2AC Reps – Policymaking T/ (1/2)

An emphasis on representations hinders policymaking and denigrates agency

Tuathail 1996 [Gearoid, Department of Geography at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Political Geography,
science direct]

While theoretical debates at academic conferences are important to academics, the

discourse and concerns of foreign-policy decision- makers are quite different, so different
that they constitute a distinctive problem- solving, theory-averse, policy-making
subculture. There is a danger that academics assume that the discourses they engage are
more significant in the practice of foreign policy and the exercise of power than they
really are. This is not, however, to minimize the obvious importance of academia as a
general institutional structure among many that sustain certain epistemic communities in
particular states. In general, I do not disagree with Dalby’s fourth point about politics and
discourse except to note that his statement-‘Precisely because reality could be represented
in particular ways political decisions could be taken, troops and material moved and war
fought’-evades the important question of agency that I noted in my review essay. The
assumption that it is representations that make action possible is inadequate by itself.
Political, military and economic structures , institutions, discursive networks and
leadership are all crucial in explaining social action and should be theorized together with
representational practices. Both here and earlier, Dalby’s reasoning inclines towards a
form of idealism. In response to Dalby’s fifth point (with its three subpoints), it is worth
noting, first, that his book is about the CPD, not the Reagan administration. He analyzes
certain CPD discourses, root the geographical reasoning practices of the Reagan
administration nor its public-policy reasoning on national security. Dalby’s book is
narrowly textual; the general contextuality of the Reagan administration is not dealt with.
Second, let me simply note that I find that the distinction between critical theorists and
post- structuralists is a little too rigidly and heroically drawn by Dalby and others. Third,
Dalby’s interpretation of the reconceptualization of national security in Moscow as
heavily influenced by dissident peace researchers in Europe is highly idealist, an
interpretation that ignores the structural and ideological crises facing the Soviet elite at
that time. Gorbachev’s reforms and his new security discourse were also strongly self-
interested, an ultimately futile attempt to save the Communist Party and a discredited
regime of power from disintegration. The issues raised by Simon Dalby in his comment
are important ones for all those interested in the practice of critical geopolitics. While I
agree with Dalby that questions of discourse are extremely important ones for political
geographers to engage, there is a danger of fetishizing this concern with discourse so
that we neglect the institutional and the sociological, the materialist and the cultural, the
political and the geographical contexts within which particular discursive strategies
become significant. Critical geopolitics, in other words, should not be a prisoner of the
sweeping ahistorical cant that sometimes accompanies ‘poststructuralism nor
convenient reading strategies like the identity politics narrative; it needs to always be
open to the patterned mess that is human history.
 2AC Reps – Policymaking T/ (2/2)
Elevating representations above reality replaces political engagement with abstract
musing

Taft-Kaufman 1995 [Jill, Professor at the Department of Speech Communication And

Dramatic Arts at Central Michigan University, Southern Communication Journal, Spring]

In its elevation of language to the primary analysis of social life and its relegation of the
de-centered subject to a set of language positions, postmodernism ignores the way real
people make their way in the world. While the notion of decentering does much to
remedy the idea of an essential, unchanging self, it also presents problems. According to
Clarke (1991): Having established the material quality of ideology, everything else we
had hitherto thought of as material has disappeared. There is nothing outside of ideology
(or discourse). Where Althusser was concerned with ideology as the imaginary relations
of subjects to the real relations of their existence, the connective quality of this view of ideology has been dissolved because it lays
claim to an outside, a real, an extra-discursive for which there exists no epistemological warrant without lapsing back into the bad old ways of empiricism or metaphysics. (pp. 25-
26) Clarke explains how the same disconnection between the discursive and the extra-discursive has been performed in semiological analysis: Where it used to contain a relation
between the signifier (the representation) and the signified (the referent), antiempiricism has taken the formal arbitrariness of the connection between the signifier and signified and
replaced it with the abolition of the signified (there can be no real objects out there, because there is no out there for real objects to be). (p. 26) To the postmodernist, then, real

