This article smacks of a classic bad-debater behavior: "I can't win rhetorically on the power of my own argument so I'll attack the people and techniques that a

This article smacks of a classic bad-debater behavior: "I can't win rhetorically on the power of my own argument so I'll attack the people and techniques that are beating me instead of addressing them substantively." The correct response to "the whole world is broken and we can't debate X because it's stoppered by Y" is "the world is not broken (enough) to not debate X because there are practical things we can do about X." If that's a unpersuasive argument, well, then it's unpersuasive and you ought to ask yourself why. It's always possible the judges are biased in favor of one argument or another, but that's how the game has always worked. There are lots of arguments against critical theory that have merit and are useful in debate. "Boo hoo I don't like critical theory" isn't one of them.