Modern Kritik Debating: Disgrace or Disregarded?

Reading history has always been an uncertain enterprise. Yet if I were to attempt to read the minds of argument’s forefathers — Cicero, Socrates, and the like — I’m quite sure that modern Kritik debate does not resemble their vision. There is no search for truth; there hardly exists careful deliberation, yet despite the jaded impulse to label this style as intellectually fruitless, it persists. Perhaps because people really do just care about competition; perhaps because debaters have grown too lazy to process monolith files of evidence as they have in the past; perhaps another, stronger explanation exists. Regardless, I, perhaps surprisingly, and perhaps not, am a staunch defender of this hyper-technical style’s merits.

Debates need not be an honest search for truth. In fact, Lincoln–Douglas debate’s raison d’être is its insistence on switching sides, arguing for or against personal belief round over round. As debate has evolved, “tech over truth” has become an understood side constraint of this model. If debaters can’t defend the position they believe, judges owe them a fair, neutral evaluation of what they are forced to defend. Why, then, has modern Kritik debate become an exception to this commonly taken-for-granted rule? Why do many judges turn their nose up at discussions of personal violence, yet evaluate equally asinine “policy-rooted” arguments like wipeout, various theory positions, etc.?

The case for modern Kritik debate’s merits is indistinguishable from that for technical debate itself. Having undertaken hundreds of hours’ worth of these debates over my four years (and spent even longer thinking about them), I can testify to their benefits. It’s easy to get lost in the weeds of K debate. That’s why many top teams, year after year, will consistently dominate the top policy teams, but lose to teams far worse than them at the hands of the K. Thinking about the K is a learned skill, and a genuinely fascinating puzzle. After four years in the game and a one from the crow’s nest, here is my attempt to simplify the web of logic that this genre occupies, and shed light on where my (hopefully-taken-with-many-grains-of-salt) view has settled.

The first question in any framework debate is its scope. Should the ballot render judgment on the optimal model for the entire community, for the entire season, or limit itself to its consequential impact in one round? People give this far too much weight, in my opinion. When it was trendy for K teams to go for “in-round only,” it was strategic because people still occasionally went for clash and the killshot to the “microaggression DA” had not yet been discovered. Now, the community has lost the plot. There is hardly a difference between “in-round” and “models-based” adjudication, because to vote solely “in-round,” you’d have to presuppose the round would have been better under a different model of debate. Model thinking is inevitable, and all offense can reasonably apply to both. The “reverse causality” warrant for procedural fairness may be a complication to this line of thought, but it isn’t the TKO many make it out to be. Just because the ballot cannot prevent or undo this instance of a models-based DA does not mean it cannot prevent future violations. And presumably, given the verbosity of critical DAs, since the impact to the DA will outweigh that of fairness in a vacuum (that is, without the reverse causality trick), the K team can still win this debate.

As far as the K-side DAs go nowadays, they’re best defined by one of two orientations: either framework or its reading makes people worse (à la subject formation, many fiat Ks, etc.), or they essentially hurt the other team’s feelings (microaggressions, rhetoric DAs, etc.). Each has their own merit, and the most important lesson of this section is that K teams should have a mix of these, and policy teams should group them along these lines. I’ll break down the pros and cons of each.

For the former, more traditional DA, there are actually many (underrepresented) pros. Your impact can be huge, and usually subsumes most of their non-fairness offense because the ballot literally controls the character of the next generation of thinkers, politicians, citizens, whatever it may be. These are also more clearly an “impact turn” to framework, and easier to tie to specific elements like fiat, clash, etc., than the other category, which often relies on the other team making certain assumptions or using certain phrases. Their main con is their reliance on bold ballot solvency claims. Usually, claiming the debate should be about models AND that ballots affect something external to the game invokes two extra disagreements with fairness-centric strategies, which siphon time from arguing the DA itself and add extra steps on the path to victory.

The main pro for the other category is their simplicity. Something hurt our feelings, and the ballot will aid our recovery. This occupies the same plane as fairness, so it’s only a matter of links and impacts. Ethos and specificity will play a great role in your success here. As far as cons go, there are a few that, by my forecast, will cause a pendulum swing back to the previous category. The biggest — which really can’t be understated — is voter fatigue. After judging less than 10 debates this year, I’ve even developed some too. The policy team can also take you up to the point that either judges shouldn’t technically litigate accusations of harm, or that you actually somehow did something to them too, and that that might be a worse offense when paired with the fairness impact. The two sides have some tension when combined, but each is quite strong (and likely true) in isolation, so bold policy teams willing to pick a side from the get-go have a clear upper hand.

The evolution of framework should come as no surprise, even if its direction or specific outgrowths might. However, for an activity built on the merits of iteration and creativity, this community complains too much about where that approach takes us. I am more optimistic than most that this genre (or at least its extremes) will take a back seat in the coming years, but that is largely a value-neutral prediction, not a wish or something I will use my judicial liberties to achieve. I hope to convince others of the same.