tradition and their constant seeking to be seen as a rebel or rule-breaking is simply a
demonstration of their own conformity to the new capitalistic ideal.
ADI 37
Performance Neg
Total Critique Bad – Krishna
Total critique destroys coalitions and the possibility of progressive social change.
Krishna 93 (Sankaran, Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Alternatives, Summer,
p. 400-401, “The Importance of Being Ironic: A Postcolonial View on Critical International Relations Theory)
The dichotomous choice presented in this excerpt is straightforward: one either indulges in total critique,
delegitimizing all sovereign truths, or one is committed to "nostalgic," essentialist unities that have become obsolete
and have been the grounds for all our oppressions. In offering this dichotomous choice, Der Derian replicates a
move made by Chaloupka in his equally dismissive critique of the move mainstream nuclear opposition, the Nuclear
Freeze movement of the early 1980s, that, according to him, was operating along obsolete lines, emphasizing "facts"
and "realities," while a "postmodern" President Reagan easily outflanked them through an illusory Star Wars
program (See KN: chapter 4) Chaloupka centers this difference between his own supposedly total critique of all
sovereign truths (which he describes as nuclear criticism in an echo of literary criticism) and the more partial (and
issue based) criticism of what he calls "nuclear opposition" or "antinuclearists" at the very outset of his book. (Kn:
xvi) Once again, the unhappy choice forced upon the reader is to join Chaloupka in his total critique of all sovereign
truths or be trapped in obsolete essentialisms. This leads to a disastrous politics pitting groups that have the most in
common (and need to unite on some basis to be effective) against each other. Both Chaloupka and Der Derian thus
reserve their most trenchant critique for political groups that should, in any analysis, be regarded as the closest to
them in terms of an oppositional politics and their desired futures. Instead of finding ways to live with these
differences and to (if fleetingly) coalesce against the New Right, this fratricidal critique is politically suicidal. It
obliterates the space for a political activism based on provisional and contingent coalitions, for uniting behind a
common cause even as one recognizes that the coalition is comprised of groups that have very differing (and
possibly unresolvable) views of reality. Moreover, it fails to consider the possibility that there may have been other,
more compelling reasons for the "failure" of the Nuclear Freeze movement or anti-Gulf War movement. Like many
a worthwhile cause in our times, they failed to garner sufficient support to influence state policy. The response to
that need not be a totalizing critique that delegitimizes all narratives. The blackmail inherent in the choice offered by
Der Derian and Chaloupka, between total critique and "ineffective" partial critique, ought to be transparent. Among
other things, it effectively militates against the construction of provisional on strategic essentialisms our attempts to
create space for activist politics. In the next section, I focus more widely on the genre of critical international theory
and its impact on such an activist politics.
ADI 38
Performance Neg
A2 Martyrdom – Framework Procedural
The affirmative fails to justify an affirmative ballot within their own framework:
First, they fail to demonstrate their “knowledge that comes from doing, participatory
understanding, practical consciousness.” They did not DO anything in this round that
participated in martyrdom.
Second, they fail to meet the activism requirement of their framework. They are obviously
here in this debate round and not performing “projects that reach outside the academy and are
rooted in an ethic of reciprocity and exchange.”
Third, despite their rejection of a “statist” interpretation of the topic, they make the statement,
“WE ADVOCATE INCREASING CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT WITH
AFGHANISTAN, IRAN, LEBANON, THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, AND SYRIA”
within their 1AC. They go on to say that, “LANGUAGE IS THE MOST
IMORTANT FOCI OF DEBATE.” In analysis of this, we offer the following definition:
Constructive engagement is a political policy demanding reform:

