Pi Kappa Delta National Lincoln-Douglas
Champion, Fifth Place Winner and Third Speaker at the CEDA National
Championship
A
few months ago I went to judge at a debate tournament for the first time in
quite a while. I went to the ballot
table and they handed me a ballot for Lincoln Douglas debate. I was really
excited to have the opportunity to watch a L.D. round. It had been quite a long time since I had
seen one- almost two years- and I was interested to see how the event had
changed. I went to the round and sat
down and within minutes two women walked into the room and sat down on opposite
sides of the table. After they got all
of their things set up, one of the women turned to me and asked me what my
judging philosophy was. I was slightly
perplexed. I had competed in L.D. for
four years in high school, and it seemed to me that the event didn’t provide a
lot of room for varying philosophies.
To me, evaluating an L.D. round was wonderfully simplistic. You evaluated the round using the value and
criteria that the debaters set up for you, and the winner was the one who best
upheld that value and criteria. I told
the debaters as much and the round began.
After forty-five minutes of eloquent speaking that didn’t seem to have
much to do with anything, I sat back with my ballot and literally glared at the
debaters. It seemed to me that they had
ignored the entire issue of value and criteria and consequently I found it almost
impossible to make a decision.
When
I was an L.D. debater, I never understood why people got so frustrated with the
event, but as a critic that frustration became very clear to me. Unlike policy debate, L.D. does not have a
set of issues within which you can adjudicate the round. The parameters of the debate are set up by
the debaters within the framework of their case. Those parameters are what debaters call value and criteria. The problem is that more often than not, the
affirmative sets up a value and criteria, then the negative sets up a counter
value and counter-criteria and that’s it- the discussion of the issue
ends. The rest of the debate is focused
on the various contentions within the affirmative and negative cases. What debaters often fail to realize is that
without debating out which value and criteria are superior, it becomes
impossible for the critic to know how to evaluate the round.
For
example, lets take a pretty rough sketch of a value and criteria on the topic,
“Resolved: That the spirit of the law ought to be valued above the letter of
the law.” The affirmative sets up the
value of justice and the criteria of giving each person their due. The affirmative then outlines three
contentions which are designed to show that the spirit of the law does a better
job of upholding justice because it is more able to give each person their
due. The negative team then stands up
and sets up a counter value of societal good and the criteria of maintaining
order and stability within a society.
(once again- a rough sketch but . . . .) The negative then offers three contentions, which illustrate that
the letter of the law allows for society to maintain a precise set of rules
which in the long run preserve order and stability and consequently enhance
societal good. For the rest of the
round, both debaters spend all of their time showing why their opponents cases
are wrong. During the negative
rebuttal, the negative argues that the spirit of the law does not serve
justice. During the affirmative
rebuttal, the affirmative argue that the letter of the law does not lead to
societal good. At no point during the
debate, however, do either of the debaters explain why justice would be more
important than societal good or vice versa.
Furthermore, neither of the debaters ever explain why a discussion of
justice would be more appropriate to this topic than a discussion of societal
good or vice versa. This leaves the
critic in a really bad situation.
Absent a debate about which is the proper way to evaluate the round, it
is very difficult to make a decision.
There is a fairly high probability that even with all of its problems,
the affirmative is going to do a better job then the negative of showing why
the spirit of the law upholds justice.
On the flip side, the negative is going to do a better job then the
affirmative of showing why the letter of the law upholds societal good. If neither debater has given the critic a
reason to accept their value and criteria over their opponents, then it is
impossible to make a decision based on substantive issues. The only recourse for the critic is to
decide the round on rhetorical skills, which isn’t always fair to the
competitors.
On
the surface, this doesn’t seem like a hard problem to resolve. Debaters should simply spend more time
arguing value and criteria.
Unfortunately it is not quite that simple. Some debaters do argue value and criteria - they spend about
thirty seconds telling the judge why their value and criteria is the better way
to evaluate the round. That just isn’t
enough time to make a compelling argument.
The rationale behind a certain framework for a debate round is not
something that can be explained briefly.
There are literally hundreds of different ways to interpret any given
topic and each one of those ways is legitimate. If debaters have two separate interpretations, more often than
not, a judge’s decision will come down to which interpretation they consider to
be more legitimate. The question then
becomes how do you effectively persuade the judge that your way of evaluating
the round is the best way while at the same time having enough time to respond
to your opponent’s arguments? The
answer to this question is, in my opinion
what I call the “exclusive criteria.”
Although this phrase is my own, the idea is something that top-notch
debaters have been using for a while.
The exclusive criteria simply sets up parameters for the debate that
exclude many of the opponents arguments.
Consequently, if you win your criteria then you can use that criteria to
exclude many of your opponent’s arguments from the round. Not only can you use your value and criteria
to set up these parameters, but you can also use definitions. One mistake that debaters often make is to
separate definitions and criteria.
Although this is necessary to some degree, the exclusion criteria calls
for a mesh of these two things.
