CBS Framework

8/8/2019 CBS Framework

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/cbs-framework 1/31

CBS Lab

1

SDI 2009

Framework

Framework

Framework .......................................................................................................................................1

......................................................................................................................................................... 11AC/2AC Shell................................................................................................................................4

A.Our interpretation is that the negative should defend either the status quo or a competitive policy option....................................................4

B.Reasons to prefer:.............................................................................................................................................................................................4

1.Fairness .............................................................................................................................................................................................................4

i.Burden of rejoinder – we speak first and are bound to the topic’s affirmation, critical frameworks moot the 8 minutes of the 1AC anddeprives it of the context to which it was read.....................................................................................................................................................4

ii.Objectivity – the resolution and our plan text serve as a cohesive basis to productive and unambiguous debate. Critical frameworks justify

finding external flaws our speech while offering no consistent way to determine a winner...............................................................................4

iii.Limits – there are an infinite number of critical frameworks with which to evaluate a round. The resolution requires U.S. federal

government action, which is the only predictable framework.............................................................................................................................42.Education – Critical frameworks make it impossible to learn about the positives and negatives of state action, which is a prerequisite to

becoming a good policymaker. The aff can never win in a world where the negative can get away with reading counterwarrants to the

words USFG every round............................................................................................................................................................................... .....4

C.Our framework must be answered in the 1NC – allowing the negative to answer in the block skews the 2AC which is our last chance for

offense..................................................................................................................................................................................................................4

1NC/2NC Shell (K Affs Bad) ..........................................................................................................51.Interpretation: The affirmative gets to defend a topical policy option and all advantages must directly stem from US federal government

action; the neg wins if the plan is proven undesirable. .......................................................................................................................................5

2.Violation: The affirmative defends advantages independent of US federal government action......................................................................5

3.Standards ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................5a.Predictability: we are only prepared for a debate about the resolution, affs that deviate from this are unfair to neg strategy and thus

sacrifice good debate ............................................................................................................................................................................................5

b.Topic Education: any aff that doesn’t focus on the topic is bad for resolutional education, the purpose of our being here............................5

c.Jurisdiction: As a judge you do not have the authority to vote for affirmatives outside of the topic area, doing so legitimizes non-topicaldebates for future teams, ultimately reducing the educational value of the activity of debate............................................................................5

4.Framework is a voter because it’s a precondition of debate, education and fairness.......................................................................................5

1NC/2NC Shell (Ks Good) ..............................................................................................................61.Counter-Interpretation: The negative should defend either the status quo or a competitive alternative to the plan........................................6

2.Reasons to prefer ...............................................................................................................................................................................................6a.Fairness: the aff has complete flexibility in what they choose to argue, it’s only reciprocal that the neg should be able to do the same.......6

b.Topic Education: critical evaluation of plan action IS often topic specific – <explain your specific link>. In addition, critical discourse isabsolutely necessary to boost education beyond the borders of simplistic disads and competing policy options..............................................6

c.Checks offensive terms or philosophies- not allowing the neg to challenge aff assumptions would justify racism, sexism and other

atrocities that may be inherent to the 1AC...........................................................................................................................................................63.Framework is not a voter for education and fairness........................................................................................................................................6

AT: Aff Framework .........................................................................................................................71.Context may be important, but we need to have the ability to challenge the assumptions of the affirmative anyways – if the aff contained

a litany of racial slurs, we would be unable to challenge that, because the aff could say “we said that in the context of a racist framework sothat’s okay.” .........................................................................................................................................................................................................7

2.There’s no reason a critical framework can’t be objective...............................................................................................................................7

3.Critical frameworks increase critical thinking – they force teams to justify the method by which the judge should evaluate the round.......7

4.The inclusion of critiques doesn’t explode the aff research burden by any significant amount – there are as many if not more disads and

counterplans than there are critiques. Following that logic, it would be better to exclude disads and counterplans but include critiques.........75.Education is greater – we learn far more by debating critiques in addition to all other policy arguments – we’re not saying you can

ONLY run critiques, just that it’s OKAY to run them................................................................................................................................. .......7

6.Reject the critique, not the team..................................................................................................................................................................... ..7

Exclusion Bad .................................................................................................................................. 8Even if exclusion is inevitable, we still need to question it.................................................................................................................................8Olson and Worsham 98 ........................................................................................................................................................................................8

Rules Good (1/2) ..............................................................................................................................91.Rules are really important – debate is a game, not a forum to recruit people to join your movement. We can form our own opinions

outside debate, but we can’t have competitive debates anywhere else. Rules are necessary for the game to be fair and fun – their argumentis the same as someone deciding to play soccer and then complaining that they can’t throw the ball – if you don’t like the rules, don’t play.

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................9

2.Rules are key to debate, because without them, fairness is impossible. People won’t debate if it’s impossible for them to win....................9

3.Turn – Informal structures of debate are worse than formal ones – they exclude marginalized groups in the name of inclusion..................9

Tonn 05 ................................................................................................................................................................................................................9

Rules Good (2/2) ............................................................................................................................10



CBS Lab

2

SDI 2009

Framework 4.The idea that inclusion in debate will end discrimination is laughable – it’s empirically disproven by history and undermines democracy – formal debate is key to ending discrimination they talk about..........................................................................................................................10

Tonn 05 ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................10

Limits Good ...................................................................................................................................11Limits on debate are key to check incivility and the collapse of democracy .................................................................................................. .11Schively 00 .........................................................................................................................................................................................................11

Evidence Good ...............................................................................................................................12Tonn 05 ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................12

Representations Key ...................................................................................................................... 13Doty 96 ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................13

Policy Debate Good (1/2) .............................................................................................................. 14Policy debate is key to education about government action, whether you like the state or not – refusing to debate policy alternatives leaves

the discussion to the elites..................................................................................................................................................................................14

Walt 91 ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................14Critical frameworks fail and delegitimize other’s experience ...........................................................................................................................14

Wapner 03 ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................14

Limiting out K frameworks is necessary to the functionality of debate ............................................................................................................14

Policy Debate Good (2/2) .............................................................................................................. 15Debate as we know it is not cause for coercion or exclusion but rather a means of mutuality .........................................................................15

Dietz 00 ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................15

Policy debate transforms us into people who can act........................................................................................................................................15

Saxonhouse 00 ...................................................................................................................................................................................................15Policy Debate is the critical to education ...........................................................................................................................................................15Lutz 00 ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................15

Simulation Bad – Spectatorship .....................................................................................................16The simulation in policy debate removes debaters from the real world, making them into spectators unable to create change......................16

Mitchell 98 .........................................................................................................................................................................................................16

Fiat Good ....................................................................................................................................... 17Focus on political decision making is far more important than the abstract philosophy of critiques................................................................17

McClean 01 ........................................................................................................................................................................................................17

AT: Framework Links to K ............................................................................................................18A.Theory comes first – without predictability it’s impossible for us to research their claims and you should give them zero weight – we

have no evidence that the dinosaurs are extinct but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true, it just means the question has nothing to do with the

topic....................................................................................................................................................................................................................18

B.Fairness comes first – if debate isn’t fair, then people will quit, and that kills education .............................................................................18

C.No impact – We’re just a few students in a high school debate – for the same reasons they say the plan won’t happen, neither will the

impacts of their kritik.........................................................................................................................................................................................18D.Their logic is circular – if we’re debating about whether critical arguments are good or not, they shouldn’t be able to make critical

arguments to justify them...................................................................................................................................................................................18

Next is the offense – .................................................................................................................................................................................... ..... 18

A.Their framework links to our Walt 91 card in the original shell – they lead to a self-indulging intellectualism which causesmiscalculation, leading to all of our impacts.....................................................................................................................................................18

B.Action through the state doesn’t uphold it – but the idea that we shouldn’t debate state politics makes change impossible.......................18

Krause and Williams 97 .....................................................................................................................................................................................18

AT: Mitchell ...................................................................................................................................19Mitchell changed his mind – switch side debate is good...................................................................................................................................19Mitchell 02 .........................................................................................................................................................................................................19

Predictions Bad ..............................................................................................................................20Prediction destroys human agency .....................................................................................................................................................................20

Bleiker 2K ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................20

Predictions Good (1/2) ...................................................................................................................21Rejection of prediction is an implicit prediction which undercuts good predictions........................................................................................21

Fitzsimmons 06 ..................................................................................................................................................................................................21

Predictions Good (2/2) ...................................................................................................................22Predictions are key to check disasters ...............................................................................................................................................................22

Kurasawa 04 .......................................................................................................................................................................................................22

Despite studies predictions experts are still trustworthy .................................................................................................................................. .22

Caplan ‘5 ............................................................................................................................................................................................................22

Utilitarianism Good .......................................................................................................................23Utility is the best means for decision-making ....................................................................................................................................................23

Law and Mcgowan ‘7 ........................................................................................................................................................................................23

Utility is best .....................................................................................................................................................................................................23

Goodin 91 ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................23

Deliberation Good – Partisanship ..................................................................................................24



CBS Lab

3

SDI 2009

Framework The alternative to deliberative consequentialist thinking is raw and oppressive partisanship ...................................................................... ...24Gundersen 00 ................................................................................................................................................................................................. ....24

Deliberation Good – Personal Empowerment ...............................................................................25Deliberation is key to personal empowerment ...................................................................................................................................................25

Deliberation Good – Authoritarianism .......................................................................................... 26Elshtain 98 ................................................................................................................................................................................................. ........26

Critical Discourse Bad – Democracy .............................................................................................27Critical discourse undermines peace and democracy ..................................................................................................................................... ...27

Spragens 00 ........................................................................................................................................................................................................27

Ballot Key ......................................................................................................................................28The ballot is necessary to produce effective political action: political discourse brings about a change of heart that translates into a real

behavioral response............................................................................................................................................................................................28

Dietz 00 ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................28

Critiques Good ...............................................................................................................................29Their framework masks and distracts from the exclusion and violence it creates, other frames of thinking are necessary to check this back

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................29

Bleiker 97 ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................29

Critique solves – critical dissent is necessary to combat the hegemony of the epistemological assumptions of the affirmative .....................29Bleiker 2K ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................29

Switch-Side Debate Good ..............................................................................................................30Switch side debate key to challenging the dominant dialogue ..........................................................................................................................30

English et al. 07 ..................................................................................................................................................................................................30Switch side debate solves fundamentalism and American exceptionalism.......................................................................................................30English et al. 07 ..................................................................................................................................................................................................30

Switch-Side Debate Bad ................................................................................................................ 31Switch side debate destroys the intended use of debate....................................................................................................................................31

Greene and Hicks 05 ..........................................................................................................................................................................................31Switch side debate separates speech from conviction, leading to American exceptionalism...........................................................................31

Greene and Hicks 05 ..........................................................................................................................................................................................31



CBS Lab

4

SDI 2009

Framework

1AC/2AC Shell

A. Our interpretation is that the negative should defend either the status quo or a competitive

policy option.

