While much of the arguments have centered around questions of plan focus (and if judge choice is or is not plan focus. Or worse, plan focus combined with a fairly straight forward and uncomplicated judge intervention) I want to to focus on some disagreements with Harrigan’s post focused on the way we understand how critical components interact within the round. This isn’t to disagree with those who are directing their attention to the plan focus part of this discussion (clearly I agree that the idea that a nine minute speech should be reduced down to a less than half a minute plan text is laughable at best), but rather to flesh the debate out in another way.

Harrigan argues that the representations of the affirmative are not necessary components of the plan, and therefore the judge can choice to ignore them if they are problematic. He goes on to say that the most offensive person can have a good idea. However, Harrigan does not provide a guide for how we are to read the plan text. In Harrigan’s articulation, it seems as if the plan text is the only part of the 1AC that is solid, that is a proposition for action. Everything else in the 1AC seems to be so much chatter, so much ephemeral hints, so many ghosts. Under his view of the round, if someone were to propose not giving missile defense shields to Japan, and had as one of their advantages that our foreign policy should only be dictated by protecting Aryan civilizations, the judge could simply choose to ignore that because the affirmative had other, non-racist advantages. What is missed by this view is that every 1AC, every speech, has many propositions. There are more propositions of what should be done than those under the heading of plan text, and there is no reason that the neg cannot focus on rejecting those propositions (well, there are reasons of course, but that should be in the debate, not predetermined by the judge).

Furthermore, the plan text itself is never a full bill (for good reason). But that means we never completely know the ways that a plan will be implemented and interpreted. The representations of the 1AC give us a context, a way to read the plan text. For example, you could have two different people advocating that abortion should be legal in some particular country. One person could be advocating greater social autonomy, more reproductive choices and rights for women, etc. Another person could be advocating that abortion could be a tool for scientific eugenics. The reasons given for a policy could be a hint for the ways that a policy is intended to be implemented. There seems no reason to radically decontextualize plan text, because plan text always needs a contextualization.

Also, the reasons given for pushing for a policy agenda could splinter groups, making the real world implementation of such a policy harder to come about. To use the example above, think about the ways that such eugenicist discourses surrounding abortion supporters in the US not only made it hard to get support among women of color, but also further fragmented the feminist movement which has constrained their ability to make other goals.

Lastly, it seems to me that Harrigan ignores the importance of symbolic battles. Harrigan seems to purpose that the only thing voted for at the end of the round is plan text. However, to use his example of a town hall meeting (which, I am not granting this is the right framework/analogy to understand debate, but to think within it for a bit), it isn’t just a plan that is being debated about, but an entire series of relays and rhetorics that support such a plan. If, for example, the Nazis really were suggesting health care reform to better protect Aryans, and I said, “Man, I hate Nazis and racism, but health care reform seems grand” I would be allowing the symbolic strength of the Nazis to increase by letting them win a battle of the importance of health care reform. The policy is not the only thing granted legitimacy, but the entire apparatuses and relays that garner support for the policy is also given legitimacy. I think it is perfectly reasonable to say that it might be more important to stop the Nazis and their racist agenda than it would be to pass the parts of the Nazi agenda I agree with. Every debate has a series of symbolic battles, that gather legitimacy through wins, and through the repetitions of those arguments.

Now, I understand that all of the examples I give are extreme, but it seems that Harrigan invites such examples by saying that the worst sort can still have good ideas. In short, I think the extreme examples give us an ability to determine if reps sometimes should win the day. And if we believe that, then the entire type of discussion shifts. Debaters give many representations, and many propositions, for their plan texts. They have many rounds at a tournament, and many tournaments in a year. If we want them to not repeat certain representations, we have to open up the possibility that they can lose a round based on such representations. Otherwise, certain symbols are given more legitimacy at the end of the round, and others are given less.

There are a lot of things that happen in the 1AC, and all of them are open for debate.

Maurizio Viano, professor of film and media studies at Wellesley College, introduction to Marx Beyond Marx by Antonio Negri. 1991 pp. xxxviii-xxxix