postmodernism has canonized doubt about the

objects have vanished. So, too, have real people. Smith (1988) suggests that

availability of the referent to the point that "the real often disappears from consideration"
(p. 159). Real individuals become abstractions. Subject positions rather than subjects are
the focus. The emphasis on subject positions or construction of the discursive self
engenders an accompanying critical sense of irony which recognizes that "all
conceptualizations are limited" (Fischer, 1986, p. 224). This postmodern position evokes
what Connor (1989) calls "an absolute weightlessness in which anything is imaginatively
possible because nothing really matters" (p. 227). Clarke (1991) dubs it a "playfulness
that produces emotional and/or political disinvestment: a refusal to be engaged" (p.
103). The luxury of being able to muse about what constitutes the self is a posture in
keeping with a critical venue that divorces language from material objects and bodily
subjects.
 2AC Reps – Impedes Activism
Alt fails – representation-only focus impedes macropolitical activism and collapses
into self-fulfilling negativism

Collins 1997 (Patricia, Professor of Sociology at the University of Cincinnati, Fighting

Words, p. 135-136]

In this sense, postmodern views of power that overemphasize hegemony and local
politics provide a seductive mix of appearing to challenge oppression while secretly
believing that such efforts are doomed. Hegemonic power appears as ever expanding and
invading. It may even attempt to “annex” the counterdiscourses that have developed,
oppositional discourses such as Afrocentrism, postmodernism, feminism, and Black
feminist thought. This is a very important insight. However, there is a difference
between being aware of the power of one’s enemy and arguing that such power is so
pervasive that resistance will, at best, provide a brief respite and, at worst, prove
ultimately futile. This emphasis on power as being hegemonic and seemingly absolute,
coupled with a belief in local resistance as the best that people can do, flies in the face of
actual, historical successes. African-Americans, women, poor people, and others have
achieved results through social movements, revolts, revolutions, and other collective
social action against government, corporate, and academic structures. As James Scott
queries, “What remains to be explained…is why theories of hegemony…have…retained
an enourmous intellectual appeal to social scientists and historians” (1990, 86). Perhaps
for colonizers who refuse, individualized, local resistance is the best that they can
envision. Overemphasizing hegemony and stressing nihilism not only does not resist
injustice but participates in its manufacture. Views of power grounded exclusively in
notions of hegemony and nihilism are not only pessimistic, they can be dangerous for
members of historically marginalized groups. Moreover, the emphasis on local versus
structural institutions makes it difficult to examine major structures such as racism,
sexism, and other structural forms of oppression. Social theories that reduce heirarchical
power relations to the level of representation, performance, or constructed phenomena
not only emphasize the likelihood that resistance will fail in the face of a pervasive
hegemonic presence, they also reinforce perceptions that local, individualized
micropolitics constitutes the most effective terrain of struggle. This emphasis on the
local dovetails nicely with increasing emphasis on the “personal” as a source of power
and with parallel attention to subjectivity. If politics becomes reduced to the “personal,”
decentering relations of ruling in academia and other bureaucratic structures seems
increasingly unlikely. As Rey Chow opines, “What these intellectuals are doing is
robbing the terms of oppression of their critical and oppositional import, and thus
depriving the oppressed of even the vocabulary of protest and rightful
demand” (1993, 13).
 1AR AT: Discourse First
Discourse doesn’t shape reality – empirical reality must come first

Rodwell 2005 [Jonathan, PhD student at Manchester Met. researching U.S. Foreign
Policy, “Trendy but empty: A Response to Richard Jackson”]