B. Reasons to prefer:

1. Fairness

i. Burden of rejoinder – we speak first and are bound to the topic’s

affirmation, critical frameworks moot the 8 minutes of the 1AC and

deprives it of the context to which it was read.

ii. Objectivity – the resolution and our plan text serve as a cohesive basis to

productive and unambiguous debate. Critical frameworks justify finding

external flaws our speech while offering no consistent way to determine a

winner.

iii. Limits – there are an infinite number of critical frameworks with which to

evaluate a round. The resolution requires U.S. federal government action,

which is the only predictable framework.2. Education – Critical frameworks make it impossible to learn about the positives and

negatives of state action, which is a prerequisite to becoming a good policymaker.

The aff can never win in a world where the negative can get away with reading

counterwarrants to the words USFG every round.

C. Our framework must be answered in the 1NC – allowing the negative to answer in the block

skews the 2AC which is our last chance for offense.



CBS Lab

5

SDI 2009

Framework

1NC/2NC Shell (K Affs Bad)

1. Interpretation: The affirmative gets to defend a topical policy option and all advantages

must directly stem from US federal government action; the neg wins if the plan is proven

undesirable.

2. Violation: The affirmative defends advantages independent of US federal government

action.

3. Standards

a. Predictability: we are only prepared for a debate about the resolution, affs that deviate

from this are unfair to neg strategy and thus sacrifice good debate

b. Topic Education: any aff that doesn’t focus on the topic is bad for resolutional

education, the purpose of our being here.

c. Jurisdiction: As a judge you do not have the authority to vote for affirmatives outside of the topic area, doing so legitimizes non-topical debates for future teams, ultimately

reducing the educational value of the activity of debate.

4. Framework is a voter because it’s a precondition of debate, education and fairness.



CBS Lab

6

SDI 2009

Framework

1NC/2NC Shell (Ks Good)

1. Counter-Interpretation: The negative should defend either the status quo or a competitive

alternative to the plan.

2. Reasons to prefer

a. Fairness: the aff has complete flexibility in what they choose to argue, it’s only

reciprocal that the neg should be able to do the same.

b. Topic Education: critical evaluation of plan action IS often topic specific – <explain

your specific link>. In addition, critical discourse is absolutely necessary to boost

education beyond the borders of simplistic disads and competing policy options.

c. Checks offensive terms or philosophies- not allowing the neg to challenge aff

assumptions would justify racism, sexism and other atrocities that may be inherent to

the 1AC.

3. Framework is not a voter for education and fairness.



CBS Lab

7

SDI 2009

Framework

AT: Aff Framework

1. Context may be important, but we need to have the ability to challenge the

assumptions of the affirmative anyways – if the aff contained a litany of racial slurs,

we would be unable to challenge that, because the aff could say “we said that in the

context of a racist framework so that’s okay.”

2. There’s no reason a critical framework can’t be objective.

3. Critical frameworks increase critical thinking – they force teams to justify the

method by which the judge should evaluate the round.

4. The inclusion of critiques doesn’t explode the aff research burden by any significant

amount – there are as many if not more disads and counterplans than there are

critiques. Following that logic, it would be better to exclude disads and counterplans

but include critiques.

5. Education is greater – we learn far more by debating critiques in addition to allother policy arguments – we’re not saying you can ONLY run critiques, just that

it’s OKAY to run them.

6. Reject the critique, not the team.



CBS Lab

8

SDI 2009

Framework

Exclusion Bad

Even if exclusion is inevitable, we still need to question it.

Olson and Worsham 98

(Gary, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Illinois State University, and Lynn, Professor of English at Illinois State University. “Race,Rhetoric, and the Postcolonial.” 1998. p. 167. d/l 7/13/09 obt. Google Books)

Clearly, rhetoric, argumentation, and the concept of consensus are crucial to the constitution of collective identities and to the functioning of the

kind of democratic political community, or societas, that she envisions. Societas names a bond that links citizens ("friends" and "adversaries")

together but that leaves room for dissensus. It is a bond created by common values (for example, liberty and equality), although the definition or interpretation of those values is always in contestation. For Mouffe, there can be no "rational consensus," which, in principle, means a totally

inclusive consensus. Consensus is always based on exclusion, on an excluded element or interpretation. However,

as Mouffe points out, "The recognition that any form of consensus, any particular order , cannot exist without some form

of exclusion should not be used in order to justify the presence of exclusion." A radical democratic society is

one in which every form and basis of exclusion is continually put in question.



CBS Lab

9

SDI 2009

Framework

Rules Good (1/2)

1. Rules are really important – debate is a game, not a forum to recruit people to join your

movement. We can form our own opinions outside debate, but we can’t have competitive

debates anywhere else. Rules are necessary for the game to be fair and fun – their argument

is the same as someone deciding to play soccer and then complaining that they can’t throw

the ball – if you don’t like the rules, don’t play.

2. Rules are key to debate, because without them, fairness is impossible. People won’t debate if

it’s impossible for them to win.

3. Turn – Informal structures of debate are worse than formal ones – they exclude

marginalized groups in the name of inclusion.

Tonn 05

(Mary Boor, Associate professor at University of Maryland, specialist in political communication. “Taking Conversation, Dialogue,

and Therapy Public.” From Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 2005, 405-430. <

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/rhetoric_and_public_affairs/v008/8.3tonn.html>; d/l 7/13/09)

Second, democratic processes and public problem solving necessarily diverge from social conversations by articulating objectives at the outset; adhering to formal rules for participating in, managing, and achieving problem resolution; and documenting outcomes. Through the scrupulous

recording of motions, discussions, amendments, and votes, the dynamics of such joint action are

rendered visible, accessible, and retrievable, even to persons not party to the immediate deliberative

process. "Democracies," Schudson writes, "put great store in the power of writing to secure, verify, and make public.

Democracies require public memories."32 Thus, contrary to the framing of conversation and dialogue as

egalitarian public problem-solving models, they, in truth,can reify pecking orders by licensing

group members with social authority to set agendas, steer and dominate discussion,and — absent the polling and recording of votes—interpret the "will" of the group. Moreover,

such informal processes can reward those who speak the loudest, the longest, are themost articulate, or even the most recalcitrant. Freeman's analysis of consciousness-raising groups is

instructive: At any small group meeting anyone with a sharp eye and an acute ear can tell who isinfluencing whom. The members of the friendship group will relate more to each other than to other

people. They listen more attentively, and interrupt less; they repeat each other's points and tend to

give in amiably; they tend to ignore or grapple with the "outs" whose approval is not necessary for

making a decision . . . They are nuances of interaction, not prewritten scripts. But they are

discernible, and they do have their effect. Once one knows . . . whose approval is the stamp of acceptance, one knows who

is running things.33 As a result, Freeman argues that purportedly "structureless" organizations are a"deceptive . . . smokescreen, " given that "'structurelessness' does not prevent the formation of informal structures, but only formal ones . . . For everyone to have the opportunity to be involved . . . and to participate . . . the structure must be explicit, not implicit. The rules of

decision-making must be open and available to everyone, and this can only happen if they are formalized."34 Schudson likewise

argues that the inherently "threatening" nature of political deliberation demands procedures guaranteeing "equal access to the [End

Page 411] floor, equal participation in setting the ground rules for discussion, and a set of ground rules designed to encourage pertinent speaking, attentive listening, appropriate simplifications, and widely apportioned speaking rights."35



CBS Lab

10

SDI 2009

Framework

Rules Good (2/2)

4. The idea that inclusion in debate will end discrimination is laughable – it’s empirically

disproven by history and undermines democracy – formal debate is key to ending

discrimination they talk about.

Tonn 05

(Mary Boor, Associate professor at University of Maryland, specialist in political communication. “Taking Conversation, Dialogue,

and Therapy Public.” From Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 2005, 405-430. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/rhetoric_and_public_affairs/v008/8.3tonn.html>; d/l 7/13/09)

This widespread recognition that access to public deliberative processes and the ballot is a baseline of any

genuine democracy points to the most curious irony of the conversation movement: portions of its constituency. Numbering

among the most fervid dialogic loyalists have been some feminists and multiculturalists who

represent groups historically denied both the right to speak in public and the ballot. Oddly, some

feminists who championed the slogan "The Personal Is Political" to emphasize ways relational power

can oppress tend to ignore similar dangers lurking in the appropriation of conversation and dialogue

in public deliberation. Yet the conversational model's emphasis on empowerment through intimacy can

duplicate the power networks that traditionally excluded females and nonwhites and gave rise to

numerous, sometimes necessarily uncivil, demands for democratic inclusion.Formalized participation

structures in deliberative processes obviously cannot ensure the elimination of relational power blocs,

but, as Freeman pointed out, the absence of formal rules leaves relational power uncheckedand potentially capricious. Moreover, the privileging of the self, personal experiences,and individual perspectives of reality intrinsic in the conversational paradigm mirrors

justifications once used by dominant groups who used their own lives, beliefs, andinterests as templates for hegemonic social premises to oppress women, the lowerclass, and people of color. Paradigms infused with the therapeutic language of emotional healing and coping likewise

flirt with the type of psychological diagnoses once ascribed to disaffected women. But as Betty Friedan's landmark 1963 The Feminist

Mystique argued, the cure for female alienation was neither tranquilizers nor attitude adjustments fostered through psychotherapy but,

rather, unrestricted opportunities.102 [End Page 423] The price exacted by promoting approaches to complex public issues—modelsthat cast conventional deliberative processes, including the marshaling of evidence beyond individual subjectivity, as "elitist" or

"monologic"—can be steep. Consider comments of an aide to President George W. Bush made before reports concluding Iraq

harbored no weapons of mass destruction, the primary justification for a U.S.-led war costing thousands of lives. Investigativereporters and other persons sleuthing for hard facts, he claimed, operate "in what we call the reality-based community." Such people

"believe that solutions emerge from [the] judicious study of discernible reality." Then baldly flexing the muscle afforded byincreasingly popular social-constructionist and poststructuralist models for conflict resolution, he added: "That's not the way the world

really works anymore . . . We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—

judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities."103 The recent fascination with public conversation and

dialogue most likely is a product of frustration with the tone of much public, political discourse. Such concerns are neither new nor

completely without merit. Yet, as Burke insightfully pointed out nearly six decades ago, "A perennial embarrassment in liberalapologetics has arisen from its 'surgical' proclivity: its attempt to outlaw a malfunction by outlawing the function." The attempt to

eliminate flaws in a process by eliminating the entire process, he writes, "is like trying to eliminate heart disease by eliminating

hearts."104 Because public argument and deliberative processes are the "heart" of true democracy,

supplanting those models with social and therapeutic conversation and dialogue jeopardizes the very

pulse and lifeblood of democracy itself.