From MSN Encarta (http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_701705239/constructive_engagement.html)
the policy of maintaining limited political and business links with a country while continuing to demand
political or social reform in that country
According to their own framework, you should evaluate their language choice of including “constructive
engagement” within their advocacy statement and not allow them to dismiss the statist implications of
their advocacy statement. This should be an independent reason to vote against them, but at the least,
should be a reason for you to evaluate our arguments that link to political policy action.
Finally, They clearly have a political, not scholarly purpose in this round – even if they do not
defend their justification of statist action, they constructed this metaphor as a political maneuver to
win a debate ballot – their education is limited by their main purpose.
ADI 39
Performance Neg
A2 Martyrdom – Reject Culture Standpoint
Note that our author is not a “Western” author, but she was the founder of the Iranian
National Union of Women before leaving Iran in 1984. So their “Westerners just don’t
understand” arguments don’t apply to this evidence.
“Culture” standpoint can never be assumed as homogenous or innocent – they oversimplify and
should be rejected for advocating a total acceptance of culture as good
Moghissi, 1999. [Haideh, associate professor of sociology and women’s studies at Atkinson College,
Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Postmodern Analysis]
In supporting the rights of minority cultures and indigenous traditions, we should ask ourselves:
do we know with any precision whose culture and whose rights to self-expression we are supporting?
What are the social and political contexts and power relations behind particular forms of cultural
expression? Who has assumed the authority for cultural representation in particular cases, and why? In
raising these questions, it is of the utmost importance to remember that culture and ‘cultural difference’ are
not transhistorical entities. Neither are they homogenous. Each culture is criss-crossed by internal class,
religious, ethnic and regional divisions. Cultures do not have a life of their own, unaffected by social,
economic and political change, stressful internal and external forces, and highly differentiated structures
of power and disempowerment. As Barrington Moore Jr remarks, ‘cultures and value systems are
maintained and transmitted with much suffering and pain. Very often, to get humans to behave in specific
ways, they must be punched, bullied, sent to jail, thrown into concentration camps, cajoled, bribed, made
into heroes, encouraged to read newspapers, stood up against a wall and shot’ (Moore, 1967: 487).
Claims of “culture” as a right to vary standards, meanings and principles play into elites excuses
for abuses – intent doesn’t matter you should reject this framing
It should be clear that this convoluted understanding of cultural difference is incompatible with a
commitment to the defence of human rights. Whatever their intent, arguments which assert the right of
different cultures to establish, define and exercise their own standards, meanings and principles play
directly into the hands of political and economic elites, religious leaders and authoritarian regimes, and,
above all, fundamentalists, who argue, for their own purposes, that the notion of human rights is ‘culture-
bound’ and Western, that international measures for human rights are imperialist ploys. In the effort to
show respect for cultural diversity, care should be taken not to leave too much to the discretion of non-
Western states when their leaders object to ‘Western’ values. For often the elite that raise ‘culture’ as a
defence against external criticism have no difficulty, themselves, in suppressing the cultures of their own
ethnic or religious or political minorities, suppressing customs ruthlessly when they are not convenient
(Donnelly, 1989: 119). Authoritarian leaders in Islamic societies sometimes oppose what they describe as ‘Western’
notions of individual rights in the name of collective values or of the sanctified community of believers, the umma.
Their main concern, however, is somewhere else. They wish, first of all, to insulate themselves from internal
challenges and international scrutiny. And they wish to continue with their open, sometimes legally sanctioned,
political, cultural, ethnic, religious and sexual discriminatory practices directed against individuals and groups who
do not belong to dominant political and cultural interests.
ADI 40
Performance Neg
A2 Martyrdom – Tolerance Turns
Turn: The framing of the issue they choose is an unprincipled tolerance for oppressive political and
cultural practices
As if charmed by a drumbeat from afar, some scholars have even yielded to the Islamists’ intellectual
seductions, transforming the robust defense of Islamic faith and the urgent need to protect Muslim
minorities in the West into an apology for fundamentalist practice where it needs no defence, and where,
in fact, it exercises a terrible monopoly of political and cultural power. In this they confuse the principle
of recognizing and affirming the rights of Muslim minorities in the West with an unprincipled tolerance
for the oppressive political and cultural practices in countries where Muslims form a majority and the full
power of government is in the hands of a theocratic elite. In the name of anti-imperialism these
intellectuals turn a blind eye to the consequences of such utopian experiments for people actually living
under fundamentalist rule; and little by little, these discursive slippages and confusions and outright
abandonments have cost much to the region’s women (and men), as they struggle for a more humane and
democratic system, a quality of intellectual freedom taken for granted in the West.
Their lack of willingness to indict anyone other than the U.S. fits in perfectly with U.S foreign policy
– they may refuse to discuss government actions, but they can’t deny their complicity in those
actions
Neither is it a sound argument that to take a critical stance against Muslim gendered practices in the Middle
East may place us on the same side as the US State Department and other Western governments. In fact, nothing
brings one as close to the foreign policy of Western powers as a ‘hands off’ approach. ‘Cultural
sensitivity’ and ‘cultural tolerance’ provide an excuse to Western governments to conveniently put to bed
their much-advertised concerns about women’s rights, lack of democracy and freedom of expression in
Islamic societies and to normalize trade relations. At no time has this fact been as clear as today. If the
treatment of women in Iran, Afghanistan and Sudan is contrary to all internationally recognized (and
signed) conventions, it is because their cultural beliefs, practices and ways of doing things are different;
‘they’ have their ways, ‘we’ have ours. We should be ‘more accepting’ of practices which are
unacceptable here but admissible there. Hence, the continued massive arms sales and uninterrupted flow
of trade.
Their either/or claims are false – there is a midpoint between staying silent and minimizing the
consequences of Islamic fundamentalism or siding with the US – we stand against both, while they