However, having said that, the problem is Jackson’s own theoretical underpinning, his
own justification for the importance of language. If he was merely proposing that the
understanding of language as one of many causal factors is important that would be fine.
But he is not. The epistemological and theoretical framework of his argument means the
ONLY thing we should look at is language and this is the problem.[ii] Rather than being a
fairly simple, but nonetheless valid, argument, because of the theoretical justification it
actually becomes an almost nonsensical. My response is roughly laid out in four parts.
Firstly I will argue that such methodology, in isolation, is fundamentally reductionist with
a theoretical underpinning that does not conceal this simplicity.   Secondly, that a strict use
of post-structural discourse analysis results in an epistemological cul-de-sac in which the
writer cannot actually say anything. Moreover the reader has no reason to accept anything
that has been written. The result is at best an explanation that remains as equally valid as
any other possible interpretation and at worse a work that retains no critical force
whatsoever. Thirdly, possible arguments in response to this charge; that such approaches
provide a more acceptable explanation than others are, in effect, both a tacit acceptance
of the poverty of force within the approach and of the complete lack of understanding
of the identifiable effects of the real world around us; thus highlighting the
contradictions within post-structural claims to be moving beyond traditional causality, re-
affirming that rather than pursuing a post-structural approach we should continue to
employ the traditional methodologies within History, Politics and International
Relations.  Finally as a consequence of these limitations I will argue that the post-
structural call for ‘intertextuals’ must be practiced rather than merely preached and that
an understanding and utilisation of all possible theoretical approaches must be maintained
if academic writing is to remain useful rather than self-contained and narrative.
Ultimately I conclude that whilst undeniably of some value post-structural approaches are
at best a footnote in our understanding. The first major problem then is that historiographically discourse analysis is so capacious as to be largely of little use. The process of inscription
identity, of discourse development is not given any political or historical context, it is argued that it just works, is simply a universal phenomenon. It is history that explains everything and therefore actually explains nothing. To be specific if the U.S. and every other
nation is continually reproducing identities through ‘othering’ it is a constant and universal phenomenon that fails to help us understand at all why one result of the othering turned out one way and differently at another time. For example, how could one explain how the
process resulted in the 2003 invasion of Iraq but didn’t produce a similar invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 when that country (and by the logic of the Regan administrations discourse) the West was threatened by the ‘Evil Empire’. By the logical of discourse analysis in
both cases these policies were the result of politicians being able to discipline and control the political agenda to produce the outcomes. So why were the outcomes not the same? To reiterate the point how do we explain that the language of the War on Terror actually
managed to result in the eventual Afghan invasion in 2002? Surely it is impossible to explain how George W. Bush was able to convince his people (and incidentally the U.N and Nato) to support a war in Afghanistan without referring to a simple fact outside of the
discourse; the fact that a known terrorist in Afghanistan actually admitted to the murder of thousands of people on the 11h of Sepetember 2001. The point is that if the discursive ‘othering’ of an ‘alien’ people or group is what really gave the U.S. the opportunity to
persue the war in Afghanistan one must surly wonder why Afghanistan. Why not North Korea? Or Scotland? If the discourse is so powerfully useful in it’s own right why could it not have happened anywhere at any time and more often? Why could the British
government not have been able to justify an armed invasion and regime change in Northern Ireland throughout the terrorist violence of the 1980’s? Surely they could have just employed the same discursive trickery as George W. Bush? Jackson is absolutely right when
he points out that the actuall threat posed by Afghanistan or Iraq today may have been thoroughly misguided and conflated and that there must be more to explain why those wars were enacted at that time. Unfortunately that explanation cannot simply come from the
result of inscripting identity and discourse. On top of this there is the clear problem that the consequences of the discursive othering are not necessarily what Jackson would seem to identify. This is a problem consistent through David Campbell’s original work on which
Jackson’s approach is based[iii]. David Campbell argued for a linguistic process that ‘always results in an other being marginalized’ or has the potential for ‘demonisation’[iv]. At the same time Jackson, building upon this, maintains without qualification that the
systematic and institutionalised abuse of Iraqi prisoners first exposed in April 2004 “is a direct consequence of the language used by senior administration officials: conceiving of terrorist suspects as ‘evil’, ‘inhuman’ and ‘faceless enemies of freedom creates an
atmosphere where abuses become normalised and tolerated”[v]. The only problem is that the process of differentiation does not actually necessarily produce dislike or antagonism. In the 1940’s and 50’s even subjected to the language of the ‘Red Scare’ it’s obvious not
all Americans came to see the Soviets as an ‘other’ of their nightmares. And in Iraq the abuses of Iraqi prisoners are isolated cases, it is not the case that the U.S. militarily summarily abuses prisoners as a result of language. Surely the massive protest against the war,
even in the U.S. itself, is also a self evident example that the language of ‘evil’ and ‘inhumanity’ does not necessarily produce an outcome that marginalises or demonises an ‘other’. Indeed one of the points of discourse is that we are continually differentiating ourselves
