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

CR focus has the effect of dividing ground

Steve and Carl, responded to the proposed topic wording:

1) Resolved: That the United States Federal Government should enact a
national policy to substantially reduce employment discrimination
against one or more of the following groups: Women, transsexuals, gays
and or lesbians.

Specifically, they expressed concern that the proposed topic wording
excluded issues of race and physical disability.  I want to answer their
concerns, and in so doing point out that my proposed focus would have
two beneficial effects: 1) the rich invigoration of a complete
discussion of civil rights and 2) a dramatic increase in excellent
negative ground.  My argument is as follows: by structuring the topic
wording to include only one particular subset of discrimination, room is
opened up for the negative to claim the remaining subsets as their own.
>From this the two benefits I described follow naturally.

Benefit One: The rich invigoration of a complete discussion of civil
rights -- If the affirmative is limited to a discussion of gender
related discrimination, the negative will have as one of its many
available arguments the question of which form of discrimination should
be tackled first, which is in more immediate need of societal attention,
and which forms of redress trade off with other programs.  This will, in
many instances, lead to a rich and complex debate about the nature of
discrimination itself.  Which is more important? Race or gender?  Does
an emphasis on gender make race harder to see?  These, and other
questions like them, are ones which are hotly debated in an extensive
body of literature.  By limiting the affirmative to gender, the topic is
designed to encourage debate about the nature of discrimination itself.

Benefit Two: Ground -- Concerns have been raised about the lack of
ground available to the negative should the topic be civil rights.  In
particular Mancuso has suggested a negatively phrased resolution
designed to use the community's natural predisposition towards civil
rights reform as a counter-balance to the natural advantage afforded to
the affirmative.  Limiting the topic to one form of discrimination would
have a similar effect, with the additional advantage mentioned in #1
above.  Under the proposed topic wording (or some variation thereof) all
forms of discrimination other than those aimed directly at women,
transsexuals, and gays and or lesbians, would be potential negative
ground.  For example, it would be perfectly arguable that a focus on gay
rights precludes the successful resolution of the civil rights concerns
of inner-city residents.  Thus the ground which has served as the
bugaboo for advocates against the CR topic -- the defense of the
discriminatory status quo -- is ground which no one is necessarily
forced to defend.

As a concluding note: It should be recognized that many if not all of
the reasons people had to disprefer the civil rights topic have been
dealt with by the advocates of the CR topic: For example,  Josh's
concerns about ground have been dealt with effectively by Ross, and no
one is still maintaining that there is much of a risk of being
personally attacked as racist.  This is not to say that all concerns
have been laid to rest, but particularly when few doubt the enormous
benefit that would be derived from a year spent debating civil rights,
the lessening of these concerns should help bring some folks down from
the fence.

Sincerely,

Rob Tucker
CSU Fullerton
Follow-Ups:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page