(W)D: A Defense of Lincoln-Douglas Debate

Lincoln-Douglas is sometimes deemed "inferior policy" by those who point to its short speech times, easily recyclable scripts, blippy argumentation, and recent drift away from its "intended" purpose of values debate. Although these are valid criticisms, to claim that they completely nullify LD's educational benefits would be a harsh over-generalization. Regardless of the format they compete in, debaters receive benefits from the competitive incentives for research, the process of argumentation that teaches critical thinking skills, and content mastery -- these are accumulated over topics, seasons, and years rather than the span of any individual round. LD being less research-heavy than policy and more jargon-heavy than PF is a feature, not a design flaw -- the ability to have fast, content-rich circuit-style debates in a 1-on-1 format all within 45 minutes is extremely valuable for those who do not have a partner (or don't have anyone who matches their commitment level, schedule, preferred argument style, etc.) or find value in perfecting a set of philosophical positions that can be read across topics. As with any activity, it is sometimes unfair and esoteric. But, as with any activity, participation yields a wide array of benefits that are only enhanced with commitment and effort put in.

Firstly, the importance of evidence is massively underrated by (L)D. To produce a complete debate file -- whether it is policy, kritikal, or philosophical -- takes double-digit hours. There are few things more devastating to face than a case-specific PIC, plan-specific kritik links, or a niche new AFF. While some judges do not read evidence after a round, most good judges do. To answer the inevitable objection that reading evidence is a form of intervention -- it is not. Reading evidence merely determines what weight arguments get for development in further speeches. Refusing to read evidence is lazy judging. There would be no point in reading cards at all if they were not considered part of a speech and given weight based on quality, just as rebuttal speeches are. There are still some judges who refuse to read evidence in policy, and of course, we all know the horrors of PF evidence practices. But this is ultimately a problem with judges (and, of course, debaters’ lack of willingness to spend time calling out bad evidence and explaining why it should lose) – not an intrinsic problem with LD. From personal experience, one of these authors won a round at the TOC this year on the basis of good evidence. The RfD began, “I thought I was going to vote AFF, but I read the evidence and I understood the NEG’s argument, this evidence was just so good.” Of course, this is an extreme example, and we won’t pretend that in every case good evidence wins -- but it clearly demonstrates that there exists a competitive incentive to read good evidence.

Yes, underhighlighting is a severe problem. Both these authors agree that the state of LD evidence is atrocious -- most cards do not have a warrant, are powertagged, or are highlighted into incoherence. However, this practice is not endemic to LD, nor specific to kritiks. While kritik cards often need to be longer due to the density of argumentation, it is an overgeneralization to relegate all kritiks to the realm of underhighlighted evidence (e.g. while uncommon, one of these authors has read a kritik with a 3.5 minute long card). Furthermore, even in policy, and especially public forum, time limits create competitive incentives to shorten cards.

However, there are two solutions. The first is for debaters to call this out -- underhighlighted evidence is a fantastic opportunity for the opposing debater. Effectively calling out bad evidence is a skill that can be practiced, and one that can reap massive strategic gains. Opponent reads a DA with a link card highlighted down to nonsense? Spend 30 seconds explaining that in the 1AR and move on, the 2NR will lose if they go for it (speaking again, from personal experience). Secondly, judges need to hold the line. There is no shame in looking a debater in the eye and saying “you explained this well in the 2NR, but your 1NC did not have a single warrant so it was an incomplete argument.” The only reason not to give that RfD or to look at evidence -- not for evidence comparison, but to ensure that debaters are making warranted claims -- is cowardice. Norms are malleable – open-source and plan AFFs did not spontaneously appear, they were adopted gradually as the community decided they were beneficial to debate. Judges should read evidence, as it will reward those who research diligently and prioritize content knowledge over the ability to find how few word do trick.

While the trend of under-highlighting does require prior knowledge of how the argument is employed in LD, this is also not intrinsic to the practice of underhighlighting. Any specialized debate strategy requires some amount of knowledge about how it’s employed. See the most highlighted ontology card ever? As a novice, these authors still would not have understood its implications for the debate round. See a process CP for the first time? Doesn’t matter how much highlighting, understanding what textual and functional competition is requires out of round learning.

(L)D is correct that there is a barrier to introducing new arguments because judges may lack familiarity. However, this is surmountable by knowing what you’re talking about. There is a reason coaches often tell their students to try explaining their arguments to their parents at the dinner table – the ability to break down a dense critical theory into an intelligible one-minute overview, defend a complex ethical framework using intuitive examples, or even just bring the plausibility of the politics DA out of the negatives is a vital communicative skill that most every debater is at some point forced to learn. Debaters such as Prospect ST winning rounds on pure philosophy, even with judges from the policy event in the back, is proof that deep knowledge and effective explanation wins rounds. Sure, it’s possible to do well without too much research beyond lectures from other debaters, but there is a cap on the amount of success you can have. This is the same for scripting out rebuttals. Scripts are harmful. Period. They increase short term success at the detriment of long-term success, because when those scripts hit good debaters, they lose because scripts mess up time allocation and are unresponsive to what is happening in the round. There is a massive distinction between scripts written by someone else, scripts you wrote yourself, and blocks (helpful -- writing blocks is good for internalizing arguments, figuring out how to frame things, and using in round). Debaters love empirics, so here’s an example: these authors have hit debaters notorious for buying files with scripts written, and then beaten those debaters in TOC elim rounds because the evidence was insufficient and the script was non-responsive to the actual arguments made.

