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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 tha

by 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.
- kalkin 3y ago
  I was talking about competitive policy debate, which I think I was pretty explicit about. I am unaware of a case of anyone showing up to one of those with a baseball bat, and I don't know where you're getting the "suppression... under threat of censure or harm" thing. Having a debate judge vote against you is not harm (certainly happened to me plenty of times and I'm doing ok). Are you transporting a general sort of culture war fear into the context of debate? The article does seem to be trying to get readers to do that, so it's forgivable, but calling critiques "bullying" is a real stretch at best.

by kalkin 3y ago

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.

kalkin 3y ago
I was talking about competitive policy debate, which I think I was pretty explicit about. I am unaware of a case of anyone showing up to one of those with a baseball bat, and I don't know where you're getting the "suppression... under threat of censure or harm" thing. Having a debate judge vote against you is not harm (certainly happened to me plenty of times and I'm doing ok). Are you transporting a general sort of culture war fear into the context of debate? The article does seem to be trying to get readers to do that, so it's forgivable, but calling critiques "bullying" is a real stretch at best.