[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
[Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index]
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page

RE: Civil rights topic

This concern was addressed in my earlier post.  I will forward
it to Pat; if the rest of you haven't read it, please do so.

matt stannard

>----------
>From: 	Pat Gehrke[SMTP:papacat@sierra.net]
>Sent: 	10 April 1997 00:36
>To: 	Issues concerning CEDA Debate
>Subject: 	RE: Civil rights topic
>
>
>Chris Lotz wrote:
>------------------------
>
>I think Doyle really hits the crux of the argument offered by those
>of us who are wary of the evolution of the civil rights topic in his
>post here.  Debating racism is quite unlike debating any other
>impact or issue.  Negatives are likely to experience significant
>problems and be faced with serious limitations in rebutting the harms
>and solvency contentions of the 1AC.  To illustrate, unlike many
>other topics where the impacts can seriously be questioned and even
>turned (eg on the South Asia topic, one might suggest that continued
>military build-up is good because of deterrence), one is unlikely to
>meet with success and even less likely, admiration by suggesting that
>racism is nonexistant or even beneficial.  
>
>My Reply:
>---------------
>
>I think this is more a problem with the other debates which LACK the kind of
>consideration of a moral/ethical evaluation of policy than of a race topic.
>The idea that extinction of the planet might be good, because it prevents a
>.00001% risk of extinction of the cosmos seems it should meet equal disfavor,
>but it does not. The idea that destruction of the global environment is good
>because it helps the economy is repugnant.
>
>Is it possible that humanity has so separated and repressed itself that we
>now can enjoy the destruction of our own species and the planet as whole for
>its aesthetic value? Is debate so convoluted that it makes nuclear war and
>environmental apocalypse sexy? If not, what differs these geopolitical
>arguments from the race debate?
>
>Pat Gehrke
>CSU Chico
>
>ps- I cannot receive CEDA-L. Anything not cross-posted will miss me. Sorry
>for any inconvenience, but my subscription seems not to work.
>
Follow-Ups:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page