CBS Lab

11

SDI 2009

Framework

Limits Good

Limits on debate are key to check incivility and the collapse of democracy

Schively 00[Ruth Lessl Shively, Associate Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M, 2000, Political Theory and Partisan Politics, p. 179]

Thus far, I have argued that if the ambiguists mean to be subversive about anything, they need to be conservative about some things. They

need to be steadfast supporters of the structures of openness and democracy: willing to say "no" to certain forms of contest; willing to set up

certain clear limitations about acceptable behavior. To this, finally, I would add that if the ambiguists mean to stretch the boundaries of behavior—if they want to be revolutionary and disruptive in their skepticism and iconoclasm—they need first to be firm believers in

something. Which is to say, again, they need to set clear limits about what they will and will not support, what they

do and do not believe to be best. As G. K. Chesterton observed, the true revolutionary has always willed

something "definite and limited." For example, "The Jacobin could tell you not only the system he would rebel against, but (what

was more important) the system he would not rebel against..." He "desired the freedoms of democracy." He "wished to have votes and not to

have titles . . ." But "because the new rebel is a skeptic"—because he cannot bring himself to will something definite and limited— "hecannot be a revolutionary." For "the fact that he wants to doubt everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything"

(Chesterton 1959,41). Thus, the most radical skepticism ends in the most radical conservatism. In other words, a refusal to judge among

ideas and activities is, in the end, an endorsement of the status quo. To embrace everything is to be unable to embrace a particular plan of

action, for to embrace a particular plan of action is to reject all others, at least for that moment. Moreover, as observed in our discussion of openness, to embrace everything is to embrace self-contradiction: to hold to both one's purposes and to that which defeats one's purposes—to

tolerance and intolerance, open-mindedness and close-mindedness, democracy and tyranny. In the same manner, then, the ambiguists'

refusals to will some thing "definite and limited" undermines their revolutionary impulses. In their refusal

to say what they will not celebrate and what they will not rebel against, they deny themselves (and

everyone else in their political world) a particular plan or ground to work from. By refusing to deny incivility, they

deny themselves a civil public space from which to speak. They cannot say "no" to the terrorist who would silence dissent. They cannot turn

their backs on the bullying of the white supremacist. And, as such, in refusing to bar the tactics of the anti-democrat, they refuse to support

the tactics of the democrat. In short, then, to be a true ambiguist, there must be some limit to what is ambiguous. To fully support

political contest, one must fully support some uncontested rules and reasons. To generally reject the

silencing or exclusion of others, one must sometimes silence or ex clude those who reject civility and

democracy



CBS Lab

12

SDI 2009

Framework

Evidence Good

Evidence, rather than personal experience, is key to challenge exclusionary social norms

Tonn 05(Mary Boor, Associate professor at University of Maryland, specialist in political communication. “Taking Conversation, Dialogue, and Therapy

Public.” From Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 2005, 405-430. < http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/rhetoric_and_public_affairs/v008/8.3tonn.html>; d/l

7/13/09)

Third, whereas in social and therapeutic talk, personal experience, opinion, and individual well-being reign supreme,

the force of "opinion" in a democracy demands allegiance both to reasonableness and to the larger collective

good. Unlike certain postmodern dialogic therapists, responsible public deliberators view neither facts as inescapably

elusive nor appeals to the rational uniformly suspect.Rather, democratic arguers apply rigorousstandards for evidence and, above all, writes Schudson, subscribe to "norms of reasonableness."36 A key

groupthink feature—uncritical, self-righteous faith in the group's inherent morality and traditions—is

nourished by privileging lived experiencesand personal opinions, the primary content of social and therapeutic talk. As Donal

Carbaugh points out, because the "self" becomes the "locus of conversational life," conversationalists may "disprefer consensual

truths, or standards of and for public judgment," which they view to "unduly constrain 'self.'"37 Such an

egocentric focus can enable members of deliberative bodies to discount crucial, formal typesof external evidence that counters existing personal and group assumptions, resulting inwhat

Lisa M. Gring-Pemble characterizes as forming public policies such as welfare reform "by anecdote." 38



CBS Lab

13

SDI 2009

Framework

Representations Key

Representations shape reality and are key to understand how we know what we know

Doty 96(Roxanne, associate professor at Arizona State University. “Imperial Encounters.” 1996, University of Minnesota Press. d/l 7/13/09 obt. Google

Books)

This study begins with the premise that representation is an inherent and important aspect of global political lifeand

therefore a critical and legitimate ahead of inquiry. International relations are inextricably bound up with discursive

practices that put into circulation representations that are taken as "truth." The goal of analyzing these practices is not

to reveal essential truths that have been obscured, but rather to examine how certain representations underlie the production of knowledge andidentities and how these representations make various courses of action possible. As Said (1979: 21) notes, there is no such thing as a delivered

presence, but there is a re-presence, or representation. Such an assertion does not deny the existence of the material world, but rather suggests that

material objects and subjects are constituted as such within discourse. So, for example, when U.S. troops march into Grenada, this

is certainly "real," though the march of troops across a piece of geographic space is in itself singularly

uninteresting and socially irrelevant outside of the representations that produce meaning. It is only when

"American" is attached to the troops and "Grenada" to the geographic space that meaning is created. What the

physical behavior itself is, though, is still far from certain until discursive practices constitute it as an "invasion," a "show of force," a "trainingexercise," a "rescue," and so on. What is "really" going on in such a situation is inextricably linked to the discursive and

nondiscursive practices, understanding the former as purely linguistic, assumes a series of dichotomies -- though/reality, appearance/essence,

mind/matter, word/world, subjective/objective -- that critical genealogy calls into question. Against this, the perspective taken here affirms that

material and performative character of discourse. 6 In suggesting that global politics, and specifically the aspect that has to do with relations

between the North and the South, is linked to representational practices I am suggesting that the issues and concerns that constitute these relations

occur within a "reality" whose content has for the most part been defined by the representational practices of the "first world." Focusing on

discursive practices enables one to examine how the processes that produce "truth" and "knowledge" work

and how they are articulated with the exercise of political, military, and economic power.



CBS Lab

14

SDI 2009

Framework

Policy Debate Good (1/2)

Policy debate is key to education about government action, whether you like the state or not –

refusing to debate policy alternatives leaves the discussion to the elites.

Walt 91

(Stephen, Professor of International Affairs at Harvard. “The Renaissance of Security Studies.” In International Studies Quarterly, Vol 35, No. 2,

June 1991, pp. 211-239 . < http://www.jstor.org/stable/2600471>; d/l 7/15/09, JSTOR)

A second norm is relevance, a belief that even highly abstract lines of inquiry should be guided by the goal of solving real-world problems.Because the value of a given approach may not be apparent at the beginning -- game theory is an obvious example -- we cannot insist that a new

approach be immediately applicable to a specific research puzzle. On the whole, however , the belief that scholarship in security

affairs should be linked to real-world issues has prevents the field from degenerating into self-indulgent

intellectualizing. And from the Golden Age to the present, security studies has probably had more real-world impact, for

good or ill, than most areas of social science. Finally, the renaissance of security studies has been guided by a

commitment to democratic discourse. Rather than confining discussion of security issues to an elite group of

the best and brightest, scholars in the renaissance have generally welcomed a more fully informed debate. To

paraphrase Clemenceau, issues of war and peace are too important to be left solely to insiders with a vested interest

in the outcome. The growth of security studies within universities is one sign of broader participation, along with increased availability of

information and more accessible publications for interested citizens. Although this view is by no means universal, the renaissance of

security studies has been shaped by the belief that a well-informed debate is the best way to avoid the

disasters that are likely when national policy is monopolized by a few self-interested parties.

Critical frameworks fail and delegitimize other’s experience

Wapner 03

[Paul, B.A., University of Colorado, M.A., University of Chicago M.A., Ph.D., Princeton University “Leftist criticism of”, Winter 2003, dissent

magazine, http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=539]

One of the hallmarks of postmodernism is the understanding that whenever we reflect upon, talk about, or act in the world, we

represent it to ourselves and others. And when we do that, we are not rendering an objective view of reality so much as

constructing a certain understanding of the world. We are subscribing to a particular discourse or set of discourses about the

"way things are," and this "way" shapes our experience. This is not to say, of course, that physical objects are figmentsof our imagination or that there is no substratum to reality, but simply that we endow the objects of our

experience with particular meanings that determine how we think and act in the world. The ethical

dimension of this insight comes into view when we recognize the danger of forgetting the constructed

quality of human experience. We construct our experience, fail to hold onto the idea that we've done just that, and then assume that

our constructions are somehow "real." This becomes an ethical failing insofar as it silences the views of others. The claim to know

how the world really is expresses a hegemonic ambition; it asserts authority in a way that delegitimizes

others' perspectives on human experience and the world in general. This is an ambition-a kind of "violence"-that many

postmodernists find unacceptable.