stay complacent in fundamentalism’s consequences
The point is that the political options for the Middle Eastern intellectual are not as narrow as is
often implied. We are not forced to choose between passively keeping silent and minimizing the
consequences of Islamic fundamentalism or siding with the bullying policy of foreign powers,
particularly the United States, with its wanton bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan and its continuing
assaults on Iraq. We can be against both. Opposing foreign intervention in Islamic societies does not
require one to obscure the actual conditions of women’s lives under Islamic rule or to soften the coercive
power of Islamic movements and regimes.
ADI 41
Performance Neg
A2 Bleiker – No change
Bleiker’s concept of slow transformation through micro-resistance is not true – they can’t explain
how they overcome micro-domination and their actions leave them feeling like they’ve
accomplished something when they have dramatically failed to challenge the dominant forces
Martin, 2001 [Brian] [http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/01BRsa.html]:
The concept of a slow transformation of values through forms of micro-resistance sounds great, but what
about a contrary slow transformation of values through processes of micro-domination? Advertisements,
mass media news values and technological environments such as roads and buildings can all shape
people's consciousness. There are struggles at the micro as well as the macro level. Use of new linguistic
forms in poetry can be a form of resistance to domination, but advertisers also use challenges to linguistic
forms for very different goals.
Bleiker uses a refusal to buy non-reusable milk containers as an example of a form of tactical resistance
that escapes the usual picture where there is a definite adversary. However, this form of consumer refusal
also may be interpreted as a means for feeling that one is doing the right thing while leaving unchallenged
the dominant forces promoting excess resource use, an argument long made by critical environmentalists. This example,
while minor in itself, reveals some limitations to the 'small action' approach to social change.
In addition, they assume traditional debate to be some form of “grand theory” which its not – our
approach does not EXCLUDE their approach, but they seem to be advocating excluding OUR
approach. Martin, 2001[http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/01BRsa.html]:
Bleiker argues for acceptance of contingent foundations, saying that "grand theories of dissent run the risk
of objectifying and entrenching forms of domination" (p. 140). I am sceptical that theories of dissent -
such as the consent theory of power - have such an influence on dissent itself. Many contemporary
activists are far more flexible than the stereotype of the dogmatic Marxist. Grand theories are more
commonly used as resources than as straitjackets.
Finally Bleiker and their choice to use Bleiker, turns their accessibility argument – Bleiker’s style is
accessible mainly to scholars and theorists and certainly cannot be construed as a primary source of
information. Martin, 2001 [http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/01BRsa.html]:
Bleiker states that "The manner in which a text is written, a speech is uttered, a thought is thought, is
integral to its content" (p. 280). Yes, "language is politics" even as you read this review. Unfortunately,
Bleiker does not discuss his own choice of writing style - accessible mainly to scholars - and how it
relates to his politics.
ADI 42
Performance Neg
Ethnography Bad
Turn: Their ethnographic focus leads to insularity and disconnection from other struggles
and more global critiques of power – we should resist this temptation and seek methods of
saying AND doing something about oppression
Cook, 1992[Anthony E, Associate Professor at Georgetown Law School, “Reflections on
Postmodernism”, 26 New Eng.L. Rev. 751, L/N]
Several things trouble me about Foucault's approach. First, he nurtures in many ways an unhealthy
insularity that fails to connect localized struggle to other localized struggles and to modes of oppression
like classism, racism, sexism, and homophobia that transcend their localized articulation within this
particular law school, that particular law firm, within this particular church or that particular factory. I
note among some followers of Foucault an unhealthy propensity to rely on rich, thick, ethnographic type
descriptions of power relations playing themselves out in these localized laboratories of social conflict.
This reliance on detailed description and its concomitant deemphasis of explanation begins, ironically, to
look like a regressive positivism which purports to sever the descriptive from the normative, the is from
the ought and law from morality and politics. Unless we are to be trapped in this Foucaultian moment of
postmodern insularity, we must resist the temptation to sever description from explanation. Instead, our
objective should be to explain what we describe in light of a vision embracing values that we make
explicit in struggle. These values should act as magnets that link our particularized struggles to other
struggles and more global critiques of power. In other words, we must not, as Foucault seems all too
willing to do, forsake the possibility of more universal narratives that, while tempered by postmodern
insights, attempt to say and do something about the oppressive world in which we live.
Their interpretation is flawed – they cannot pass the buck of responsibility by conveniently
removing themselves from state or economic power – they must face their complicity
Cook, 1992[Anthony E, Associate Professor at Georgetown Law School, “Reflections on
Postmodernism”, 26 New Eng.L. Rev. 751, L/N]
Second, Foucault's approach requires that we act wherever we are situated. No longer can we divorce
theory from action by concluding that the relations of power located in the state or the economic
substratum of class conflict are conveniently removed from the locus of our theoretical reflections.
Individuals can no longer pass the buck of responsibility by pretending, for instance, that the law school is
not a legitimate site for the exploration, critique and transformation of power relations
ADI 43
Performance Neg
A2 “It Hurts So Good”
Turn: Their arguments shore up the status quo through “totalistic protest” – they avoid self-
knowledge by forcing heterosexists to deny whole dimensions of their lives and experiences or risk
being seen as part of the repression
I have characterized as repressive the major statements of that wing of feminism which terms itself
“radical.” I use the term advisedly. It is not deployed in a loose and pejorative sense but as a careful depiction
and evaluation of a version of liberation that, as it is internalized by individual women, requires that they
deny whole dimensions of their lives and experience. These denials are then buttressed and kept in place
by incessant and intrusive demands for solidarity and by the constant reiteration of doctrinal truths.
Ultimately the denial is itself denied and placed, as a burden, a judgment, and an accusation, upon others
with the implicit aim of silencing them. In donning what Abigail Rosenthal calls the “mask” of totalistic