from all others around us without this necessarily leading us to hate fear or abuse anyone.[vi] Consequently, the clear fear of the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, and the abuses at Abu Ghirab are unusual cases. To understand what is going on we must
ask how far can the process of inscripting identity really go towards explaining them? As a result at best all discourse analysis provides us with is a set of universals and a heuristic model Next, discourse analysis as practiced exists within an enormous logical cul-de-sac.
Born of the original premise that each discourse and explanation has it’s own realities, what results is a theoretical approach in which a critique is actually impossible because by post-structural logic a critique can only operate within it’s own discursive structure and on
it’s own terms. If things only exist within specific languages and discourse you must share the basic premises of that discourse to be able to say anything about it. But what useful criticisms can you make if you share fundamental assumptions? Moreover remembering
the much argued for normative purposes of Jackson’s case he talks about the effects of naturalizing language and without blushing criticises the dangerous anti-terror rhetoric of George W. Bush. The only problem is Jackson has attempted to illustrate that what is moral
or immoral depends on the values and structures of each discourse. Therefore why should a reader believe Richard Jackson’s idea of right and wrong any more than George W. Bush’s? Fundamentally if he wishes to maintain that each discourse is specific to each
intellectual framework Jackson cannot criticise at all. By his own epistemological rules if he is inside those discourses he shares their assumptions, outside they make no sense What actually occurs then is an aporia - a logical contraction where a works own stated
epistemological premises rob it of the ability to contain any critical force. Such arguments are caught between the desire to maintain that all discursive practices construct their own truths, in which case critiques are not possible as they are merely one of countless
possible discursive truths with no actually reason to take then seriously, or an appeal to material reality, but again the entire premises of post structural linguistics rejects the idea of a material reality.[vii] In starting from a premise that it is not possible to neutrally
describe the real world, the result is that without that real world, discourse analysis actually has nothing to say. The issue of the material real world, or ‘evidence’ is actually the issue at the heart of the weakness of post-structural discourse analysis, though it does hold
the potential to at least rescue some of it’s usefulness. The problem is simple, in that the only way Jackson or any post-structuralist can operationalise their argument is with an appeal to material evidence. But by the logic of discourse analysis there is no such thing as
neutral ‘evidence’. To square this circle many post-struturalist writers do seem to hint at complexity and what post-structural culturalists might call ‘intertextuality’, arguing for ‘favouring a complexity of interactions’ rather than ‘linear causality’[viii]. The implication is
that language is just one of an endless web of factors and surely this prompts one to pursue an understanding of these links. However, to do so would dangerously undermine the entire post-structural project as again, if there are discoverable links between factors, then
there are material facts that are identifiable regardless of language. Consequently, rather than seeking to understand the links between factors what seems to happen is hands are thrown up in despair as the search for complexity is dropped as quickly as it is picked up.
The result is one-dimensional arguments that again can say little. This is evident in Jackson’s approach as he details how words have histories and moreover are part of a dialectic process in which ‘they not only shape social structures but are also shaped by them’.[ix]
However we do not then see any discussion of whether, therefore, it is not discourse that is the powerful tool but the effect of the history and the social structure itself. Throughout Jackson’s argument it is a top down process in which discourse disciplines society to
follow the desire of the dominant, but here is an instance of a dialectic process where society may actually be the originating force, allowing the discourse in turn to actually to be more powerful. However we simply see no exploration of this potential dialectic process,
merely the suggestion it exists. Consequently because there is no interaction between the language the culture and the material then there is not much that can actually be done. All that is done is to repeatedly detail the instances where the same tropes occur time and
time again and suggest they have an impact.[x] What cannot be explained however is why those tropes exist or how they have an influence. So, for example, Jackson is unable to explain how the idea that the members of the emergency services attending the scene at the
World Trade Centre on 9/11 were heroes is a useful trope disciplining the populace via the tool of Hollywood blockbusters and popular entertainments heroes. All he is able to claim is that lots of films have heroes, lots of stories have heroes and people like heroes. All
might be true but what exactly is the point? And how do we actually know the language has the prescribed effect? Indeed how do we know people don’t support the villain in films instead of heroes? The reason it there is no attempt to explore the complexity of
causation is that this would clearly automatically undermine the concentration on discourse. Moreover it would require the admittance of identifiable evidence about the real world to be able to say anything about it! For if something historical changed the meaning of a
word, or if something about society gave the word a different meaning and impact, then it would be an identifiable ‘something’. Moreover if the word is tied to and altered by an historical event or social impact, would it not be a case of assessing the effect of original
 The larger problem is that without clear causal links between materially
event itself as well as the language?