Limiting out K frameworks is necessary to the functionality of debate

Schively 00[Ruth Lessl Shively, Associate Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M, 2000, Political Theory and Partisan Politics, p. 179]

To put this point another way, it turns out that to be open to all things is, in effect, to be open to nothing. While the ambiguists

have commendable reasons for wanting to avoid closure—to avoid specify ing what is not allowed or celebrated in

their political vision—they need to say "no" to some things in order to be open to things in general. They need to say

"no" to certain forms of contest, if only to protect contest in general. For if one is to be open to the principles of democracy, for example, one

must be dogmatically closed to the principles of fascism. If one would embrace tolerance, one must rigidly reject intolerance. If one would

support openness in political speech and action, one must ban the acts of political intimidation, violence or

recrimination that squelch that openness. If one would expand delib eration and disruption, one must set up strictlegal protections around such activities. And if one would ensure that citizens have reason to engage in political contest—that it has practical meaning and import for

them—one must establish and maintain the rules and regulations and laws that protect democracy. In short, openness requires certain clear limits, rules, closure. And to make matters morecomplex, these structures of openness cannot simply be put into place and forgotten. They need to be taught to new generations of citizens, to be retaught and reenforced among the old, and asthe political world changes, to be shored up, rethought, adapted, and applied to new problems and new situations. It will not do, then, to simply assume that these structures are permanentlyviable and secure without significant work or justification on our part; nor will it do to talk about resisting or subverting them. Indeed, they are such valuable and yet vulnerable goods that they

require the most unflagging and firm support that we can give them .



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Policy Debate Good (2/2)

Debate as we know it is not cause for coercion or exclusion but rather a means of mutuality

Dietz 00[Mary Dietz, Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, 2000, Political Theory and Partisan Politics p. 123-4]

Habermas's distinction between "pure" communicative action and strategic action raises many difficulties, not the least of which is its

adherence to an idealized model of communication that, as Habermas himself acknowledges, does not fit a great deal of everyday social

interaction (McCarthy 1991,132). Machiavelli's famous riposte to those thinkers who "have imagined republics and principalities which havenever been seen or known to exist in reality" (Machiavelli 1950, 56) seems pertinent here, for the idealized model that Habermas imagines

and the distinction that supports it appear boldly to deny the Machiavellian insight that "how we live is so far removed from how we ought to

live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather learn to bring about his own ruin than his preservation" (56). I

will return to this point as it relates to politics later. For now, it is important to underscore that Habermas relies upon the communicative-

strategic distinction to do at least two things: first, to show that on the level of linguistics, communicative action enjoys an "originary" priority over strategic and all other modes of linguistic usage, which are themselves "parasitic" (Rasmussen 1990, 38) or "derivative"

(McCarthy 1991, 133) upon the former.12 Second, on the level of political theory, Habermas introduces the distinction in

order to limit the exercise of threats and coercion (or strategic action) by enu merating a formal-pragmatic

system of discursive accountability (or communicative action) that is geared toward human agreement

and mutuality. Despite its thoroughly modern accouterments, communicative action aims at something like the twentieth-centurydiscourse-equivalent of the chivalric codes of the late Middle Ages; as a normative system it articulates the conventions of fair and honorableengagement between interlocutors. To be sure, Habermas's concept of communicative action is neither as refined nor as situationally

embedded as were the protocols that governed honorable combat across European cultural and territorial boundaries and between Christian

knights; but it is nonetheless a (cross-cultural) protocol for all that. The entire framework that Habermas establishes is an

attempt to limit human violence by elaborating a code of communicative conduct that is de signed to hold

power in check by channeling it into persuasion, or the "unforced" force of the better argument (Habermas

1993b, 160).^

Policy debate transforms us into people who can act

Saxonhouse 00

[Arlene Saxonhouse, Ph. D Yale, 1972, professor of political science, University of Michigan “Political Theorists on the legitimacy of

Partisan Politics” Political Theory and Partisan Politics p24]

Hannah Arendt, who without question romanticizes the life of the ancient polis, nevertheless creates a model of political action that exalts the

partisan, or at least the one who articulates well through debate with others' views that address the broad issues of communal life. This is

the political actor who may seek glory for himself, but does so through engagement in controversies in the

open about public decisions. It is conflict on this level of thought and will that transforms us from the

mindless pursuers of the material necessities of our lives to human beings who can act. Such divisions then which

come to the fore in the public space, are necessary for our humanity, hip in this sense is not to be avoided, but exercised skillfully with a

choice beyond the petty concerns of everyday life to a concern with choices that polities make in their confrontations with barbarism. To

enter into this debate is to demonstrate the courage of the human being to lift himself out of the struggle

for mere survival.

Policy Debate is the critical to education

Lutz 00

[Donald S. Lutz, Professor of Polisci at Houston, 2000 Political Theory and Partisan Politics p. 47]

Although the focus of this chapter is on a direct conversation between theorist and politician d ,there is an important, indirect aspect of the

conversation that should not be overlooked-classroom teaching. Too often the conversation between politician and

political theorist is described in terms of a direct one between philosophers and those holding power.

Overlooked is the central need to educate as many young people as possible. To so distinguish oneself

entails the engagement in debate and conflict, to rise out of the biological life processes. "Human plurality" she says, is

"the basic condition of both action and speech" (Arendt 1958, 175). And it is this plurality that allows for the

initiation of the new, the transformation of what appears to be. Without an attachment to the self, the pursuit of a public identity which

earns immortality is lost. "Partisanship" here appears at its highest level, as the basis for our humanity and only a political regime that can accommodate this sort of partisanship is worthyof praise. Arendt builds her analysis of the plures of human interaction on a somewhat idiosyncratic reading of Aristotle. Despite the idiosyncrasies, she does draw attention to the ways inwhich Aristotle is perhaps the most powerful exponent of a theory of plures, of a theory that enables us to conceptualize the partisan as a key player in the construction of the polity and notas the destroyer of a beauteous unity. Aristotle is known for his quotable assertion that by nature man is a political animal. By this he means that man, as the only creature who possesses



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Framework speech and reason (logos) and can thus debate the advantageous and disadvantageous, the just and unjust, must have a realm in which that capacity can be exercised. The polis provides thatrealm where man exercises his rationality in the process of making choices for the collective community of the polis. Other actions, such as those that go on within the family are usuallygoverned by inclination and lack the generality of the larger community of the polis.

Simulation Bad – Spectatorship

The simulation in policy debate removes debaters from the real world, making them into spectators

unable to create change.

Mitchell 98

[Gordon, R., Professor of Communication and Director of Debate at the University of Pittsburgh. “Pedagogical Possibilities for Argumentative

Agency in Academic Debate.” Argumentation and Advocacy. V35, i2, p41(2). Fall 1998]

While an isolated academic space that affords students an opportunity to learn in a protected environment has significant pedagogical value

(see e.g. Coverstone 1995, p. 8-9), the notion of the academic debate tournament as a sterile laboratory carries with it some disturbing

implications, when the metaphor is extended to its limit. To the extent that the academic space begins to take on characteristics of a

laboratory, the barriers demarcating such a space from other spheres of deliberation beyond the school grow taller and less permeable. When

such barriers reach insurmountable dimensions, argumentation in the academic setting unfolds on a purely simulated

plane, with students practicing critical thinking and advocacy skills in strictly hypothetical thought-

spaces. Although they may research and track public argument as it unfolds outside the confines of the

laboratory for research purposes, in this approach, students witness argumentation beyond the walls of

the academy as spectators, with little or no apparent recourse to directly participate or alter the course of events (see Mitchell 1995; 1998). The sense of detachment associated with the spectator posture is highlighted

during episodes of alienation in which debaters cheer news of human suffering or misfortune. Instead of

focusing on the visceral negative responses to news accounts of human death and misery, debaters

overcome with the competitive zeal of contest round competition show a tendency to concentrate on the

meanings that such evidence might hold for the strength of their academic debate arguments. For example,

news reports of mass starvation might tidy up the "uniqueness of a disadvantage" or bolster the "inherency of an affirmative case" (in the

technical parlance of debate-speak). Murchland categorizes cultivation of this "spectator" mentality as one of the

most politically debilitating failures of contemporary education: "Educational institutions have failed even more

grievously to provide the kind of civic forums we need. In fact, one could easily conclude that the principle purposes of our schools is to

deprive successor generations of their civic voice, to turn them into mute and uncomprehending spectators in the drama of political life"

(1991, p. 8).



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Fiat Good

Focus on political decision making is far more important than the abstract philosophy of critiques.

McClean 01(David, Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Molloy College. “The Cultural Left and the Limits of Social Hope.” <http://www.american-

philosophy.org/archives/past_conference_programs/pc2001/Discussion%20papers/david_mcclean.htm>; d/l 7/18/09)

These futile attempts to philosophize one's way into political relevance are a symptom of what happens when

a Left retreats from activism and adopts a spectatorial approach to the problems of its country.