Defining words in a way that keeps many of your opponent’s arguments from
being relevant within the round is more legitimate if it is done through the
criteria. Furthermore, the difference
between definitions and criteria in L.D. is minimal. Words like “ought,” “best” and “morality” are all value laden
terms. In other words, there isn’t a
clear definition for them. By combining value/criteria and definitions,
debaters can define what these words mean and at the same time set up a
framework for the round. Take for
example, the topic “Resolved: That the government that governs best, governs
least.” An exclusive criteria would set
up something like the following. First,
let’s define “government” as a body with a legitimate claim to the exercise of
power. This statement already limits
the debate down to “bodies with a legitimate claim to the exercise of power” so
in the debate round you can attempt to argue that the bodies that your
opponents are talking about do not have a “legitimate claim to the exercise of
power” and should therefore not be included within the round. Second, let’s define “best” as that which comes the closest to
fulfilling its purpose. Then, you must
establish what the purpose of a government is. If you are writing an affirmative case, then you are going to
want to establish that the purpose of government is something minimal like “to
maintain order.” If you are negative,
you are going to want to establish that the purpose of government is something
broader like “to guarantee the happiness of it’s citizens .” When you put all of these elements
together, you have limited the discussion of the debate to which government
does a better job of serving the purpose that you have outlined. If you can win that your interpretation is
the best and most legitimate interpretation of the topic, then you can use your
criteria to screen your opponent’s arguments.
Let’s say that you are affirmative and you have established that the
purpose of government is to maintain order.
Through your contentions, you have proved that the government that
governs least does the best job of maintaining order. In response to this, your opponent offers a negative case that
proves that a government that governs least does not guarantee it’s citizens
happiness because it plays such a limited role in their lives. As the affirmative, instead of attempting to
prove that your opponent is incorrect, you can instead argue that the purpose
of government is not to make people happy so whether or not it does has no
relevance in determining if it is the best type of government. In this way, you can use your criteria to exclude your opponents arguments
from the round without ever having to address the consistency or merits of what
they are saying. That’s not to say that
you should not also debate their arguments- you should- but the exclusive
criteria gives you another way to win.
This is especially useful when you are affirmative. As all debaters know, the time constraints
on the affirmative are hard to deal with.
It is incredibly difficult to get to everything in your last rebuttal speech
while at the same time summing up the round and being convincing. The exclusive criteria provides you with a
very neat way to sum up the round. Not
only that, but it also sounds convincing, which gives you an added benefit.
The
obvious result of this theory of debate is that the majority of the round will
be about value and criteria. To me,
that’s what L.D. should be about. Value
and criteria are what make L.D. unique and separate it from policy. A large part of the reason that LD has
often been called dueling oratories is that there is not clash. The reason for this is that debaters start
from completely different assumptions about what the round should be about when
they are constructing their arguments.
Then, instead of debating these assumptions they debate the
arguments. The problem is that given
the assumptions, both sets of arguments can be true. This puts the judge in an incredibly difficult position. It seems to me, that if debaters just
focused most of their time on debating the assumptions of the topic then there
would be clash. The bottom line is
that value debate is debate about these kinds of assumptions. Justice isn’t just a given, its a dynamic
idea that has lots of layers and interpretations. Major philosophers have spent years writing books about what
justice is and how you measure it and why it is important. It’s not enough to say my value is justice
and my criteria is fairness. Debaters
need to explain what justice is and why it should be debated. Moreover, they need to analyze why in the
context of the topic, justice is important and how affirming or negating the
resolution would effect justice. These
are the kinds of issues that L.D. should focus on. In this way, L.D. can move beyond its current status as “dueling
oratories.”
I have been debating for a long time. In fact, sometimes I sit back and think about how long I’ve been involved in this activity and I almost faint. The reason I’ve done it so long is because I love it. Although I now debate CEDA, I still really care about L.D. I coach it and judge it and I want to see it develop into a debate form that is respected. The person who taught me L.D. influenced the way that I perceive the event. To me, L.D. isn’t about squeezing a policy round into forty-five minutes. It isn’t about research, it isn’t about speed---it’s about thinking. I have debated policy and I sincerely believe that it is far easier than L.D. The preparation for policy may be intense, but the actual round is not as hard. L.D. requires you to think about the assumptions of what you say and what you believe. It also forces you to analyze both sides of a value claim. In this way, L.D. is incredibly important. There is no question that the way people perceive the world is very different. In many cases, people’s refusal to attempt to understand these differences is the cause of much conflict. The kind of questions that I believe L.D. should address are the kinds of questions that everyone should think about because it is these questions that call into question the fundamental assumptions that make us see the world in the way that we do. By calling into question these assumptions, people are better equipped to understand that there are different ways of viewing the world, none of which is fundamentally more legitimate than another. By placing these issues into the framework of debate, L.D. forces young people to expand their own thought processes. This is the aspect of the event that I would like to see grow and in the end, I believe that if this type of L.D. debate becomes more common, people will begin to recognize the value inherent in the activity.