identifiable events and factors any assessment within the argument actually becomes
nonsensical. Mirroring the early inability to criticise, if we have no traditional causational
discussion how can we know what is happening? For example, Jackson details how the
rhetoric of anti-terrorism and fear is obfuscating the real problems. It is proposed that the
real world killers are not terrorism, but disease or illegal drugs or environmental issues.
The problem is how do we know this? It seems we know this because there is evidence
that illustrates as much – Jackson himself quoting to Dr David King who argued global
warming is a greater that than terrorism. The only problem of course is that discourse
analysis has established (as argued by Jackson) that King’s argument would just be self-
contained discourse designed to naturalise another arguments for his own reasons.
Ultimately it would be no more valid than the argument that excessive consumption of
Sugar Puffs is the real global threat. It is worth repeating that I don’t personally believe
global terrorism is the world’s primary threat, nor do I believe that Sugar Puffs are a
global killer. But without the ability to identify real facts about the world we can simply
say anything, or we can say nothing. This is clearly ridiculous and many post-
structuralists can see this. Their argument is that there “are empirically more persuasive
explanations.”[xi] The phrase ‘empirically persuasive’ is however the final undermining
of post-structural discourse analysis. It is a seemingly fairly obvious reintroduction of
traditional methodology and causal links. It implies things that can be seen to be right
regardless of perspective or discourse. It again goes without saying that logically in this
case if such an assessment is possible then undeniable material factors about the word are
real and are knowable outside of any cultural definition. Language or culture then does
not wholy constitute reality. How do we know in the end that the world not threatened
by the onslaught of an oppressive and dangerous breakfast cereal? Because empirically
persuasive evidence tells us this is the case. The question must then be asked, is our
understanding of the world born of evidential assessment, or born of discourse analysis?
Or perhaps it’s actually born of utilisation of many different possible explanations.
 1AR AT: Discourse First – Doesn’t Shape Reality
Representations don’t shape reality