Disengagement from practice produces theoretical hallucinations"(italics mine).(1) Or as John Dewey put it in his The Need

for a Recovery of Philosophy, "I believe that philosophy in America will be lost between chewing a historical cud long since reduced to woodyfiber, or an apologetics for lost causes, . . . . or a scholastic, schematic formalism, unless it can somehow bring to consciousness America's own

needs and its own implicit principle of successful action." Those who suffer or have suffered from this disease Rorty refers to as the Cultural Left,

which left is juxtaposed to the Political Left that Rorty prefers and prefers for good reason. Another attribute of the Cultural Left is that its

members fancy themselves pure culture critics who view the successes of America and the West, rather than some of the barbarous methods for achieving those successes, as mostly evil, and who view anything like national pride as equally evil even when that pride is tempered with the

knowledge and admission of the nation's shortcomings. In other words, the Cultural Left, in this country, too often dismiss American society as

beyond reform and redemption. And Rorty correctly argues that this is a disastrous conclusion, i.e. disastrous for the Cultural Left. I think it may

also be disastrous for our social hopes, as I will explain. Leftist American culture critics might put their considerable talents to better use if they bury some of their cynicism about America's social and political prospects and help forge public and political possibilities in a spirit of determination to, indeed, achieve our country - the country of Jefferson and King; the country of John Dewey and Malcom X; the country of

Franklin Roosevelt and Bayard Rustin, and of the later George Wallace and the later Barry Goldwater. To invoke the words of King, and with

reference to the American society, the time is always ripe to seize the opportunity to help create the "beloved community," one woven with the

thread of agape into a conceptually single yet diverse tapestry that shoots for nothing less than a true intra-American cosmopolitan ethos, one

wherein both same sex unions and faith-based initiatives will be able to be part of the same social reality, one wherein business interests and the

university are not seen as belonging to two separate galaxies but as part of the same answer to the threat of social and ethical nihilism. We who

fancy ourselves philosophers would do well to create from within ourselves and from within our ranks a new

kind of public intellectual who has both a hungry theoretical mind and who is yet capable of seeing the need

to move past high theory to other important questions that are less bedazzling and "interesting" but more

important to the prospect of our flourishing - questions such as "How is it possible to develop a citizenry that cherishes a certain

hexis, one which prizes the character of the Samaritan on the road to Jericho almost more than any other?" or "How can we square the politicaldogma that undergirds the fantasy of a missile defense system with the need to treat America as but one member in a community of nations under

a "law of peoples?" The new public philosopher might seek to understand labor law and military and trade theory and doctrine as much as

theories of surplus value; the logic of international markets and trade agreements as much as critiques of commodification, and the politics of

complexity as much as the politics of power (all of which can still be done from our arm chairs.) This means going down deep into

the guts of our quotidian social institutions, into the grimy pragmatic details where intellectuals are loathe to

dwell but where the officers and bureaucrats of those institutions take difficult and often unpleasant,

imperfect decisions that affect other peoples' lives, and it means making honest attempts to truly understand

how those institutions actually function in the actual world before howling for their overthrow commences.

This might help keep us from being slapped down in debates by true policy pros who actually know what they

are talking about but who lack awareness of the dogmatic assumptions from which they proceed, and who

have not yet found a good reason to listen to jargon-riddled lectures from philosophers and culture critics with their

snobbish disrespect for the so-called "managerial class.



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AT: Framework Links to K

First is the defense –

A. Theory comes first – without predictability it’s impossible for us to research theirclaims and you should give them zero weight – we have no evidence that the dinosaurs

are extinct but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true, it just means the question has nothing to

do with the topic.

B. Fairness comes first – if debate isn’t fair, then people will quit, and that kills education

C. No impact – We’re just a few students in a high school debate – for the same reasons

they say the plan won’t happen, neither will the impacts of their kritik.

D. Their logic is circular – if we’re debating about whether critical arguments are good or

not, they shouldn’t be able to make critical arguments to justify them.

Next is the offense –

A. Their framework links to our Walt 91 card in the original shell – they lead to a self-

indulging intellectualism which causes miscalculation, leading to all of our impacts.

B. Action through the state doesn’t uphold it – but the idea that we shouldn’t debate state

politics makes change impossible.

Krause and Williams 97

(Keith, Doctor of Philosophy, Oxford University, and Michael, U.N. Special Coordinator for Middle East Peace Process.

“Critical Security Studies.” Pub. University of Minnesota Press. p. xvi)

Many of the chapters in this volume thus retain a concern with the centrality of the state as a locus not only of obligation but of effective political action. In the realm of organized violence, states also remain the preeminent actors. The task of a

critical approach is not to deny the centrality of the state in this realm but, rather, to understand

more fully its structures, dynamics, and possibilities for reorientation. From a critical perspective,

state action is flexible and capable of reorientation, and analyzing state policy need not therefore

be tantamount to embracing the statist assumptions of orthodox conceptions. To exclude a focus

on state action from a critical perspective on the grounds that it plays inevitably within the rules

of existing conceptions simply reverses the error of essentializing the state. Moreover, it loses the

possibility of influencing what remains the most structurally capable actor in contemporary world politics.



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AT: Mitchell

Mitchell changed his mind – switch side debate is good.

Mitchell 02(Gordon, Professor of Communication 11/09/02. < http://www.ndtceda.com/pipermail/edebate/2002-November/044264.html>; d/l: 7/18/09)

Politically I have moved quite a bit since 1998, when I wrote that debate institutions should pay more attention to

argumentative agency, i.e. cultivation of skills that facilitate translation of critical thinking, public speaking, and research acumen into

concrete exemplars of democratic empowerment. Back then I was highly skeptical of the "laboratory model" of "preparatory

pedagogy," where students were kept, by fiat, in the proverbial pedagogical bullpen. Now I respect much more the value of a

protected space where young people can experiment politically by taking imaginary positions, driving the

hueristic process by arguing against their convictions. In fact, the integrity of this space could be

compromised by "activist turn" initiatives designed to bridge contest round advocacy with political activism.

These days I have much more confidence in the importance and necessity of switch-side debating, and the

heuristic value for debaters of arguing against their convictions. I think fashioning competitive debate contest rounds as

isolated and politically protected safe spaces for communicative experimentation makes sense. However, I worry that a narrow diet of

competitive contest round debating could starve students of opportunities to experience the rich political valence of their debating activities.



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Predictions Bad

Prediction destroys human agency

Bleiker 2K (Roland, Professor of International Relations at the University of Queensland. “Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics.” 2000. Pub.

Cambridge University Press)

The very notion of prediction does, by its own logic, annihilate human agency. To assert that international

relations is a domain of political dynamics whose future should be predictable through a convincing set of theoretical propositions is to

assume that the source of global politics is to a certain extent predetermined. From such a vantage-point, there is no

more room for interference and human agency, no more possibility for politics to overtake theory. A predictive app roach thus runs

the risk of ending up in a form of inquiry that imposes a static image upon a far more complex set of

transversal political practices. The point of a theoretical inquiry, however, is not to ignore the constantly changing domain of

internationals relations. Rather, the main objective must consists of facilitating and hindering of transversal struggles that can grapple with those

moment when people walk through walls precisely when nobody expects them to do so. Prediction is a problematicassessment tool even if a theory is able to anticipate future events. Important theories, such as realist interpretations of

international politics, may well predict certain events only because their theoretical premises have become so

objectivised that they have started to shape decision makers and political dynamics. Dissent, in this case, is the

process that reshapes these entrenched perceptions and the ensuing political practices. Describing, explaining and prescribing may be less

unproblematic processes of evaluation, but only at first sight. If one abandons the notion of Truth, the idea that an event can be apprehended as

part of a natural order, authentically and scientifically, as something that exists independently of the meaning we have given it – if one abandonsthis separation of object and subject, then the process of judging a particular approach to describing and explaining an event becomes a very

muddles affair . There is no longer an objective measuring device that can set the standard to evaluate whether or

not a particular insight into an event, such as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, is true or false. The very nature of a past

event becomes indeterminate insofar as its identification is dependent upon ever-changing forms of l inguistic

expression that imbue the event with meaning. 56



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Predictions Good (1/2)

Rejection of prediction is an implicit prediction which undercuts good predictions.

Fitzsimmons 06

(Michael, defense analyst in Washington D.C. for Global Politics and Strategy. “The Problem of Uncertainty in Strategic Planning.” 484.4(2006), pp. 131-146. <http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/00396330601062808>; d/l 7/15/09)

Finally, the planning for post-war operations in Iraq offers another perspective on the tangled relationship between uncertainty and strategy.

Problems of predicting the future are at the heart of intelligence analysis and its role in national-security

strategy. While few would question the fragility of intelligence estimates or the chequered history of

judgements made by the US intelligence community, prediction remains an important part of its mission.

Beyond collecting and reporting raw information, intelligence organisations are often expected to identify trends and consider the implications of alternative strategies on the behaviour of allies and adversaries. To accomplish this difficult mission, intelligence analysts must rely on two

crucial resources: good analytic tradecraft that provides transparent standards of evidence, and subject-matter expertise that enables an

appreciation for the subtleties of complex human phenomena. But standards of evidence and subject-matter expertise are exactly the sorts of

factors decision-makers sceptical of the reliability of prediction might be apt to discount. If uncertainty defines the strategic environment, thenwhat greater insight can the expert analyst bring to bear on strategy than the generalist? This attitude could marginalise intelligence analysis in

strategic decision-making. US planning for the aftermath of the Iraq War exemplifies how such marginalisation has played a significant role in

recent strategic decision-making. In the judgement of Paul Pillar, the senior US intelligence official for Middle East analysis from 2000 to 2005,

‘what is most remarkable about prewar U.S. intelligence on Iraq is not that it got things wrong and thereby misled policymakers; it is that it played so small a role in one of the most important U.S. policy decisions in recent decades’.26 While great volumes of ink have been spilled inthe debate over intelligence estimates of Iraqi nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, there is much more clarity about the intelligence

community’s estimates of the political environment the US would face in post-war Iraq. Those estimates accurately predicted most of the major

challenges that developed, from insurgency and sectarian violence to the strengthening of Iran’s geopolitical hand and the galvanising effect on

foreign radical Islamists.27 The reported expectations of most key administration officials bore little resemblance to these predictions.28

Rumsfeld’s famous distinction between ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’ came in response to a reporter’s question on theintelligence supporting assertions of linkages between the Iraqi government and terrorist organisations.29 The implication of his remark was that

presumption of a genuine Iraqi–terrorist linkage was justified because the absence of evidence to support the presumption did not conclusively

disprove it. Here, as with the post-war planning assumptions, uncertainty served to level the playing field between facts and analysis, on the one

hand, and the preconceptions of senior leadership on the other. Many of the US government’s experts on Iraq and the Arab world outside the

intelligence community were also marginalised in the planning for the Iraq War. In 2002, the State Department launched the

‘Future of Iraq Project’ to write a detailed plan for the governance of a post-Saddam democratic Iraq.