protest, a kind of brutality parading as feminism serves repression by burying the problems clustered
around “the contradictory desires and refusals of contemporary heterosexuality.” In this way, women
simply continue to shore up, not challenge, the status quo by making the avoidance of self-knowledge a
programmatic requirement.
Feminist critiques reify difference falsely and recreate the same epistemological problems
under a mask of sensitivity
Jarvis 2k [DSL, ‘International Relations and the Challenge of Postmodernism’, February, University of
South Carolina Publishing, pg. 165-166]
Celebrating and reifying difference as a political end in itself thus run the risk of creating increasingly divisive and
incommensurate discourses where each group claims a knowledge or experienced based legitimacy but, in doing so,
precluding the possibility of common understanding or intergroup political discourse. Instead, difference produces antithetical discord
and political-tribalism: only working class Hispanics living in South Central Los Angeles, for instance, can speak of, for, and about
their community, its concerns, interests and needs; only female African Americans living in the projects of Chicago can speak "legitimately" of
the housing and social problems endemic to inner city living. Discourse becomes confined not to conversations between identity groups since this is
impossible, but story telling of personal/group experiences where the "other" listens intently until their turn comes to tell their own stories and
experiences. Appropriating the voice or pain of others by speaking, writing, or theorizing on issues, perspectives, or events not indicative of one's
group-identity becomes not only illegitimate but a medium of oppression and a means to silence others. The very activity of theory and political
discourse as it has been understood traditionally in International Relations, and the social sciences more generally, is thus rendered inappropriate
in the new milieu of identity politics.
Politically, progressives obviously see a danger in this type of discourse and, from a social scientific perspective,
understand it to be less than rig orous. Generalizing, as with theorizing, for example, has fallen victim to postmodern
feminist reactions against methodological essentialism and the adoption of what Jane Martin calls the instillation of false
difference into identity discourse. By reacting against the assumption that "all individuals in the world called `women' were exactly like us"
(i.e. white, middle class, educated, etc.), feminists now tend "a priori to give privileged status to a predetermined set of analytic categories and to
affirm the existence of nothing but difference." In avoiding the "pitfall of false unity," feminists have thus "walked straight
into the trap of false difference. Club words now dominate the discourse. Essentialism, ahistoricism, universalism, and
androcentrism, for example, have become the "prime idiom[s] of intellectual terrorism and the privileged instrument[s] of political orthodoxy."
While sympathetic to the cause, even feminists like Jane Martin are critical of the methods that have arisen to
circumvent the evils of essentialism, characterizing contemporary feminist scholarship as imposing its own
"chilly climate" on those who question the method ological proclivity for difference and historicism. Postmodern
feminists, she argues, have fallen victim to compulsory historicism, and by "rejecting one kind of essence talk but
adopting another," have followed a course "whose logical conclusion all but precludes the use of language." For
Martin, this approaches a "dogmatism on the methodological level that we do not countenance in other contexts.... It rules
out theories, categories, and research projects in advance; prejudges the extent of difference and the nonexistence of
similarity." In all, it speaks to a methodological trap that produces many of the same problems as before, but this time
in a language otherwise viewed as progressive, sensitive to the particularities of identity and gender, and destructive of conventional
boundaries in disciplinary knowledge and theoretical endeavor.
ADI 44
Performance Neg
Voting for their interpretation is nihilist—it rejects all forms of political action that could
improve the way society views gender.
Whitworth, Assistant Professor of Political Science York University, 1994
(Sandra, Feminism and International Relations: Towards a Political Economy of Gender in Interstate and Non-
Governmental Institutions, p. 22-23)
This points also to the serious limitations involved in feminist post-modernist understandings of 'social construction'.
While acknowledging that identities and meanings are never natural or universal, postmodernists locate the
construction of those meanings almost exclusively in the play of an ambiguously defined power, organised through
discourse. This means that identities and meanings are constructed in the absence of knowing actors, and more importantly, that there is very
little that knowing actors can do to challenge those meanings or identities. The ways in which power manifests itself, the particular
meanings and identities that emerge, seem almost inevitable. They are unrelated to prevailing material conditions or
the activities of agents and institutions. Similarly, critics may describe the play of power in the construction of
meaning, but cannot participate in changing it.63 As Marysia Zalewski writes: The post-modernist intention to
challenge the power of dominant discourses in an attempt to lead those discourses into disarray is at first glance
appealing, but we have to ask what will the replacement be? If we are to believe that all is contingent and we have
no base on to which we can ground claims to truth, then 'power alone will determine the outcome of competing truth
claims'. Post-modernist discourse does not offer any criteria for choosing among competing explanations and thus
has a tendency to lead towards nihilism - an accusation often levelled at the purveyors of post-modernism and to which they seem
unable to provide any answer, except perhaps in the words of one post-modernist scholar 'what's wrong with nihilism'?64 Postmodernists are
equally post-feminist, a title they sometimes adopt, for their analysis loses sight of the political imperatives which inform
feminism: to uncover and change inequalities between women and men. As Ann Marie Goetz suggests, when many
of the issues surrounding women and international relations are ones which concern the very survival of those
women, postmodernism's continued back-pedalling and disclaimers are not only politically unacceptable, they are,
more importantly, politically irresponsible.
ADI 45
Performance Neg
Feminist criticism of international relations makes the discipline meaningless- including
cultural politics into international relations strips the discipline of any capacity to inform
policy
Methodologically, the implications of reifying false difference are also far from benign for International Relations,
but betray a devolution of disciplinary knowledge and theory amid sundry narratives captive to personal
"travelogues," attempts to recreate histories or enumerate a catalogue of previous "silences" simply on the basis that