Kocher 2K [Robert L, Author and Philosopher, “Reality Sanity”]

While it is not possible to establish many proofs in the verbal world, and it is
simultaneously possible to make many uninhibited assertions or word equations in the
verbal world, it should be considered that reality is more rigid and does not abide by the
artificial flexibility and latitude of the verbal world. The world of words and the world of
human experience are very imperfectly correlated. That is, saying something doesn't
make it true. A verbal statement in the world of words doesn't mean it will occur as such
in the world of consistent human experience I call reality. In the event verbal statements
or assertions disagree with consistent human experience, what proof is there that the
concoctions created in the world of words should take precedence or be assumed a
greater truth than the world of human physical experience that I define as reality? In the
event following a verbal assertion in the verbal world produces pain or catastrophe in the
world of human physical reality or experience, which of the two can and should be
changed? Is it wiser to live with the pain and catastrophe, or to change the arbitrary
collection of words whose direction produced that pain and catastrophe? Which do you
want to live with? What proven reason is there to assume that when doubtfulness that can
be constructed in verbal equations conflicts with human physical experience, human
physical experience should be considered doubtful? It becomes a matter of choice and
pride in intellectual argument. My personal advice is that when verbal contortions lead to
chronic confusion and difficulty, better you should stop the verbal contortions rather than
continuing to expect the difficulty to change. Again, it's a matter of choice. Does the
outcome of the philosophical question of whether reality or proof exists decide whether
we should plant crops or wear clothes in cold weather to protect us from freezing? Har!
Are you crazy? How many committed deconstructionist philosophers walk about naked
in subzero temperatures or don't eat? Try creating and living in an alternative subjective
reality where food is not needed and where you can sit naked on icebergs, and find out
what happens. I emphatically encourage people to try it with the stipulation that they
don't do it around me, that they don't force me to do it with them, or that they don't come
to me complaining about the consequences and demanding to conscript me into paying
for the cost of treating frostbite or other consequences. (sounds like there is a parallel to
irresponsibility and socialism somewhere in here, doesn't it?). I encourage people to live
subjective reality. I also ask them to go off far away from me to try it, where I won't be
bothered by them or the consequences. For those who haven't guessed, this
encouragement is a clever attempt to bait them into going off to some distant place where
they will kill themselves off through the process of social Darwinism — because, let's
face it, a society of deconstructionists and counterculturalists filled with people debating
what, if any, reality exists would have the productive functionality of a field of diseased
rutabagas and would never survive the first frost. The attempt to convince people to
create and move to such a society never works, however, because they are not as
committed or sincere as they claim to be. Consequently, they stay here to work for left
wing causes and promote left wing political candidates where there are people who live
productive reality who can be fed upon while they continue their arguments. They ain't
going to practice what they profess, and they are smart enough not to leave the
availability of people to victimize and steal from while they profess what they pretend to
believe in.
 1AR AT: Discourse First – AT: No Reality
If discourse defines reality then it’s impossible to differentiate between competing
truth claims

Patomaki 2K [Heikki, Research Director, Network Institute for Global Democratization,

and Colin Wright, Lecturer in International Politics, University of Wales, International
Studies Quarterly, June, Vol. 44, Issue 2, p. 213]

On the boundary of negativity, in terms of epistemology, the denial of objects existing

independently of the discourses that construct them as objects seems unable to
differentiate between competing truth claims (Norris, 1996). If discourses construct the
objects to which the discourses refer, then the discourse itself can never be wrong about
the existence of its objects, in any meaningful or methodologically interesting way. Nor
can an alternative discourse possibly critique another discourse, since the objects of a
given discourse exist if the discourse says they exist. External criticism of the existential
claims of discourses seems impossible. Ontologically, if discourses do construct their
own objects, then what constructed the discourses themselves? There is, of course, a long
and venerable philosophical tradition of overt idealism that attempts to answer just this
question. For example, for Berkeley it was God, for Hegel, Geist. We are unconvinced by
these arguments, but if IR scholars want to adopt idealist positions then let us at least
have the arguments in the open where they might be in the manner of research practices
beyond the boundary of negativity. Arguments are still advanced and assessed, evidence
offered, and independently existing objects, whether created in the discourse or not, are
still referred to.
 1AR AT: Methodology First
Policy effects must be evaluated – overemphasis on method kills education

Wendt, 2002 [Alexander, Asst. Prof at Univ of Chicago, Handbook of IR, p. 68]