Participants included dozens of career Middle East specialists from the State Department and the intelligence

community, as well as native Iraqis. The project’s report covered a wide variety of topics, from development of a constitution to the

management of municipal utilities. In the end, however, leaders in the White House and the Pentagon viewed the

report as too pessimistic and ignored many of its conclusions.30 Another well-publicised instance where decision-makers

rejected expert advice on weak grounds was the public exchange between Pentagon civilian leaders and the Army chief of staff regarding the

number of ground troops required for successful post-hostilities operations in Iraq. One month prior to the invasion, General Eric

Shinseki told the Senate Armed Services Committee that establishing security and conditions for political

stability in Iraq following the end of major combat operations would take ‘several hundred thousand’

coalition ground troops. His estimate was based on the application of troop-topopulation ratios from previous security and stabilisation

operations.31 While fairly rudimentary, the thrust of this analysis was shared by a variety of expert analysts

outside the government.32 Two days after Shinseki’s testimony, both Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz

publicly renounced the estimate. Wolfowitz told the House Budget Committee that Shinseki was ‘wildly off the mark’,

and offered several unsubstantiated and, in retrospect, incorrect predictions about post-war attitudes toward American

forces among Iraqis and US allies. Having made these predictions, he then proceded to reject the validity of making predictions,

insisting that the ‘most fundamental point is that we simply cannot predict ... we have no idea what we will need unless and until we get there on

the ground’.33 In effect, by denying the validity of prediction, Wolfowitz locked himself into a very

specific but implicit prediction that conformed to his own preconceptions. The point is neither that Armygenerals are always better qualified to make such judgements than civilians, nor that hindsight shows Shinseki’s judgement to be better than

Wolfowitz’s. It is that the grounds for the decision that was actually made on troop levels were conspicuously shakier than those of Shinseki’s

judgement, and yet they prevailed. The mistakes that were made in the Bush administration’s post-war planning for

Iraq are entirely consistent with a bias in decision-making against the authority of expertise in predicting the

future, and the invocation of uncertainty in this instance became a rationale for rigidity in planning rather

than flexibility.



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Predictions Good (2/2)

Predictions are key to check disasters

Kurasawa 04[Fuyuki Kurasawa, Professor of Sociology – York University of Toronto, “Cautionary Tales: The Global Culture of Prevention and the Work of

Foresight”, Constellations, 11(4), 2004]

When engaging in the labor of preventive foresight, the first obstacle that one is likely to encounter from some intellectual circles is a deep-

seated skepticism about the very value of the exercise. A radically postmodern line of thinking, for instance, would lead us to believe that itis pointless, perhaps even harmful, to strive for farsightedness in light of the aforementioned crisis of conventional paradigms of historical

analysis. If, contra teleological models, history has no intrinsic meaning, direction, or endpoint to be discovered through human reason, and

if, contra scientistic futurism, prospective trends cannot be predicted without error, then the abyss of chronological inscrutability supposedly

opens up at our feet. The future appears to be unknowable, an outcome of chance. Therefore, rather than embarking upon grandiose

speculation about what may occur, we should adopt a pragmatism that abandons itself to the twists and turns of history; let us be content to

formulate ad hoc responses to emergencies as they arise While this argument has the merit of underscoring the

fallibilistic nature of all predictive schemes, it conflates the necessary recognition of the contingency of

history with unwarranted assertions about the latter’s total opacity and indeterminacy. Acknowledging

the fact that the future cannot be known with absolute certainty does not imply abandoning the task of

trying to understand what is brewing on the horizon and to prepare for crises already coming into theirown. In fact, the incorporation of the principle of fallibility into the work of prevention means that we

must be ever more vigilant for warning signs of disaster and for responses that provoke unintended or

unexpected consequences (a point to which I will return in the final section of this paper). In addition, from a normative point of

view, the acceptance of historical contingency and of the self-limiting character of farsightedness places the duty of preventing catastrophe

squarely on the shoulders of present generations. The future no longer appears to be a metaphysical creature of destiny or of the cunning of

reason, nor can it be sloughed off to pure randomness. It becomes, instead, a result of human action shaped by decisions in the present –

including, of course, trying to anticipate and prepare for possible and avoidable sources of harm to our successors. Combining a sense of analytical contingency toward the future and ethical responsibility for it, the idea of early warning is making its way into preventive action on

the global stage. Despite the fact that not all humanitarian, techno- scientific, and environmental disasters can be predicted in advance, the

multiplication of independent sources of knowledge and detection mechanisms enables us to foresee many of them before it is too late.

Indeed, in recent years, global civil society’s capacity for early warning has dramatically increased, in no small part due to the impressive

number of NGOs that include catastrophe prevention at the heart of their mandates. These organizations are often the first to detect signs of trouble, to dispatch investigative or fact-finding missions, and to warn the international community about impending dangers; to wit, the

lead role of environmental groups in sounding the alarm about global warming and species depletion or of humanitarian agencies regarding

the AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa, fre- quently months or even years before Western governments or multilateral institutions followed

suit

Despite studies predictions experts are still trustworthy

Caplan ‘5

[Bryan Caplan, Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University, EconLog, 12-26-2005,

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2005/12/tackling_tetloc_1.html]

Philip Tetlock, one of my favorite social scientists, is making waves with his new book, Expert Political Judgment. Tetlock spent two decades

asking hundreds of political experts to make predictions about hundreds of issues. With all this data under his belt, he then asks and tries to

answer a bunch of Big Questions, including "Do experts on average have a greater-than-chance ability to predict the future?," and "What kinds of

experts have the greatest forecasting ability?" This book is literally awesome - to understand Tetlock's project and see how well he follows

through fills me with awe. And that's tough for me to admit, because it would be easy to interpret Tetlock's work as a great refutation of my own.Most of my research highlights the systematic belief differences between economists and the general public, and defends the simple "The experts

are right, the public is wrong," interpretation of the facts. But Tetlock finds that the average expert is an embarassingly bad forecaster. In fact,

experts barely beat what Tetlock calls the "chimp" stategy of random guessing. Is my confidence in experts completely

misplaced? I think not. Tetlock's sample suffers from severe selection bias. He deliberately asked relatively

difficult and controversial questions. As his methodological appendix explains, questions had to "Pass the

'don't bother me too often with dumb questions' test." Dumb according to who? The implicit answer is

"Dumb according to the typical expert in the field." What Tetlock really shows is that experts are

overconfident if you exclude the questions where they have reached a solid consensus.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2005/12/tackling_tetloc_1.html





CBS Lab

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SDI 2009

Framework

Utilitarianism Good

Utility is the best means for decision-making

Law and Mcgowan ‘7[David S. Law, Associate Professor Of Law, University Of San Diego; Assistant Adjunct Professor Of Political Science, University Of

California, San Diego, “There Is Nothing Pragmatic About Originalism” David Mcgowan, Professor of Law, University of San Diego,

Northwestern Law Review 2007, Lexis]

McGinnis and Rappaport take the position that judges should refuse to alleviate suffering that they could alleviate. Only if judges do so, they

argue, will society take notice of that suffering and choose whether to end it via the amendment process. In the meantime, however, the costs of a

bad rule will continue to accumulate over time. Where a rule generates costs that can be ameliorated or avoided, it is ordinarily better to fix the

rule sooner rather than later, for the same basic reason that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow: happiness deferred is happinesslost in the interim. It is nevertheless worth the wait for an amendment, argue McGinnis and Rappaport, because the eventual benefits of

supermajority decisionmaking will exceed the immediate payoff of judicial problem-solving. But there is not much reason to think that our

patience and endurance will be rewarded in the end. It is uncertain that an ameliorating amendment will ever be adopted, thanks in part to the

high cost of supermajority action. n47 It is even less certain that such an amendment would adopt a better policy than a pragmatic court would have

chosen. In fact, as we have seen, there is plenty of reason to expect the opposite. n48 Still less certain is the adoption of a rule so much better that itcompensates for all the suffering we have endured in the meantime. At most, their reasoning suggests that, in some cases, it might be utility-

maximizing for judges to ignore evidence, to refrain from utility analysis, and to follow a blanket rule of originalism. In other words, they have

argued for a form of rule utilitarianism, even if they do not call it that. But in what cases, and using what rule? Even if it is a good ideafor judges to obey blanket rules of constitutional adjudication, there are alternatives to originalism that might

perform better--say, a rule of obedience to public opinion polls that reveal a supermajority preference, or of

conformity to a supermajority view among courts worldwide. n49 Alternatively, it might be best to ditch rules

altogether and opt for act utilitarianism, which in this context we might call case utilitarianism, or simply

judicial pragmatism--namely, the case-by-case maximization of utility by judges on the basis of cost-benefit

analysis. After all, cost-benefit analysis makes sense in a lot of situations, including judicial decisionmaking. n50

[*97] From a pragmatic perspective, it is not clear why constitutional cases should be any different.

Utility is best

Goodin 91

[Goodin, Robert, Professor of Philosophy at the Research School of the Social Sciences at the Australian National University “Utility and the

Good”-a companion to ethics, 1991]

Therein lies the great appeal of utilitarianism as the theory of the good most standardly used to fill out the

larger consequentialist framework. There is a sense of ‘utilitarianism,’ Associated with architects and

cabinet-makers, which equates it to the ‘functional’ and makes it the enemy of the excellent and beautiful.