such has not been done before. The result is a type of agenda inflation, sprawling research topics that, from a more
traditionalist perspective, would seem unrelated to International Relations. Consider, for example, Birigit Weiss, who attempted
to extol the virtues of an identity-based research agenda for International Relations, suggesting that we think of "symbols such as phone boxes,
mail boxes, or the little green man flashing electronically above pedestrian crossings. [These] are national (identity) symbols which we seldom
notice as such," she writes. "Only: (sic) once we are away from home do we perceive them as different. First deduction. Being abroad we learn to
know what home means." Travel, and the distance associated with it, for Weiss "helps us to define who we are (and where we come from)-which
is a necessary condition for developing an international perspective." The old adage that "travel does round the individual" is now reiterated in
postmodern form, and International Relations exalted to become "interNETional" or "intercultural" studies where, for example, Weiss notes that
with the internet "one can travel from ocean to ocean, from continent to continent, from country to country and around the globe in one night-
through cyber- space." One can only suppose that play on the internet assists in the formation of our personal identities, makes us better scholars,
and that reflections on this can constitute discourse in "InterNETional" studies. As a final rdkction on what "intercultural" as opposed to
International Rela- tions might look like, Weiss recalls the Container 96---Art across Oceans exhibition held in Copenhagen, where "artists
coming from 96 seaport cities. . . created art works inside the containers. The visitors were able to 'circumnavigate the globe in just a few hours'
and could 'take a walk from continent to continent, from climazone to climazone and from seaport to seaport and enter into visions and realities,
as perceived by artists from near and far."'115 "In my view," Weiss writes, "this exhibition is an example for an alternative vision of international
relations, and might help us look beyond the scope of the discipline." 116 Similarly, Marysia Zalewski concerns herself "with the intersection
between the international political economy and pregnant women's bod- ies," and addresses concerns such as the "ethics of 'quality-controlled
babies,'" the relationship between eugenics and economic ideologies, and how the "ubiquitous use of ultrasound is incrementally erasing the pres-
ence of the mother" while "the fetus is imagined as a sort of extra-terrestrial floating in 'space.'" Her discussion is counterpoised against questions
that reflect on popular cultural images like the movies Three Men and a Baby, Junior, and Tootsie. Ultimately, she is concerned vvith "what might
happen when men can have babies? Or when the boundary between women and machine collapses? What might this do to our notions of
subjectivity? Have reproductive technologies heralded the arrival of the posthuman body-the cyborg-at the end of the twentieth century?"117
Likewise, Cynthia Enloe sees the purview of International Relations extending to such topics as the dating practices of American soldiers and the
rumors surrounding "'barracks girls,' young British girls who leave home and in time become resident sexual partners of American male
soldiers."118 Issues and topics germane to International Relations Enloe extends to interracial liaisons and romances between African American
GIs and British women; the sexual proclivities of U.S. soldiers; and observations that "Women can seem as much a threat as a comfort to the
modern warrior. A women is to be destroyed just as the enemy is to be destroyed"; or that some soldiers are "far more ambivalent about women as
a direct result of their militarized sexuality."119 While interesting, one wonders if the disciplinary parameters of International
Relations are now so porous as to be meaningless. If, as Martin Griffiths and Terry O'Callaghan suggest, "Anyone
can 'join' IR, regard- less of their formal training," is there any longer an intrinsic meaning or purpose to what we do
other than engage in academic musings for their own sake? 121 Does this mean, for example, that no formal training or grounding
in world politics will suffice as preparation for studying them, that there is no core to our subject, no central conccrns or rccurring themes that
warrant at least rudimentary attention if one is to have an elementary grasp of things international? The obliteration of intellectual
boundaries, the suggestion that there is "no valid distinction between the international and domestic spheres,"I21 and
that all issues are germane to International Relations supposes that we can not only "forget IR theory," as Roland
Bleiker urges, but read, write, and research anything of nominal interest to us and call this international politics.
Birigit Weiss's vision of container art exhibitions or Cynthia Enloe's reflections on the posthuman body-the cyborg-threatens not just to expand
the vistas of our discipline but, in doing so, make us little more than a compendium of the visual arts, science fiction, identities, personal stories,
and research whims whose intellectual agendas are so disparate as to be meaningless. Indeed, precisely how this makes for better
knowledge and a better understanding of global politics or how such agendas or concerns are related to global events
and processes, we are never told. The only objective evident in the new identity politics seems to be the
"transgression of boundaries," where everything no matter how disparate is assumed to be related to international
politics and where the purview of our disciplinary lenses are counseled to have no focus but be encompassing of all
things social, political, and economic.
ADI 46
Performance Neg
Their focus on identity creates a politics of exclusion that prevents meaningful critiques
and turns the very superior identification they try to solve
[[Critical research agendas of this type, however, are not found easily in International Relations. Critics of feminist
perspectives run the risk of denouncement as either a misogynist malcontent or an androcentric keeper of
the gate. At work in much of this discourse is an unstated political correctness, where the historical
marginalization of women bestows intellectual autonomy, excluding those outside the identity group from
legitimate participation in its discourse. Only feminist women can do real, legitimate, feminist theory since, in the mantra of identity
politics, discourse must emanate from a positional (personal) ontology. Those sensitive or sympathetic to the identity politics
of particular groups are, of course, welcome to lend support and encouragement, but only on terms delineated by
the groups themselves. In this way, they enjoy an uncontested sovereign hegemony oyer their own self-
identification, insuring the group discourse is self constituted and that its parameters, operative methodology, ,uu\ standards of argument,
appraisal, and evidentiary provisions are self defined. Thus, for example, when Sylvester calls lor a "home.steading"
does so "by [a] repetitive feminist insistence that we be included on our terms" (my emphasis). Rather than an invitation to engage in dialogue,