It should be stressed that in advocating a pragmatic view we are not endorsing method-driven
social science. Too much research in international relations chooses problems or things to be explained
with a view to whether the analysis will provide support for one or another methodological ‘ism ’. But the
point of IR scholarship should be to answer questions about international politics that are of great
normative concern, not to validate methods . Methods are means, not ends in themselves. As a matter
of personal scholarly choice it may be reasonable to stick with one method and see how far it takes us .
But since we do not know how far that is, if the goal of the discipline is insight into world politics
then it makes little sense to rule out one or the other approach on a priori grounds. In that case a
method indeed becomes a tacit ontology, which may lead to neglect of whatever problems it is poorly
suited to address. Being conscious about these choices is why it is important to distinguish
between the ontological, empirical and pragmatic levels of the rationalist-constructivist
debate. We favor the pragmatic approach on heuristic grounds, but we certainly believe a
conversation should continue on all three levels.
 2AC Discourse – Contradictions Perm – Opens Up
Space
Contradictions open space for discursive rethinking and dissension

Phillips 2002 [Kendall, Spaces of Inventionissension, Freedom, and Thought in Foucault,

Philosophy, and Rhetoric]

Discourse formations, however, are not understood as wholly coherent entities; rather,
they are riddled with incoherence and contingency. While any statement is, theoretically,
contestable, discourse formations work to create an illusion of authority and absoluteness
or, in other words, discourse formations work to hide the existence of incoherence and
contingency. Foucault (1972) calls these points of incoherence contradictions and
observes: Such a contradiction, far from being an appearance or accident of discourse,
far from being that from which it must be freed if its truth is to be revealed, constitutes
the very law of its existence: it is on the basis of such a contradiction that discourse
emerges, and it is in order both to translate it and to overcome it that discourse begins to
speak . . . and, because it can never . . . entirely escape it, that discourse changes,
undergoes transformation, and escapes of itself from its own continuity. (151)
Contradictions, thus, prevent discourse from becoming entirely self-contained. The
emergence of incompatible historical conditions or the encounter of an "other"—
incoherent—discourse produces contradictions that, in turn, require discourse to "speak,"
to give accounting of these new incompatible conditions, in order to cover over the
emergence of contingency and maintain the illusion of unity. Importantly, the conditions
for the emergence of such contradictions, as the points from which new discourses
emanate, are inherent within existing discourses by virtue of their multiplicity, overlap,
and incompatibility. Foucault describes emergent contradictions as "spaces of
dissension" (1972, 152) and the phrase suggests their broader importance. Contradictions
are important not only as points of productivity, in terms of the creation of new
statements and different discourses, but also as points of possibility. Instability within
discourse formations prevents discourse from becoming wholly coherent and, thus, it is
oppressive, introducing contingency and uncertainty. While discourse is, inevitably,
deployed toward the suppression of such contradictions, their emergence creates the
condition for change and transformation. These are spaces of dissension because they are
places where the incoherence and contingency of the discourse is experienced directly
and, therefore, the production of dissenting discourse becomes possible for those who
have momentarily recognized the instability.
 2AC Discourse – Masking T/
Turn – focus on discourse masks the problem and ignores social constructions

Meisner 1995 [Mark, Professor of environmental studies at York University, “Resourcist

Language: The Symbolic Enslavement of Nature”]

Changing the language we use to talk about nonhuman nature is not a solution. As I
suggested, language is not the problem. Rather, it seems more like a contagious symptom
of a deeper and multi-faceted problem that has yet to be fully defined. Resourcist
language is both an indicator and a carrier of the pathology of rampant ecological
degradation. Furthermore, language change alone can end up simply being a band-aid
solution that gives the appearance of change and makes the problem all the less
visible. In a recent article on feminist language reform, Susan Ehrlich and Ruth King
(1994) argue that because meanings are socially constructed, attempts at introducing
nonsexist language are being undermined by a culture that is still largely sexist. The
words may have shifted, but the meanings and ideologies have not. The real world cure
for the sick patient matters more than the treatment of a single symptom. Consequently,
language change and cultural change must go together with social-moral change. It is
naive to believe either that language is trivial, or that it is deterministic.
 2AC Changing Common Words Masks Impacts

