Ask Jim about Debate
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Breaking Down Barriers: Ask Jim about Debate |
You can submit questions too, just email Jim at hansonjb@whitman.edu
You are negative and you are running Normativity. The 2AC makes the argument "The judge cannot vote negative because it would be a normative action." How should I answer that in the 2NC?
Well, I am not an expert on normativity but here are some arguments that you can make.
The Normativity Argument does not advocate normative action like the affirmative does.
First, the normativity argument rejects the affirmative advocacy prescribing a policy action. This is not a normative statement in the same way that the affirmative advocacy is since the normativity argument does not involve action based on an unproven rationale for action. Rather, it rests on a correct rationale that prescriptive statements cannot be proven.
Second, voting for the normativity argument sends a signal to the debate community. It says that prescriptive/normative argumentation should be rejected. Voting affirmative against the normativity position would just reinforce prevailing support for normative argumentation. Voting negative for the normativity position would send a message against normative argumentation. In the process, we can break away from prescriptive (and unproven) discourse and instead shift to descriptive discourse where we address what we do know about.
Third, the normativity argument is not a normative argument. It is descriptive of what occurred in the debate process because of the affirmative case prescriptive argumentation. Since we, teams and judge, are participating in this particular discourse, we may make our own judgements about it (as opposed to prescriptive rhetoric about others and the federal government as the affirmative advocates).
Jim
Thanks to Kazuki Tomeda for this question.