Lame excuses for real neg. ground

[engstrom@husc.harvard.edu (Carl Engstrom)]

After a long narrative, Sean's basic claim is that this is the negative 
ground provided:

>1) "You can't solve one without first addressing the other" (The 
>essentialist and/or marxist position  or
>
>2) "You can't solve any oppression witout addresssing them together; in 
>fact not doing so makes it worse." (The socialist and post-modern 
>position(s))

I am sure that a lot of authors claim that there is a tradeoff, and yes 
there are several authors who say you can't solve one problem without 
solving the other.  There are a few reasons this position, in the debate 
world, fails.

Both types of arguments is nothing but a PMN.  Any case worth anything is 
going to have specific solvency evidence that will cut into this.  Empirical 
solvency evidence will obliterate this argument.

Secondly, these arguments have zero uniqueness.  There is no unique link to 
trying to solve racism.

Thirdly, the claim that trying to solve racism without dealing with sexism 
or trying to solve sexism without trying to solve racism will backfire is 
simply false.  While I'm sure that there is some post-modern disciplinary 
power reason why in reality there has been no improvement for any group 
discriminated against, in reality the plight of blacks and the plight of 
women is better than it was in the 1950s.  This has occurred despite the 
fact that there has been practically NO effort to combine these two social 
movements.  

Finally, your authors do not go so far as to say: "let's not do anything 
until we find an approach that accommodates everyone."  NO, in fact your 
authors say, "we'd be doing a lot better if our approach was more holistic." 
 And in the debate world, that essentially is a CP which fails to compete.  
You are advocating doing nothing forever.

Silly tradeoff positions without uniqueness get you about jack squat in the 
face of specific solvency evidence.  You have offered a non-unique generic 
solvency turn as a solution to problems of ground.

Krazy Karl
Harvard Debate

---

• Prev by Date: Response to "Crazy Carl"
• Next by Date: Usenet group
• Prev by thread: Next year and the NCAA
• Next by thread: Usenet group
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread
  • Author

---

Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page