this is an ultimatum that a sovereign intellectual space be provided and insulated from critics who question the merits of identity-based political
discourse. Instead, Sylvester calls upon International Relations to "share space, respect, and trust in a re-formed endeavor," but one otherwise
proscribed as committed to demonstrating not only "that the secure homes constructed by IR's many debaters are chimerical," but, as a con-
sequence, to ending International Relations and remaking it along lines grounded in feminist postmodernism.93 Such stipulative provisions might
be likened to a form of negotiated sovereign territoriality where, as part of the settlement for the historically aggrieved, border incursions are to
be allowed but may not be met with resistance or reciprocity. Demands for entry to the discipline are thus predicated on conditions that insure two
sets of rules, cocooning postmodern feminist spaces from systematic analyses while "respecting" this discourse as it hastens about the project of
deconstructing International Relations as a "male space." Sylvester's impassioned plea for tolerance and "emphatic cooperation" is thus confined
to like-minded individuals, those who do not challenge feminist epistemologies but accept them as a necessary means of reinventing the
discipline as a discourse between postmodern identities—the most important of which is gender.94 Intolerance or misogyny thus become the
ironic epithets attached to those who question the wisdom of this reinvention or the merits of the return of identity in international theory.'"' Most
strategic of all, however, demands for entry to the discipline and calls for intellectual spaces betray a self-imposed, politically motivated
marginality. After all, where are such calls issued from other than the discipline and the intellectual—and well established—spaces of feminist
International Relations?
Much like the strategies employed by male dissidents, then, feminist postmodernists too deflect as illegitimate any
criticism that derives from skeptics whose vantage points are labeled privileged. And privilege is variously
interpreted historically, especially along lines of race, color, and sex where the denotations white and male, to name but two, serve as
generational mediums to assess the injustices of past histories. White males, for example, become generic signifiers for
historical oppression, indicating an ontologicallv privileged group by which the historical experiences of the "other" can then be
reclaimed in the context of their related oppression, exploitation, AND exclusion. Legitimacy, in this context, can then be claimed in
terms of one's group identity and the extent to which the history of that particular group has been
"silenced." In this same way, self-identification or "self-situation" establishes one's credentials, allowing admittance to the group and
legitimating the "authoritative" vantage point from which one speaks and writes. Thus, for example, Jan Jindy Pettman includes among the
introductory pages to her most recent book, Worldinjj Women, a section titled "A (personal) politics of location," in which her identity as a
woman, a feminist, and an academic, makes apparent her particular (marginal) identities and group loyalties.96 Similarly, Christine Sylvester, in
the introduction to her book, insists, "It is important to provide a context for one's work in the often-denied politics of the personal." Accordingly,
self-declaration reveals to the reader that she is a feminist, went to a Catholic girls school where she was schooled to "develop your brains and
confess something called 'sins' to always male forever priests," and that these provide some pieces to her dynamic objectivity.97 Like territorial
markers, self-identification permits entry to intellectual spaces whose sovereign authority is "policed" as
much by marginal subjectivities as they allege of the oppressors who "police" the discourse of realism, or
who are said to walk the corridors of the discipline insuring the replication of patriarchy, hierarchical agendas, and "malestream" theory. If
Sylvester's version of feminist postmodernism is projected as tolerant, per-spectivist, and encompassing
of a multiplicity of approaches, in reality it is as selective, exclusionary, and dismissive of alternative
perspectives as mainstream approaches are accused of being.]]
ADI 47
Performance Neg
The focus on identity politics creates a self-identifying race to the bottom that fractures
their movement and turns International Relations into identity group wars
Jarvis 2k [DSL, ‘International Relations and the Challenge of Postmodernism’, February, University of South
Carolina Publishing, pg. 163-164]
[[Problems of this nature, however, are really manifestations of a deeper, underlying ailment endemic to
discourses derived from identity politics. At base, the most elemental question for identity discourse, as Zalewski and Enloe note,
is "Who am I?"™ The personal becomes the political, evolving a discourse where self-identification, but also one's identification by others,
presupposes multiple identities that are fleeting, overlapping, and changing at any particular moment in time or place. "We have multiple
identities," argues V. Spike Peterson, "e.g., Canadian, homemaker, Jewish, Hispanic, socialist.""" And
these identities are variously depicted as transient, polymorphic, interactive, discursive, and never fixed.
As Richard Brown notes, "Identity is given neither institutionally nor biologically. It evolves as one orders continuities on one's conception of
oneself."102 Yet, if we accept this, the analytical utility of identity politics seems problematic at best. Which identity, for example, do
we choose from the many that any one subject might display affinity for? Are we to assume that all
identities are of equal importance or that some are more important than others? How do we know which
of these identities might be transient and less consequential to one's sense of self and, in turn, politically
significant to understanding international politics? Why, for example, should we place gender identity
onto-logically prior to class, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, ideological perspective, or national
identity?"13 As Zalewski and Enloe ask, "Why do we consider states to be a major referent? Why not men? Or women?"104 But by the same
token, why not dogs, shipping magnates, movie stars, or trade regimes? Why is gender more constitutive of global politics than, say, class, or an
identity as a cancer survivor, laborer, or social worker? Most of all, why is gender essentialized in feminist discourse, reified
into the most preeminent of all identities as the primary lens through which international relations must be
viewed? Perhaps, for example, people understand difference in the context of identities outside of gender. As Jane Martin notes, "How do we
know that difference . . . does not turn on being tat or religious or in an abusive relationship?""15 The point, perhaps flippantly made, is that
identity is such a nebulous concept, its meaning so obtuse and so inherently subjective, that it is near meaningless as a conduit for under standing
global politics if only because it can mean anything to anybody.
