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Re: Mr. Crossman's reply

>rankly, my harsh response in the previous post was motivated by a
>broad
>reading of your post:  it seemed to me that your post was not so much
>concerned with arguing on behalf of narrower resolutions than it was
>interested in venting at affirmative debaters' strategic decisions to
>explore the edges of any topic.  it is true that this affirmative
>decision
>ensures more theoretical debate as well as more "generic" negative
>positions:  there is nothing wrong with that, even though it may not
>suit
>some folks' tastes

You are probably partially right, my earlier more "sarcastic" post was
probably a vent--I need to learn to control my damned passion.  I am not so
naive as to assume that debaters will not explore the outer reaches of a
topic, regardless of its wording.  Frankly, I'm getting to the point where
that doesn't bother me much anymore (you know the philosophy which indicates
we ought not worry too much about things we can't change).  Additionally, a
narrow topic might force those needing creativity to explore the outer
reaches more.  I am concerned, however, that the broad topic initially turns
off new people. Again, I know that isn't a big concern to a lot of the voices
on the L.  I also think that the topic areas we are picking don't help much
in the way of new recruits.  I liked our topic choices better when at least
one of the semesters utilized a domestic issue.  Maybe these concerns are
more unique to my school (we have a lot of working people, inner city kids,
etc.)  The organization may not be able to provide topics that generally meet
the interest and constraints created by those demographics, perhaps it
shouldn't worry about it.  On the other hand, I get a little tired of the lip
serviced payed by many people in the organization to the notion of recruiting
new and diverse populations.  I'm no expert on that subject but I have been
coaching at a school with probably a more diverse population than that of
many of my colleagues.  I can recruit about four to six debaters a year, but
the demographic mix tends to resemble the typical population mix.
    Sorry for the ramble, but I see a lot of time being spent discussing just
about everything but the issues that impact schools like mine.  Bitchin about
it ain't gonna change it.

Crossman
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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