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Re: The Judges Will Have a Lot of Explaining to Do! (fwd)


Perhaps this is true--remember, though, that this certainly wasn't the end 
all-be-all of my argumentation in the 2AR.  I really wasn't that worried 
about losing the argument at a substantive level.  I agree that there were 
several reasons why we just MET the violation.  So if critics were going 
to vote on the issues I wasn't worried.  I'll have to admit though that 
it was the first time any of the critics in the round had judged me in a 
debate.  At that point it seemed that an additional emotional appeal 
couldn't hurt.  It may also have been a reflection of my distaste for the 
argument.  After a while that particular effects topicality debate just 
gets old.  I don't think (and I think you agree) that the case was 
horribly abusive--maybe I just hoped we could've had a more substantive 
debate than we did--a few more China cards would've done wonders for the 
round as far as I'm concerned.
 
> But anyway, the national tournament should not give more leeway to affs or
> to teams that have had abusivly topical cases all semester.  The reason
> that I think that is true is b/c, on the flow, I have no way to give merit
> to that argument EXCEPT in the way you mention, which is a supplementary
> position supporting a community standard standard of evaluating the topic.
> (And even THAT is subjective)--so argumentatively if the argument is
> constructed the same, and defended the same, my decision is probably going
> to be the same in January that it will be in March. (Since that will be
> generally affirmative, it shouldn't bother people too much).  The natural
> expansion of the topic and testing of the ground of the resolution are
> things that occur before rounds and do not appear on the flow in any way
> but as mentioned above.  Argumentatively that is whay I described your
> rhetoric as unsubstantive, while I described Ben Stuckard's analysis in
> quarterfinals as relating to substance, even though both of you were
> putting the onus on the critic.
> 

My argument is also not that people should get to run horribly abusive 
cases and then "get away" with it at Nationals because they have run it 
all year.  Like I said before, I only encouraged a higher standard of 
argument consideration.  Additionally, refer to the above about how I 
don't think the case was abusive.  


> I understand that many critics (myself included) dislike topicality as the
> last refuge of the unprepared, and give a lot of weight to fair warning, I
> really try not to.  (Even though I do--at the same time, while I was
> listening to your 2AR, I was quite cognizant that there were other things
> to have said against your aff. and that folks should have done
> research--not Vt. specifically, but everybody).

Ultimately, I agree with "last refuge of the unprepared" argument--which 
I think is often the case.  I'm not saying that topicality is not a 
legitimate argument--I'm just saying that after a while you should 
probably have something more interesting to say.  So I guess we were both 
hoping the same thing at the end of the round.



> Actually, the first line of my philosophy read that I used to not give a
> philosophy on the grounds that it tended to dictate the round I was going
> to see, and since this is inherently your round I wished to not to that.
> 
> Your last paragraph is a justification for returning to that policy.  Do
> you see how this makes the critic too powerful?  You should do what you
> want to do regardless of anything.  I judged a team from Puget Sound this
> year against SSD from Whitman and the answers to `Oceans T' were not
> good--yet Puget Sound dropped out of this argument b/c they `knew I hated
> topicality'--I've felt terrible for months--Here they were winning a
> debate and were oppressed by me to the point they had to go for arguments
> they were not winning in a futile attempt to appease me.  I feel like shit
> about that.   (Whitman won the ballot) (I know `oceans T' is cheesy, but
> man....)
> Arguments are good or bad, and in some rounds true or false.  Attempting
> to appeal to people's own weird warped view of argumentaiton from round to
> round is the pinnacle of `persuasion and judge adaptation' which I find
> EVIL--Just b/c the other critics, like myself, were crazy is no excuse to
> take advantage of our pre-conceived notions and abuse this team from
> Vermont w/ some non-topical case.
> 
> You should not be attempting to persuade, or read into your arguments what
> is going on in my head.  You should either be right or wrong


I applaud the fact that you are a critic who does not want to dictate the 
type of round that you hear--that you let the debaters decide.  That is 
how it should be (unfortunately there are still critics that disagree 
with that and it does make them too powerful).  However, I don't think this 
is a reason you should no longer give a philosophy.  It is usually 
helpful to know which kinds of arguments a judge prefers/is partial to 
even if they aren't dictating your style. This probably makes for a more 
enjoyable  round for everyone.  I think philosophies are 
especially important at Nationals when you are exposed to judges that you 
never see the rest of the year (and even some that haven't even judged 
this year)--it is nice to have at least some clue as to what these people 
think about the activity.  Also, I welcome the opportunity to convince a 
critic that my argument is correct on a truly substantive level--the 
trouble is that there are too many critics (and I'm not saying you are 
one of them--just that they exist) that won't allow that to happen.  
Therefore some sort of emotional appeal is sometimes your only hope.



> The amusing thing about this long post is that I think we agree--the last
> line of my previous post notes that critics should understand that this is
> all an attempt to win; and critics can't feel marginalized by this.  I
> don't.  I tend to rhetoricize behind the anonymity of the keyboard; I
> wasn't really offended by your argument-- I was confused why you spent
> time on that instead of the substance of the arg. which was `you
> meet;transporatation and port call'. 


You are probably right.  Critics shouldn't feel marginalized by this.  
They should be confident enough in their abilities that this doesn't 
happen.  I'm glad you weren't offended by the argument--that was 
ultimatley my real concern--because I don't think its something a critic 
should be offended by (which is why I defended my rhetoric in the first 
place).


>I still think you're a damn fine debater. 


Thanks again




Heather Walters 
SMS Debate



P.S.  I hope its clear that I only made this rhetorical choice because I 
wanted to encourage higher standards for evaluting the argument--(not 
because I thought you were uneducated, incompetent or incapable of making 
the correct substantive decision for yourself :) )
References:
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