Yet therein lies the great advantages of utilitarianism as a theory of the good: by running everything through

people’s preferences and interests more generally, it is non-committal as between various more specific

theories of the good that people might embrace, and it is equally open to all of them.

http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/us/lnacademic/frame.do?tokenKey=rsh-20.993419.7091890657&target=results_DocumentContent&reloadEntirePage=true&rand=1247612374479&returnToKey=20_T6961236311&parent=docview#n47














CBS Lab

24

SDI 2009

Framework

Deliberation Good – Partisanship

The alternative to deliberative consequentialist thinking is raw and oppressive partisanship

Gundersen 00[Adolf G. Gundersen, Associate Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M, 2000, Political Theory and Partisan Politics p. 97-8]

In contrast to "deliberation," which means "the thoughtful consider ation of alternative courses of action,"1 we

might think of "partisan ship" as "struggle to enact a fixed course of action." So defined, the differences between

deliberation and partisanship are as obvious as they are profound: deliberation requires openness and the cooperative exercise

of the intellect; partisanship presumes closure and involves the factional exercise of rhetorical manipulation

or raw power. As a general rule, it also follows that deliberative democracy will flourish in inverse proportion

to partisanship. For this reason deliberative democrats need a strategy for eliminating (or at least containing) partisanship. This paper

advances such a strategy, a strategy which I recommend based on a critique of the two alternatives that have for some time dominated thinking in

this area. The first of these alternatives is advanced by a wide-range of participatory democrats. On their view, partisanship can not only becontained, but also perhaps eliminated altogether, by having would-be partisans confront one another in public decision-making bodies. The

participatory strategy ultimately rests on the belief that all partisan conflict is susceptible to transformation as long as partisanship is confronted

directly. Indeed, the participatory strategy for dealing with partisanship enjoins two sorts of confrontation: confrontation among citizens and

confrontation with an actual decision. The second alternative strategy for dealing with partisanship that I examine here, no less well known, isMadisonian. Its strategy for limiting partisanship is in many ways the mirror image ofthat proposed by participatory democrats. Where the participatory strategy puts its faith in confrontation, the Madisonian strategy puts its faith in separation—again of two sorts. For the Madisonian,

the worst effects of partisanship can be contained by first separating citizens from the actual task of decision-making and then by institution-

alizing separate sources of decision-making power. Although I believe there is something to be learned from both the participatory and the

Madisonian strategies for dealing with partisanship, I end up rejecting both of them in favor of an alternative which weds Madison

Deliberation requires openness and the cooperative exercise of the intellect; partisanship presumes closure

and involves the factional exercise of rhetorical manipulation or raw power. As a general rule, it also follows

that deliberative democracy will flourish in inverse proportion to partisanship. For this reason deliberative democrats

need a strategy for eliminating (or at least containing) partisanship. This paper advances such a strategy, a strategy which I recommend based on

a critique of the two alternatives that have for some time dominated thinking in this area. The first of these alternativ es is advanced by a wide-

range of participatory democrats. On their view, partisanship can not only be contained, but also perhaps eliminated altogether, by having would-

be partisans confront one another m public decision-making bodies. The participatory strategy ultimately rests on the belief that all partisanconflict is susceptible to transformation as long as partisanship is confronted directly. Indeed, the participatory strategy for dealing with

partisanship enjoins two sorts of confrontation: confrontation among citizens and confrontation with an actual decision. The second alternative

strategy for dealing with partisanship that I examine here, no less well known, is Madisonian





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SDI 2009

Framework

Deliberation Good – Authoritarianism

Public deliberation prevents authoritarianism.

Elshtain 98

(Jean Bethke, Professor of Social and Political Ethics at University of Chicago Divinity School, esteemed American political philosopher,

published over five hundred essays and twenty books on political theory. From Political Theory. Vol. 26, No. 3, June 1998. d/l 7/13/09 obt.

JSTOR)

Back to radical evil and a possible move Nino doesn't make but might have. In noting en passant, but not really reckoning with Arendt's shift tothe banality of evil, Nino makes his legal and ethical task even more daunting than it needed to have been. There is about radical evil a kind of

limitless inexhaustibility; thus, unsurprisingly, when Arendt embraced this view she questioned "the viability of punishing and pardoning radical

evil because, under a retributive theory, blame and retributive punishment must be proportional to the magnitude of the evil committed. But how

can this be done? Our vocabulary for moral blame soon runs out when we want to condemn the genocide of six million persons or the torture of

children. To say that these acts were wrong sounds like a kind of irony" (p. 141). But Arendt, in the Eichmann book, supports Eichmann'sexecution, though on grounds consistent with her shift to the banality of evil. Once she had moved the conceptual terrain, she was able to write

the eloquent condemnation of Eichmann with which she ends her book and with which she wishes the Israeli judges had ended Eichmann's trial.

Nino can only see in Arendt's banality of evil an expression of Arendt's own bafflement. Thus, from a political theory perspective, he misses

much that he should have picked up. That having been said, this is a worthy and decent book marked by a thoughtful, judicious temperament.

One further point needs to be made. Although Nino rejects retributive punishment, he does favor retroactive justice "in the context of radical

evil," and that for this reason: "The trials promote public deliberation in a unique manner. Public deliberation counteracts the

authoritarian tendencies which led, and continue to lead, to a weakening of the democratic system and massive

human rights violations. All public deliberation has this effect, but especially when the subject of the public

discussion is those very authoritarian tendencies"(p. 147). Thus, for Nino, any form of punishment should serve several goals. It

should promote accountability and simultaneously underscore a commitment to rights-the very rights the defendants in the cases he reviews

spurned and trammeled with their cruel and wanton actions.



CBS Lab

27

SDI 2009

Framework

Critical Discourse Bad – Democracy

Critical discourse undermines peace and democracy

Spragens 00

[Thomas A. Spragens, Professor of Political Science at Duke, 2000, Political Theory and Partisan Politics, p. 90-1]

So long as we are fallibilist but not pyrrhonist in our moral epistemology, we should recognize that liberal democratic regimes are the natural

homes of political theory and the places where the functions of political theory are most integral to the premises and practices of political life and

legitimacy. For it is these regimes that make legitimacy consist in the consent of a citizenry presumed to be both rational and possessed of the

moral powers. In that context, rational discourse about what is to be done seems an essential component of legitimate politics, since that form of contestation is essential to the creation of a popular will that can pass muster—that is, to the formation of a popular will that can claim to be

rational consent rather than aggregate whimsy. To say that liberal democratic regimes are the natural homes of political theory is not to say that

tensions do not characterize the relationship between them. In its deployment of critical reason, political theory must seem somewhat subversive

to all regimes, liberal democracies included. Political theoretical critique casts a skeptical eye on all legitimacy myths, and it must puncture

claims to political certitude and hegemony. It also will be subject to critical and potentially corrosive scrutiny the justifications set forth on their

own behalf by powerful interests in democratic societies, including perhaps those enshrined by a democratic majority. This constant

critique is socially useful but often not politically welcome. This critical function of political theory is one that

even moral cynics and epistemological skeptics can appreciate and accredit. But political theory also plays a

more constructive role in liberal democ racies, one that the cynic fails to appreciate and one that a thorough -

going and unqualified cynicism would ultimately undermine. Relying upon the moral powers and theirattendant passions for its energy and relying upon the logical and linguistic constraints of moral dis course for

its direction, political theoretical dialogue assists the movement toward the more complex form of objectivity

in political and practical affairs envisioned by Karl Mannheim, someone who was as aware as anyone of the ways that our sociological

particularities and partisan interests produce competing perspectives. Mannheim explained: The problem, he wrote, is not how we might arrive at

a non-perspectivistic picture but how, by juxtaposing the various points of view, each perspective may be recognized as such and thereby a new

level of objectivity attained. Thus we come to the point where the false ideal of a detached, impersonal point of view must be replaced by the

ideal of an essentially human point of view which is within the limits of a human perspective, constantly trying to enlarge itself. (Mannheim1936, 296-297) Political theory at its best, I would argue, functions constructively in precisely this fashion. It admits into its conversation

conflicting perspectives and arguments that ineluctably are grounded in our sociological particularities and our partisan political interests. These

perspectives are then set against each other and subjected to critical scrutiny in the context of those logical and linguistic constraints that

constitute the discipline of reason. From that agonistic dialectic, narrowly partisan perspectives tend to lose credence and get winnowed out. Or

they become broadened, amended, and complexified into new, more capacious and synthetic normative conceptions of the political world. Thesesyntheses are neither final nor complete but continue to undergo continual change and revision under the impact of further challenge. What

results from this process of critical moral dialogue between competing perspectives is, then, not some final Hegelian scientific super-synthesis,

much less some Cartesian perfect transcendence. But what does result, I would argue, is a greater tendency among all participants to be self-critical about their naive attachments and premises and a great and salutary pressure toward inducing in them a more enlarged, morecomprehensive, and more impartial viewpoint regarding their society, their fellow citizens, and the issues of public policy they must address.

From the kind of robust and rationally disciplined political dialogue embodied in political theory, one learns, as John Stuart Mill

(1962, 168) put it, "to feel for and with his fellow citizens and becomes consciously a member of a great community." This is a form of discourse

and discipline that pushes toward those "more comprehensive and distant views" (Mill 1962, 138) that are the cognitive base of the public

spiritedness that Mill, Tocqueville, the civic repub licans, and even James Madison thought essential to the health of a

democratic body politic. It is a form of discourse, moreover, that sharp ens the habits and skills necessary for

serious democratic deliberation. And this, I would insist, is no small contribution to the democratic enterprise of self-governance.



CBS Lab

28

SDI 2009

Framework

Ballot Key

The ballot is necessary to produce effective political action: political discourse brings about a

change of heart that translates into a real behavioral response.

Dietz 00

[Mary Dietz, Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, 2000, Political Theory and Partisan Politics p. 121-3]

Jürgen Habermas has recently been developing a strong link between a philosophical conception of language (as communicative rationality)

geared toward the redemption of validity claims; and the concrete dynamics of politics as speech-action. He unites the two in a discoursetheory of politics as deliberative democracy, where the public use of reason is distinguished by the enactment of procedures (validity rela-

tions) through which participants (as free and equal citizens) achieve agreement through critical discussion, or at least engage in "action

oriented toward reaching understanding" (Habermas 1993b, 133). Habermasian citizens are truth-seekers insofar as, in Habermas's words,

"the sphere of validity relations is ... internally differentiated in terms of the viewpoints proper to truth, normative Tightness, and subjective

truthfulness or authenticity" (Habermas 1990, 115).8 In short, Habermas's defense of rationality and reasonableness, and

his equally compelling conception of politics as democratic deliberation, are both directed toward

identifying and rooting out of politics "distorted com municative" conditions. In clarifying the relation

between speech and politics, Habermas notes that "discourse theory has the success of deliberative politics

depend not on a collectively acting citizenry but on the institutionalization of the corresponding

procedures and conditions of communication" (n.d. 12, italics mine). The "procedures and conditions" to which Habermasrefers emerge out of a theory that (a) thematizes a "terrain of argumentation" in which validity claims are made; (b) assumes that all speech

presupposes a "background consensus" among participants; and (c) anticipates that the validity claims inherent in the performing of a speech

action can be "vindicated" or "redeemed" (Einlosen) when the background consensus among interlocutors breaks down or is challenged.9

