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> I think this an attempt to champion the idea of rhetoric as a virtue, in the face of arguments made in bad faith. I'm legitimately not sure whether by "this

by kalkin 3y ago

> I think this an attempt to champion the idea of rhetoric as a virtue, in the face of arguments made in bad faith. I'm legitimately not sure whether by "this is an attempt" you're referring to critiques in debate or the article. In practice, for better or worse very few of the people who use critiques in debate are true believers. Even if they're leftists taking a generally leftist approach, a Marxist is likely to take up an Afro-pessimist position or vice versa for tactical reasons. Exactly the sort of "have to defend the opposite side with equal logic and vigor" you commend is involved - only rather than just two sides, the sides include "X would have good consequences", "X would have bad consequences", "you're doing good/harm by talking about X", "X is on/off topic for this year's resolution", etc. As for the article - it may be attempting to defend the virtue of being able to effectively defend opposing points of view, but it's doing so in a confused way at best. Just to give a couple examples: > Even if they’re not advocating for kritiks, in order to succeed at the national level, debaters have to learn how to respond critical theory arguments without actually disagreeing with their radical principles It is indeed often more effective in debate to respond to a critique by denying or reversing the (often tenuous) link to what you actually proposed than to try to refute an ideology wholesale, but that burden is entirely consistent with the mentality that learning to "defend the opposite side" is valuable. And even so the premise here is wrong - at least when I was doing this <redacted> years ago, it was by no means taboo to simply counter-critique at the ideological level instead. > This drives out students who don’t want to learn about critical theory It's true that competing at the national level in high school or college debate demands quite a lot in terms of research and preparation. It's not, however, clear to me why it would be better to drive out students who refuse to advocate views with which they disagree (the mostly-straw critique debater) but are willing to actually prepare to face them, than to drive out students who are unwilling even to prepare to refute a certain category of argument. > High school debate has become an activity that incentivizes students to advocate for nihilist accelerationism in order to win rounds This is silly hyperbole that suggests (a) Slow Boring could use better editing and (b) the author would have benefited from actually trying to engage with substance of some critiques, such that they might be able to distinguish Karl Marx or the afropessimists from Nick Land or the e/accs...

noduerme 3y ago
>> I'm legitimately not sure whether I was referring to the article. >> It's not, however, clear to me why it would be better to drive out students who refuse to advocate views with which they disagree (the mostly-straw critique debater) but are willing to actually prepare to face them, than to drive out students who are unwilling even to prepare to refute a certain category of argument. Well, both students are unwilling to engage with the material they need to deal with, as unpleasant as it is. I personally don't think one is worse than the other on its face. But if the ground rules of the debate have shifted in a way that forces you to frame everything in a way that implicates the speaker as agreeing with the position they're arguing unless they use a particular category of argument to undermine that position while they're arguing it, then it's not a matter of learning to refute that category of argument but rather being forced to embrace it. Rejecting that artificial requirement to salt your own speech seems rather honorable in the "purest" sense of debate; whereas refusing to play by the rules and do the work of arguing something you don't agree with shows an unwillingness to engage with the subject matter - which is not the topic of debate, but the ability to debate.
- kalkin 3y ago
  There is no ground rule that "forces you" to implicate yourself as person as committed to the positions you take as debater. But there's also no ground rule that prevents your opponent from trying to implicate you in that way. If they do, you get to choose how to respond. In general what it means to "play by the rules" has always been up for contestation in competitive policy debate (see also "topicality" arguments and arguments about what one is entitled to "fiat" as part of one's proposal). If one wants to win under a certain conception of the rules, one also needs to be prepared to defend that conception of the rules. In another version of debate that might not be true - perhaps that's "public forum", which I know little about? - but for many policy debaters I think the fact that everything is open to question is part of the challenge and the fun.
  - noduerme 3y ago
    Right, but I think you're talking about the real world. I'm saying that in an debate competition, where the rules of the forum are such that the sides are assigned at random, impugning your opponent's reputation for arguing too well or too convincingly for the side they were assigned - while refusing to argue any side you don't agree with - demolishes the purpose of the debate. It's akin to "winning" a debate by showing up with a baseball bat and daring anyone to challenge your point of view. That is often called debate in a totalitarian system, but that's precisely why such systems are so brittle and inefficient at coping with and responding to policy challenges. My point is that such a "win" is not, in fact, a win, either in the rhetorical sense of changing anyone's mind, or the utilitarian sense of finding the best way forward on an issue, because everyone can see you merely bullied people into silence - hence there was no debate. Thus suppression of the opposing side under threat of censure or harm has no lasting power to override the speech you don't like, and usually backfires.

by kalkin 3y ago

noduerme 3y ago

>> I'm legitimately not sure whether I was referring to the article. >> It's not, however, clear to me why it would be better to drive out students who refuse to advocate views with which they disagree (the mostly-straw critique debater) but are willing to actually prepare to face them, than to drive out students who are unwilling even to prepare to refute a certain category of argument. Well, both students are unwilling to engage with the material they need to deal with, as unpleasant as it is. I personally don't think one is worse than the other on its face. But if the ground rules of the debate have shifted in a way that forces you to frame everything in a way that implicates the speaker as agreeing with the position they're arguing unless they use a particular category of argument to undermine that position while they're arguing it, then it's not a matter of learning to refute that category of argument but rather being forced to embrace it. Rejecting that artificial requirement to salt your own speech seems rather honorable in the "purest" sense of debate; whereas refusing to play by the rules and do the work of arguing something you don't agree with shows an unwillingness to engage with the subject matter - which is not the topic of debate, but the ability to debate.

kalkin 3y ago
There is no ground rule that "forces you" to implicate yourself as person as committed to the positions you take as debater. But there's also no ground rule that prevents your opponent from trying to implicate you in that way. If they do, you get to choose how to respond. In general what it means to "play by the rules" has always been up for contestation in competitive policy debate (see also "topicality" arguments and arguments about what one is entitled to "fiat" as part of one's proposal). If one wants to win under a certain conception of the rules, one also needs to be prepared to defend that conception of the rules. In another version of debate that might not be true - perhaps that's "public forum", which I know little about? - but for many policy debaters I think the fact that everything is open to question is part of the challenge and the fun.
- noduerme 3y ago
  Right, but I think you're talking about the real world. I'm saying that in an debate competition, where the rules of the forum are such that the sides are assigned at random, impugning your opponent's reputation for arguing too well or too convincingly for the side they were assigned - while refusing to argue any side you don't agree with - demolishes the purpose of the debate. It's akin to "winning" a debate by showing up with a baseball bat and daring anyone to challenge your point of view. That is often called debate in a totalitarian system, but that's precisely why such systems are so brittle and inefficient at coping with and responding to policy challenges. My point is that such a "win" is not, in fact, a win, either in the rhetorical sense of changing anyone's mind, or the utilitarian sense of finding the best way forward on an issue, because everyone can see you merely bullied people into silence - hence there was no debate. Thus suppression of the opposing side under threat of censure or harm has no lasting power to override the speech you don't like, and usually backfires.