For others like Ann Tickner, however, identity challenges the assumption ot state sovereignty. "Becoming curious about identity formation
below the state and surrendering the simplistic assumption that the state is sovereign will," Tickner suggests, "make us much more realistic
describers and explainers of die current international system."106 The multiple subjects and their identities that constitute the nation-state are, for
Tickner, what are important. In a way, of course, she is correct. States are constitutive entities drawn from the amalgam of their citizens. But such
observations are somewhat trite and banal and lead International Relations into a devolving and perpetually dividing discourse based upon ever-
emergent and transforming identities. Surely the more important observation, however, concerns the bounds of this enterprise. Where do we
stop? Are there limits to this exercise or is it a boundless project? And how do we theorize the notion of multiple levels of identities harbored in
each subject person? If each of us is fractured into multiple identities, must we then lunge into commentaries
specific to each group? Well we might imagine, for example, a discourse in International Relations between white feminist heterosexual
women, white middle class heterosexual physically challenged men, working class gay Latinos, txansgendered persons, ethnic Italian New York
female garment workers, and Asian lesbian ecofeminists. Each would represent a self-constituted knowledge and nomenclature, a discourse
reflective of specific identity-group concerns. Knowledge and understanding would suffer from a diaspora, becoming
unattainable in any perspicacious sense except in localities so specific that its general understanding, or
inter-group applicability, would be obviated. Identity groups would become so splintered and disparate
that International Relations would approach a form of identity tribalism with each group forming a kind
of intellectual territory, jealously policing its knowledge borders from intrusions by other groups otherwise seen as illegitimate,
nonrepresentative, or opposed to the interests of the group. Nor is it improbable to suppose that identity politics in International
Relations would evolve a realpolitik between groups, a realist power-struggle for intergroup legitimacy or
hegemonic control over particular knowledges or, in the broader polity', situations of intergroup conflict. With what legitimacy,
for example, do middle class, by and large white, affluent, feminist, women International Relations scholars speak and write for black, poor,
illiterate, gay, working class, others who might object, resist, or denounce such empathetic musings? The legitimacy with which Sylvester or
Enloe write, for example, might be questioned on grounds of their identities as elite, educated, privileged women, unrepresentative of the
experiences and realities of those at the coal face of international politics.]
ADI 48
Performance Neg
Their focus on identity politics creates global fragmentation and seclusion. Only using the
commonality of ethical humans can we unite to solve power relations, war, and disease
[[Lurking behind such positions, of course, is the highly problematic assumption that a fundamental shift in the political, social,
and economic worlds has occurred; that "people, machinery and money, images and ideas now follow increasingly
nonisomorphic paths, and that because of this there is a "deterritorializing mobility of peoples, ideas, and images," one
overcoming the "laborious moves of statism to project an image of the world divided along territorially discontinuous (separated)
sovereign spaces, each supposedly with homogeneous cultures and impervious essences."111 In this new world where global space
as-territory has been obliterated, where discrete national cultures no longer exist but are dissolved by cosmopolitanism and
ubiquitous images peddled by hypermodern communications, all that remains as tangible referents for knowledge and
understanding, we are told, are our own fractured identities."2 While, lor tcminists, this is profoundly liberating, allowing them to
recognize a "multiplicity of identities," each engaged in a "differing politics," it also betrays how narrow is the intent of feminist
postmodernism, which stands lot no other end except the eradication of essentialism."3 Much as Ashley saw m positivism
tyrannical structures of oppression, so in essentialism postmodern feminists see the subjugation of diversity amid universal nar-
i.itiws Vet the reification of difference as the penultimate ontological beginning and end point seems disingenuous in the extreme.
The question is not whether there are differences—of course there are—but whether these are significant for
International Relations, and if so in what capacity? Historically, the brief of International Relations has been to
go out in search of those things that unite us, not divide us. Division, disunitv, and difference have been the
unmistakable problems endemic to global politics, and overcoming them the objective that has provided scholars with
both their motivating purpose and moral compass. In venerating difference, identity politics unwittingly reproduces this
problematique; exacerbating differences beyond their significance, fabricating disunity contributing to social
and political cleavage. Yes, we are not all the same. but the things that unite us air surely more important,
more numerous, and more fundamental to the human condition than those that divide us. We all share a
conviction that war is bad, for example, that violence is objectionable, global poverty unconscionable, and that
peaceful interstate relations are desirable. Likewise, we all inhabit one earth and have similar environmental
concerns, have the same basic needs in terms of developmental requirements, nutrition, personal security, education, and
shelter. To suppose that these modernist concerns are divisible on the basis of gender, color, sexuality, or
religious inclination seems specious, promoting contrariety where none really exists from the perspective of
International Relations. How, for example, amid the reification of ever-divisible difference, do we foster
political community and solidarity, hope to foster greater global collectivity, or unite antithetically inclined
religious, segregationist, or racial groups on the basis of their professed difference? How this is meant to
secure new visions of international politics, solve the divisions of previous disputations, or avert violent
factionalisms in the future remains curiously absent from the discourse of identity politics.'14]]
ADI 49
Performance Neg
Speed Good Block
1. Performative Contradiction - They don’t speak conversational speed either – if there is any hint that they
are speaking at higher than average layperson speed this argument justifies a vote against them for the following
reasons:
a. time skew – they force us to spend time answering this position while then being able to sever out of
advocacy later when strategy demands it.
b. double bind – either we have to slow down and risk not answering arguments, which will then be used
against us in future speeches by the affirmative, or we speak faster to cover the arguments and they use this
argument against us. We’re in a lose-lose situation.
2. Speaking fast in debate is good -