It is at this point that I think I can hear an objection raised by readers of this book in the US. One might very well have the impression that the autonomous language—as contingently exemplified by Marx Beyond Marx—is extremely abstracted from that reality proclaimed as being the main target. I can hear a common-sensical, reasonable protest, saying that Negri’s book is rather removed from any possible appropriation by an average proletarian reader. While I hope this won’t deter the reader from pursuing his/her interests in this area, I would like to anticipate a two-fold answer to this objection. In the first place, one must remember that the analysis of the new class composition has probed the concept of “social worker”, and that students and intellectuals are facets of this protein-form concept. It is then conceivable that Negri’s voice—the voice that uttered these very lessons in Paris and organized them in Italy— is addressed to that particular sector of the recomposed class. This is openly admitted, without any recrimination, by the non-intellectual elements of the Movement, such as the Neapolitan unemployed workers who have high respect for Negri’s work without having had the opportunity to follow his intellectual gymnastics. It would be an idealist mistake, rooted in the bourgeois notion of universal man, to assume that a book can be consumed and appropriated indifferently by the whole spectrum of the social subjects. It is moreover possible to find, in Italian bookstores, “translated” (that is, “brought beyond”), parallel instances of the same discourse: non-academic voices can be heard all throughout the communication arteries of the Movement, and Negri’s elaborated language is nothing but a homage to difference, to the invisible existence of autonomous, separated bodies within the forces that oppose the State and its leveling, homologizing strategies.
Secondly, the difficultly of a text must also be related to the workings of its socio-cultural context, that is, to the direction imparted by cultural politics. Our having listened to the language of the “normal”, “natural” voices makes it clear that their discourse is like tonal music: easier to listen to than a music whose order and units are not repeated and hence not given the market monopoly which puts them within everybody’s reach, which makes them catchy. The process of vocabulary (and category) acquisition is far from being a neutral one, and we cannot say that Autonomia’s terminology is something we are often exposed to. Autonomia’s language in general and Negri’s in particular (Negri adds, after all, only a supplementary, academic difficultly to an already “tough” language) are then positioned at the margins by the existing system of symbolic reproduction. Better, they are positioned as they posit themselves at the margins, as a political project of dissociation—practical and discursive—from the centralizing ideology of the State. And it is upon a careful consideration of the ramifications of this two-fold answer that I can hear American readers soften their criticisms when faced with the “tough” problems of Marx Beyond Marx poses. Soften their diffidence and spurring themselves to aim at a “savage” appropriation of anything in these lessons that might enrich their own subjectivity (subject-activity), their own potency. Perhaps it will not seem so different.

Etienne Balibar, Professor of Critical Theory at the University of California , Irvine , and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Paris X– Nanterre. We, the People of Europe? 2004, p. 120.

Well, I can, sorta. I will try to tell you the things that helped me when I was in my late teens and reading Foucault, Deleuze, etc.

(1) Remember, interviews and lectures are often far more accessible than the more formally published stuff. While not universially true, it is still mostly true. And once you start grasping the concepts and how a thinker works and what she is trying to advance, the rest becomes a lot easier.

(2) Try reading the book twice. The first time, read and just get through it. Work concepts as you go along, rather than worry about trying to get every little thing. Then read a second time, going through the book more slowly, trying to actually understand it this time. That’s how I did Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipas when I first worked with that text, and I really cannot suggest this technique enough for that text in particular.

(3) You might not actually know how to read. This was a surprise to me that I encountered with Heidegger, of all people. Sure, I was a lover of books since elemtary school, but reading fun novels had in many ways taught me to not read. It taught me to basically skim a book. Which is fine if you are reading Harry Potter or, more in my case, Orson Scott Card, but it becomes a problem when words are used in particular ways, or defined once and then used in a specific sense from then on. You might need to practice not skimming. The skill of a good skimming is well trained in debaters, so you need to be able to do both.

(4) Building off of the last point, if you are having trouble understanding a book, don’t cut it while reading it. Looking for the next card will mean ignoring nuance, ignoring all the stuff that doesn’t quite make a card. This may put you behind on your assignments, and I am sorry.

(5) Dictionaries are your friend.

(6) So is wikipedia.

Remember though, the most important thing when reading is actually to read. I know a lot of people in debate (and the acedemy!) are so naturally smart they think being able to get ahead without reading is a sign of intelligence. It might be, but it will put you behind in the long run. Trust me as someone who routinely did this. So, read!

EDIT: Also, where do I go to change the subtitle of this blog?

As far as your question about Zizek and Baudrillard I’d say a couple of things: (1) Zizek often writes like a debater. Not so much, say, Derrida. To be honest, he does a good job of writing exciting, not particularly nuanced, cards. It is the same reason that so many politics impact cards gravitate towards the likes of Norman Podhoretz, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Khalilzad, Krauthammer, etc. When you look for a card (or when judge reads a card) there are some things you look for. (1) Lack of gray area. You want the card to leave no wiggle room for anything else than its use. (2) Comparative, you want the card to take a strong position against another one. (3) Catastrophic, you really want the card to talk about total destruction, and in the most definitive ways possible. Those aren’t all, but they are certainly important. What is the result of such cards? We gravitate towards authors that describe the world in black and white terms. We gravitate towards those that believe even the most minor deviations from those world views will lead to apocalyptic scenarios. And, we gravitate towards those are willing to demonize their opponents. That’s not good. Really, in many ways our arguments are resembling more and more cable news shows. We privilege people who are willing to stir up the audience, say outrageous things, and get down and dirty with the other side. More or less regardless of any expertise, as long as some attempt is made to say they belong in this arena. So, it is not surprising to me that a leninist and someone who said the gulf war didn’t happen are so popular on the K side, and it doesn’t surprise me that perpetually incorrect doomsday saying neocons are on the policy side.

Look, the game is fun. And I mostly like the way it is played. But it is getting silly that both sides have to attracted to such annoying figures. I seriously do worry about an activity that activily rewards reading unnuanced and outlandish figures. Especially the neocons, of course.