These incentives to thoroughly understand the arguments you read only intensify at higher levels of debate. To effectively argue the hegemony bad impact turn requires an understanding of what hegemony is, general theories of international relations such as realism and liberalism, different structures of international politics (unipolarity, bipolarity, multipolarity), US alliance networks, the interests of major geopolitical players, military doctrine, and a significant amount of history. High-level debaters are successful because they excel at thoroughly understanding every facet of an argument, citing examples, and picking apart silly claims. Someone argues US interventions are bad? If you understand the history of Kosovo, Germany, Japan, Libya, and Sierra Leone, you can make an effective argument for why interventions are good (even without cards!). Someone breaks a new argument against your affirmative? If you’ve done the research, know the literature, and understand your AFF, you can generate true responses effectively. Don’t fully understand Kant and you hit a Kant debater? You will lose ­– oftentimes even if the judge has little philosophical knowledge.

These research and articulation skills have many more important benefits than just winning debate rounds. Writing research papers is certainly easier with the experience of digging through Google Scholar, tracking down footnotes, and refining search terms according to the literature one is researching, but at a more fundamental level, debate teaches you how to choose and defend a thesis claim. The process of structuring an argument, finding evidence to support it, breaking a broad topic down into manageable pieces, and presenting those findings is critical in every aspect of life. Most people are unable to do that. In one of the authors’ AP Seminar class, they were dumbfounded at the inability of their classmates to go from a topic interest (e.g. drug abuse), to a research question, to forming an argument. Even if the content of rounds often devolves into silliness, debaters do not come out of rounds with deeply held beliefs that motion is impossible or that failing to provide a jobs guarantee will cause extinction. Rather, they become iteratively better at the formula of argumentation present in every form of debate. It is most obvious in policy, but almost every argument type functions under offense/defense as a comparison of an action (the plan, the interp, the alt) and an opportunity cost (the status quo, a counter-interp, the aff) based on the benefits they both confer, including deliberation over which types of benefits are most important (phil, k, framing). Debate may just be a game, but even if (L)D is correct about everything, these authors cannot stomach the conclusion that we should give up and spam nonsensical arguments. We should try to make debate as valuable as possible, teaching the skills that are important for debaters to go on to be successful individuals who contribute to the world. Reading policy, kritikal, philosophical, and (non-frivolous) theory does that. Blipping out as many logical fallacies as you can fit into a seven-minute speech and hoping your opponent drops one does not.

Debate – researching new arguments, prepping against opponents, and talking about it with friends – has a unique way of introducing you to topic areas you would otherwise never have given a second thought. Doing circuit LD for a few years will give you at least a rudimentary understanding of philosophy, domestic and international politics, economics, history, and linguistics (shoutout to nebel T) – many of which are not taught in schools unless you go out of your way to take specialized classes. One of these authors was a self-proclaimed STEM kid coming into high school who avoided humanities electives like the plague and dreaded every writing-based assignment, only to end up enthusiastically taking classes about international relations and the Middle East a few years later. There is value in knowing a little about everything. Empirically, many LD debaters end up studying econ, political science or IR in college (how’s that for not all of us becoming policymakers), and it’s very possible that many of them would never have considered these options absent debate. Even (or perhaps especially) for those who go on to study in other areas, debate provides a level of literacy about the world and ability to navigate it with confidence in their critical thinking skills at a time when the United States public education system and news media become increasingly the victim of politicized culture wars.        

As a final note, the rise of frivolous theory and tricks is pedagogically useless and a blemish on the activity. While this is, to some extent, a byproduct of short speech times (really, how much can you develop the Good Samaritan paradox?), it is mostly a byproduct of bad judging and debaters failing to effectively answer them. For example, Zeno’s Paradox was debuted in . . . wait for it . . . college policy by Harvard BoSu. High school policy teams read robo spec theory. Most root cause or turns case arguments are functionally tricks masquerading as substance. Short, blippy arguments designed for the opponent to drop are created by short speech times and competitive incentives. However, LD tricks (the kind that bastardize formal logic and linguistics) will max out. Tricks are only strategic against an opponent who doesn’t know how to answer them or is less technically proficient. Once those gaps are filled in, the tricks debater will almost always lose. Excluding the e-TOC, no primarily tricks/theory debaters have made it past octos. Secondly, judges, again, fail to hold the line on what counts as a claim, warrant, and impact in line with that. “1AR theory comes first --- 7-4-6-3 time skew” is not a complete argument. Forcing debaters to explain arguments, instead of relying on enthymemes (and here), improves debate for all.

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