a. context – in this context speaking fast is considered to be a legitimate communication tool to be used by
competitors. We can adjust our speaking styles to other forums and contexts as necessary. Different
contexts have different communicative norms.
b. time constraints – because of the time constraints tied to debate, speaking fast allows for more depth
AND breadth in exploring issues. Again, we can adjust our speaking styles to other forums without time
constraints by speaking slowly and conversationally. We don’t all talk this fast in classrooms or with our
friends.
c. specialized field – debate is a specialized field in which speaking style has developed to the field. They
assume that debate rounds should be conversational, but debate is not a “conversational” activity – if it
were, we would have open time limits, no speeches, and no winner or loser. It is an argumentation event
that requires participants to develop arguments against opponents under time constraints and within the
structure of speeches and cross-examination.
3. Increases education –
a. Depth and breadth – cross apply #2b time constraints argument.
b. Fast talking leads to faster thought processing – in debate we develop the ability to listen,
process and respond to arguments much faster than typically is developed in everyday
experiences. This faster thought processes makes us better able to perform academically and
professionally in our lives.
ADI 50
Performance Neg
Counterfactual Procedural
A. Interpretation
1. The 1AC is designed as a fact, not policy. A resolution of fact forces the affirmative to prove a thing is true,
while the negative proves that thing is false. It deals in certainties, not probabilities. Policy resolutions mandate that
affirmative prove an action should be taken, while the neg proves it should not. Their interpretation moots the word
“should” in the resolution and replaces it with “should have”.
Definition of should: used to express obligation or duty; used to express probability or expectation.
B. Standards & Reasons to prefer
1. Predictability – there are an infinite and unpredictable number of counterfactuals that could be run on this topic
– It is impossible for us to be able to predict the examples from the last 100 years plus of fossil fuel development.
2. Steals all disadvantage ground – any disadvantage we run will be based on future legislative action as
identified by “energy policy” and “requiring” in the resolution. They will claim they don’t link to this because they
do not adopt an energy policy or require any action.
3. Resolutional stability and potential abuse – allowing affirmatives to ADD words to the resolution in order to
justify their interpretation explodes already huge ground for them, making it impossible for negative teams to
prepare for effectively for debate – this is bad for two reasons:
a. education – without this predictability is lost and clash will be non-existent.
b. fairness – the affirmative already has the first and last speech and infinite prep time – our only hope is
having some degree of resolutional predictability to prepare.
4. They must become extra-topical to prove their solvency – counterfactuals depend on numerous alternative
actions, not just the singular action they describe in plan
Bell, 2007. [David A., “Counterfactuals and social science,” The New Republic Weblogs: Open University, May 18,
http://www.tnr.com/blog/blog.rss?b=openuniversity]
Eric Rauchway, in his response to my post, makes some excellent points. I agree with a good deal of what he says. But I do think we are talking
about two different sorts of counterfactuals. Eric is of course right to say that counterfactuals belong to the social sciences. But they
are counterfactuals of a special, well-controlled sort, where, ideally, you imagine changes in a small number of
variables, and trace the effect on the larger system, in a manner akin to a scientific experiment. As Eric algebraically
puts it, "without x, no y." But I'm not sure we can identify this sort of counterfactual speculation with the sort I was
talking about, as exemplified by the scenario of the Confederacy winning the Civil War as the result of a set of
orders not falling into Union hands before Antietam. In this case, unlike the ones Eric is talking about, the initial variable
itself--the wayward orders--is essentially insignificant, and random. But as the consequences of changing it pile up,
the number of subsequent variables that are altered quickly becomes unmanageably enormous--modeling the
weather would be simple by comparison. The same is true for the example Eric himself gives: Niall Ferguson's speculation in
The Pity of War about what might have happened had Great Britain not gone to war in 1914. In reality, this is not a
question of a single variable, but of thousands: the loss of British manpower on the Western front; the effects on
German strategy; the impact on British politics of "abandoning the Belgians"; the creation of tensions between
Britain and France; the effects on British power of not being bled white by the war; etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. Trying to
keep track of all these and imagining how they could all have played out together is not, in the end, a useful social
scientific exercise--which is why Ferguson's book was in fact much better on what World War I actually did cost Britain, than on what might
have been saved had the country acted differently. Ultimately, as I suggested, this sort of counterfactual is more properly an exercise for the
imagination, which is why fictional treatments are often the most illuminating. Incidentally, in my discussion of counterfactual fictions I
neglected to mention two particularly prominent recent ones: Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, and Michael Chabon's fascinating new The
Yiddish Policeman's Union, which imagines a Jewish national refuge in the Alaskan panhandle.
C. Topicality is a voting issue to preserve fairness and ground.

Peterson Performance Neg

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ADI 1

1NC Framework 1/3

A. Concrete advocacy stemming from resolution

B. Traditional debate is a valuable methodology

2. Why is traditional policy debate beneficial?

1NC Framework 3/3

Policy Debate Good – Education

Switch side debate prevents relativism while respecting different beliefs.

Switch side debate is key to becoming an informed citizen—focus on technique and

Students sometimes act as if the invitation to engage in a wholesale condemnation of nonfeminist

*simulacram (sim·u·la·crum) - An image or representation. An unreal or vague semblance (from

State/Statist Discussion is Good

Ignoring the state prevents mediation needed to save millions

State/Statist Discussion is Good

Constructive engagement is a political policy demanding reform:

2. Speaking fast in debate is good -

B. Standards & Reasons to prefer

C. Topicality is a voting issue to preserve fairness and ground.

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