Turn – masking – changing the words we use makes their discursive impacts worse

Meisner 1995 [Mark, Professor of environmental studies at York University, “Resourcist

Language: The Symbolic Enslavement of Nature”]

Changing the language we use to talk about nonhuman nature is not a solution. As I
suggested, language is not the problem. Rather, it seems more like a contagious symptom
of a deeper and multi-faceted problem that has yet to be fully defined. Resourcist
language is both an indicator and a carrier of the pathology of rampant ecological
degradation. Furthermore, language change alone can end up simply being a band-aid
solution that gives the appearance of change and makes the problem all the less
visible. In a recent article on feminist language reform, Susan Ehrlich and Ruth King
(1994) argue that because meanings are socially constructed, attempts at introducing
nonsexist language are being undermined by a culture that is still largely sexist. The
words may have shifted, but the meanings and ideologies have not. The real world cure
for the sick patient matters more than the treatment of a single symptom. Consequently,
language change and cultural change must go together with social-moral change. It is
naive to believe either that language is trivial, or that it is deterministic.
 2AC AT Terror Talk K
Changing the way we talk about threats won’t deal with their material reality—it
causes useless semanticizing that makes the impact inevitable
Thayer 3/26/09 [J. G. “Homeland Linguistics,” http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/thayer/60052]

The Obama administration has made great changes in the way we handle national security. And judging by its
actions so far,it seems that the most important failing of the previous administration has been in
semantics.
The changes started with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano deciding that the word “terrorism”
was too harsh. She has made a point of not using it, opting instead for “man-caused disasters.”
That was merely phase one. The next logical step was to find a new term for the “War On Terror.” The

proffered substitute? “Overseas Contingency Operation.”

I was never in love with the term “War On Terror.” Terrorism isn’t the enemy, it’s a tactic of an enemy. Referring to the War
onTerror is like referring to World War II as the “War on Blitzkrieg” or “War on Kamikazes.” “War Against Islamist Extremists” seemed a bit more accurate — if a bit on the nose.
But “Overseas Contingency Operation”? Let’s break it down.

“ Overseas.” That’s intended to make us feel safe — it’s happening Over There, across the oceans, and
isn’t really a problem for us here.

“ Contingency.” According to one dictionary, it has the following meanings:

1. dependence on chance or on the fulfillment of a condition; uncertainty; fortuitousness: Nothing was left to contingency.
2. a contingent event; a chance, accident, or possibility conditional on something uncertain: He was prepared for every contingency.

something incidental to a thing.

3.

: a state wherein something might or might not happen. This is an utterly empty
In other words

word in this context.

“Operation.” A singular thing, something considerably smaller than a war or even a campaign.

Napolitano’s “man-caused disasters” has its own implications. “Man-caused

Let’s nor forget that

disasters” makes one think of things like the Exxon Valdez oil spill, or global warming
global cooling climate change, or mine collapses, or dam failures, or Chernobyl — not things like the 9/11 attacks.

In both cases, the effect is to diminish the magnitude of the problem and remove the key element

that differentiates terrorist attacks from the above-mentioned examples: intent.

The major difference between Chernobyl and 9/11 was intent. At Chernobyl, it was gross negligence at every stage of the process that led to the biggest nuclear accident in history.
The 9/11 attacks, on the other hand, were carried out in with malice and a desire to maximize damage.

It’s almost laughable. The Obama administration thinks the best way to fight terrorists is to change
the way we talk about them — and for most Islamic terrorists, English isn’t their native language.
It would be truly laughable — but the focus on language will most likely come at the
expense of action .