How Affirmatives Can Win on Theory

Posted June 3rd, 2012 by admin. 0 Comments Misael Gonzalez Trinity University, UTNIF Im going to start with a story. Its not long, I promise.

I had the opportunity to judge a debate at the Tournament of Champions earlier this year where the 1AR did a fantastic job of extending multiple conditional worlds bad. She spent a solid minute on it and not only answered each of the blocks arguments line by line, but also extended her offense and set up a voting framework of competing interpretations. The 1NC included two counter-plans and a criticism of capitalism. The 2NR got up and decided to put the sheet of paper with theory on it last in the order. This was a very dangerous decision.

Heres why: Debaters on the collegiate level have a tendency to be very top heavy, especially if their primary position involves a lot of impact work at the beginning. After the 2N was done extending the criticism, he found himself with only thirty seconds to answer a minute extension of conditionality. With a ticking timer, he got flustered fairly quickly and not only dropped the majority of the affirmative offense, but also didnt cover the 1ARs framework for evaluating theory.

Now, Im expecting the 2AR to go for 5 minutes of theory. Sadly, this wasnt the case. They went for the little substance they had and the affirmative ended up losing on the criticism that they had been fairly behind on since the 2AC. I asked after the round why theory wasnt an option. The 2A replied that he didnt feel comfortable going for theory.

Heres where our lesson begins.

The first rule of winning theory debates is that you CANNOT be afraid to go for theory.

Teams on the negative have used this fear to not only run as many conditional worlds as they want, but also to run individual counter-plans that abuse fiat and competition. Unfortunately theres nothing to stop them if teams on the affirmative arent willing or capable enough to punish them with a theory debate. The same fear of going for it also makes it so that teams are not practiced enough at extending it, and the cycle continues. This results in quick negative ballots as a result of an inadequate affirmative afraid to defend their ground.

What most people dont understand is that if there are a plethora of debaters who dont extend theory enough in the 1AR and 2AR, teams on the negative are just as unprepared to answer it in their rebuttals because theyve never had to go beyond using their teams ten year old theory file. Its time that affirmative teams begin to take advantage of this.

The best debaters are constantly assessing the round before and after every speech. You need to be honest with yourself about what youre winning and more importantly, what youre losing. If your one shot at winning is theory after getting beat down on a counterplan you had no answers to and yet youre still too afraid to go for it, then youre going to end up giving a 2AR that just goes through the motions and wastes a judges time. You WANT the judge to deliberate, not decide during the 2NR.

Once youve overcome the fear, you might even decide that you can go for theory just because the negative decided to dismiss it, even when you could win on substance.

Before I go on to the next rule, I want to address a different type of fear that even teams competent at theory have. Many debaters dont want to be known as being theory debaters because then teams on the negative will just over cover it making it tough to extend it and win. If youre really frightening teams enough to spend a minute on conditionality in the 2NR, then youre already at a HUGE advantage. It means your 2AR only has to answer 4 minutes of substance!

The second rule of winning theory debates is that you have to have ACTUALLY THOUGHT about theory and why it matters.

One of the great things about this activity is that aside from speech times and sides, theres isnt much written in stone in terms of rules. Its up to the debaters to give the judge a vision of how debate ought to look like. Writing your own theory file where you take the time to consider issues like conditionality, fifty state fiat, and counter-plan competition is one of the most valuable things you can do as a competitor. It takes no research, just some critical thinking.

Coaches and competitors have already spent a ton of time thinking about these concepts. Luckily for you, a lot of their ideas on the subject are available online. The Wake Forest debate website has a ton of these articles. Heres a link to get you started:

http://groups.wfu.edu/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/DRGArtiarticlesIndex.htm

Some of these articles are topic specific, but many of them are timeless. Once youve thought about these issues enough, youll find that youre more capable of going for theory in a rebuttal. This is why Im not planning to give you theory blocks at the end of this post. YOU need to be doing the thinking.

Heres how to get started: 1. Write down all the reasons you think a certain position or counter-plan status is bad for debate. 2. Consider all the negative responses, defensive and offensive. 3. Write out your 1AR responses to these defensive and offensive responses. 4. Have 2AR overviews/blocks ready for these different theoretical objections.

You can use your old theory file as guidance for numbers 1 & 2. Its important however to work through number 3 & 4 on your own. Once youre done, have your coaches or lab leaders look over what youve done. If you dont have access to people like that, then send them to me! Misael.Hgonzalez@gmail.com

The third rule of winning theory debates is that impact calculus still matters.

Many judges find theory debates frustrating to decide. When a judge is frustrated, he or she is likely to let personal biases into the decision. You dont want this to happen. The way debates are won and lost is impact work. It is the very backbone of clash. It lets a judge make a differentiation between an economy impact or a biodiversity one and decide which one ought to get the ballot.

Now you are probably not going to win a conditionality debate using phrases like magnitude, timeframe and probability. There is, however, a form of theory impact calculus that you can use in these debates:

The Game. The Skills. The Education.

When youre trying to convince the judge what debate ought to look like, you should consider a few questions. What makes for the fairest game for both sides? What version of the game yields the most skills that we can use outside of the round? What version of the game yields the most beneficial education?

Every theory argument/objection should be impacted through the lens of these questions:

Multiple conditional worlds are a voting issue. 1.(THE GAME) It skews the 2AC strategy by dividing our offense into multiple worlds that we cant access again when they jettison a position. Offense on one can also be cross-applied to another by the negative. 2.(THE SKILLS) This also encourages argument irresponsibility leading to poor advocacy skills. 3.(THE EDUCATION) Positions no longer need to be researched adequately enough to defend which inhibits topic specific education.

[INSERT INTERP HERE]

This is pretty much the same conditionality bad 2ac I give every debate. Youll notice that each sub-point has its own impact. Saying the words multiple contradictory worlds alone isnt an impact. You need to tell the judge why its bad for debate. In this case, Ive said that the 2AC offense invested in one can no longer be used in other speeches if they decide to kick it. Ive also said that they can use the offense on one against the aff later.

Debating with impacts makes it a lot easier for the judge to vote for you. He or she is no longer sifting through a bunch of bullet point extensions.

Why you should start thinking about theory today!

On every domestic topic, there exists a force of evil that threatens to destroy your aff winning record and for some of you, your entire senior year. Im speaking of course, of the States Counter-Plan.

Over the years, teams have researched a ton of ways to overcome disadvantages to the Counter-Plan. There are tax-based funding mechanisms, tricks with fiat, and 2NC planks that can pretty much make any 2AC add-ons useless. Now you should certainly research these disadvantages and add-ons, but it can sometimes be an uphill battle if youre dealing with a team that with uninhibited fiat/mechanism tools. Theory NEEDS to be in your arsenal.

Here are some thoughts to get you started: Many people go for the arguments like infinite actors isnt reciprocal or no solvency advocate. These are okay, and should be made. The one argument I think people find compelling against the states counter-plan is that it isnt an opportunity cost:

Imagine a debate in congress: One senator is advocating that the United States federal government ought to invest in port security. Another senator says that the individual State governments should do it on their own. While the former bill can actually be voted on, the second senator cant draft a piece of legislation that 50 different governments should pay the money to do the projects on their own and have it voted on. There isnt a logical decision maker that can make the choice between one and the other happening. We need to limit decisions to the agent of the resolution. The cost-benefit analysis that is used to determine whether the states or the federal government should do something doesnt help us in the future as advocates.

My hope is that after reading this article you wont be afraid to consider adding theory to your arsenal. Its my experience that it can lead to some awesome upsets whether you are dukeing it out in high school or college circuits.