Habermas links linguistic intersubjectivity as practical discourse to the vindication of validity-claims that all citizens make (either implicitlyor explicitly) as speakers. Therefore, discourse theory reconstructs four claims that are potentially redeemable in every statement a speaker

makes, and grounded in the very character (or the "universal pragmatics") of our linguistic intersubjectivity: (1) intelligibility (or com-

prehensibility); (2) truth (regarding the propositional content); (3) justifiability (or appropriateness, in terms of the norms invoked); and (4)

truthfulness (or sincerity, in the sense that the speaker does not intend to deceive the listener). Undistorted communication (and hence the

success of deliberative politics) is thus secured in procedures and conditions in which interlocutors can, if necessary, redeem the four validity-claims to intelligibility, truth, justifiability, and truthfulness that are themselves embedded in every speech-act. The premise behind

the highly specialized discussion that Habermas calls "practical discourse" is the desire to reach agreement on the basis of "rationally

motivated approval of the substance of an utterance" (Habermas 1993b, 134). Thus, discourse ethics establishes what Habermas calls a

"fundamental idea": interactions are communicative "when the participants coordinate their plans of action consensually, with the agreement

reached at any point being evaluated in terms of the intersubjective recognition of validity claims" (Habermas 1993b, 58).10 To clarify this point, Habermas draws his now well-known distinction between two types of social interaction—communicative and strategic: Whereas in

strategic action one actor seeks to influence the behavior of another by means of the threat of sanctions or the prospect of gratification in

order to cause the interaction to continue as the first actor desires, in communicative action one actor seeks rationally to motivate another byrelying on the illocutionary binding/bonding effect (Bindungseffekt) of the offer contained in his speech act. (Habermas 1993b, 58)" The

normative and procedural implications of Habermas's analytic distinction are instructively sketched by Simone Chambers: As opposed to

strategic action, where participants are primarily inter ested in bringing about a desired behavioral

response, in communica tive action, participants are interested in bringing about a "change of heart." For

example, in strategic action participants often attempt to sway each other by introducing influences unrelated to the merits of an argument,for example, threats, bribes, or coercion. . . . Communicative actors are primarily interested in mutual understanding as opposed to external

behavior.... Only the "force of the better argument" should have the power to sway participants. (Chambers, 1996, 99) 9



CBS Lab

29

SDI 2009

Framework

Critiques Good

Their framework masks and distracts from the exclusion and violence it creates, other frames of

thinking are necessary to check this back

Bleiker 97

[Roland, Ph.D. visiting research and teaching affiliations at Harvard, Cambridge, Humboldt, Tampere, Yonsei and Pusan National University as

well as the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, “Forget IR Theory,” Alternatives 97]

The doorkeepers of IR are those who, knowingly or unknowingly, make sure that the discipline’s discursive

boundaries remain intact. Discourses, in a Foucaultian sense, are subtle mechanisms that frame our thinking

process. They determine the limits of what can be thought, talked, and written of in a normal and rational

way. In every society the production of discourses is controlled, selected, organized, and diffused by

certain procedures. They create systems of exclusion that elevate one group of discourses to a hegemonic

status while condemning others to exile. Although the boundaries of discourses change, at times gradually, at times abruptly,

they maintain a certain unity across time, a unity that dominates and transgresses individual authors, texts, or social practices. They

explain, to return to Nietzsche, why “all things that live long are gradually so saturated with reason that their

origin in unreason thereby becomes improbable.”28 Academic disciplines are powerful mechanisms todirect and control the production and diffusion of discourses. They establish the rules of intellectual

exchange and define the methods, techniques, and instruments that are considered proper for the pursuit

of knowledge. Within these margins, each discipline recognizes true and false propositions based on the

standards of evaluation it established to assess them.29 <63-64>

Critique solves – critical dissent is necessary to combat the hegemony of the epistemological

assumptions of the affirmative

Bleiker 2K

[Roland, Ph.D. visiting research and teaching affiliations at Harvard, Cambridge, Humboldt, Tampere, Yonsei and Pusan National University as

well as the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague,(Roland, Popular Dissent, Human Agency and

Global Politics, Cambridge University Press)]

This chapter has mapped out some of the discursive terrains in which transversal dissent takes place. Discourses are not invincible

monolithic forces that subsume everything in reach. Despite their power to frame social practices, a

discursively entrenched hegemonic order can be fragmented and thin at times. To excavate the possibilities

for dissent that linger in these cracks, a shift of foci from epistemological to ontological issues is necessary.Scrutinising the level of Being reveals how individuals can escape aspects of hegemony. Dasein, the existential awareness of Being, always

already contains the potential to become something else than what it is. By shifting back and forth etween hyphenated identities, an individual can

travel across various discursive fields of power and gain the critical insight necessary to escape at least some aspect of the prevailing order.

Transversal practices of dissent that issue from such mobile subjectivities operate at the level of dailiness.

Through a range of seemingly mundane acts of resistance, people can gradually transform societal values and

thus promote powerful processes of social change. Theses transformations are not limited to existing

boundaries of sovereignty. The power of discursive practices is not circumscribed by some ultimate spatial

delineation, and neither are the practices of dissent that interfere with them. At a time when the flow of

capital and information is increasingly trans-territorial, the sphere of everyday life has become an integral

aspect of global politics — one that deserves the attention of scholars who devote themselves to the analysis of international relations. The remaining chapters seek to sustain this claim and, in doing so, articulate a viable and non-essentialist concept

of human agency.



CBS Lab

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SDI 2009

Framework

Switch-Side Debate Good

Switch side debate key to challenging the dominant dialogue

English et al. 07[Eric, Stephen Llano, Gordon R. Mitchell, Catherine E. Morrison, John Rief, Carly Woods. Collaborative study by the DAWG at the University

of Pittsburgh. “Debate as a Weapon of Mass Destruction.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies.Vol. 4, No. 2, June 2007, pp 221-225.

Obt. from <http://www.pitt.edu/~gordonm/JPubs/EnglishDAWG.pdf>]

The success of former debaters like Katyal, Tribe, and others in challenging the dominant dialogueon homeland security

points to the efficacy of academic debate as a training ground for future advocates of progressive change.

Moreover, a robust understanding of the switch-side technique and the classical liberalism which underpins it would

help prevent misappropriation of the technique to bolster suspect homeland security policies. For buried within an

inner-city debater’s files is a secret threat to absolutism: the refusal to be classified as ‘‘with us or against

us,’’ the embracing of intellectual experimentatioxqn in an age of orthodoxy, and reflexivity in the face of

fundamentalism. But by now, the irony of our story should be apparent the more effectively academic debating practice can be focused

toward these ends, the greater the proclivity of McCarthy’s ideological heirs to brand the activity as a ‘‘weapon of mass destruction.’’

Switch side debate solves fundamentalism and American exceptionalism.

English et al. 07

[Eric, Stephen Llano, Gordon R. Mitchell, Catherine E. Morrison, John Rief, Carly Woods. Collaborative study by the DAWG at the University

of Pittsburgh. “Debate as a Weapon of Mass Destruction.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies.Vol. 4, No. 2, June 2007, pp 221-225.Obt. from <http://www.pitt.edu/~gordonm/JPubs/EnglishDAWG.pdf>]

It is our position, however, that rather than acting as a cultural technology expanding American exceptionalism,

switch-side debating originates from a civic attitude that serves as a bulwark against fundamentalism of all

stripes. Several prominent voices reshaping the national dialogue on homeland security have come from the

academic debate community and draw on its animating spirit of critical inquiry. For example, Georgetown University

law professor Neal Katyal served as lead plaintiff ’s counsel in Hamdan, which challenged post-9/11 enemy combat definitions.12 The

foundation for Katyal’s winning argument in Hamdan was laid some four years before, when he collaborated with former intercollegiate debate

champion Laurence Tribe on an influential Yale Law Journal addressing a similar topic.13



CBS Lab

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SDI 2009

Framework

Switch-Side Debate Bad

Switch side debate destroys the intended use of debate.

Greene and Hicks 05

(Ronald Walter and Darrin. “Lost Convictions: Debating both sides and the ethical self-fashioning of liberal citizens.” Cultural Studies. 1/1/05.Obt. 7/18/09 via Ingenta)

In the context of the original controversy, Douglas Ehninger (1958) feared that debating both sides isolates and separates debate

from the real world, making ‘little or no direct contribution to the solving of mankind’s present and future

problems’ (p. 128). Ehninger hoped to use debate as a substantive method for seeking truth in hopes that this truth might be useful in solving

real-world problems. Ehninger feared that absent this commitment to the search for truth, competitive debate was

rendered an empty technique open to the ethical abuses of distorting the truth, fostering a separation between

speaking as form and speaking as content. Moreover, Ehninger claimed that debating both sides contributed to this

game mentality and rendered debate an esoteric activity, transforming the spoken word into ‘mere rhetoric’.Ehninger’s flight from mere rhetoric, however, was attenuated by the shifting terrain of Day’s reassignment of the democratic ethos to full and

free expression as a pre-requisite for locating truth. It was Day’s investment in the norm of free speech that provided the link between argument

pedagogy and the real world deemed necessary for debate to promote the democratic subjectification of the student.

Switch side debate separates speech from conviction, leading to American exceptionalism.

Greene and Hicks 05

(Ronald Walter and Darrin. “Lost Convictions: Debating both sides and the ethical self-fashioning of liberal citizens.” Cultural Studies. 1/1/05.

Obt. 7/18/09 via Ingenta)

This paper argues that the strong liberal defence of debating both sides separates speech from conviction. Debating both

sides does so by de-coupling the sincerity principle from the arguments presented by a debater. In place of

the assumption that a debater believes in what he or she argues, debating both sides grooms one to appreciate the process of debate as a

method of democratic decision-making. We argue the debating both sides controversy articulates debate to Cold War

liberal discourses of ‘American exceptionalism’ by folding the norm of free and full expression onto the soul of the debater. In

turn, a debater willing to debate both sides becomes a representative of the free world. Furthermore, we will demonstrate how debating both sidesas a technique of moral development works alongside specific aesthetic modes of class subjectivity increasingly associated with the efforts of the

knowledge class to legitimize the process of judgment. Debating both sides reveals how the globalization of liberalism is less about a set of

universal norms and more about the circulation and uptake of cultural technologies.

Documents

CBS Framework