Boredom? ADHD?

John Plotz in the New York Times: Their Noonday Demons, and Ours

These days, when we try to get a fix on our wasted time, we use labels that run from the psychological (distraction, “mind-wandering” or “top-down processing deficit”) to the medical (A.D.H.D., hypoglycemia) to the ethical (laziness, poor work habits). But perhaps “acedia” is the label we need. After all, it afflicted those whose pursuits prefigured the routines of many workers in the postindustrial economy. Acedia’s sufferers were engaged in solitary, sedentary, cerebral effort toward a clear final goal — but a goal that could be reached only by crossing an open, empty field with few signposts. The empty field is the monk’s day of spiritual contemplation in a cell besieged by the demon acedia — or your afternoon in a coffee shop with tiptop Wi-Fi.

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Three Ways to Improve Your Perceptual Dominance by Adam Torson

Howan argument is presented should be less important than the quality of theargument. Nevertheless, perceptually dominating the round can pay dividends.Looking like you know what you’re doing is one of the big steps between noviceand varsity level debate. Perceptual dominance is one reason some students getconsistently higher speaker scores. Finally, even in very high level roundsjudges will ultimately be left to evaluate the quality of arguments. Thisevaluation is inevitably influenced by how the argument is presented,especially for judges who don’t feel especially secure in their decisions. It’seasy to use perceptual dominance as a heuristic for who is right on a givenissue or in the round as a whole.

So,a few tips to help you improve your perceptual dominance:

1. Project acalm and confident demeanor.

Thebest debaters look calm and confident. There are many intangibles that go intoprojecting this demeanor, but it’s good to conceptualize it as a balancebetween extremes.

Calmis somewhere in between a) the foaming at the mouth, hectic, angry debater andb) the lackadaisical, doesn’t fill his time,I’m-here-because-my-parents-made-me debater.

Confidentis somewhere in between a) the cocky, condescending, thinks he won every rounddebater and b) the shy, soft-spoken, nervous about all his arguments debater.

Confidenceis notoriously elusive; the time-honored “fake it ‘till you make it” advicewill get you a long way toward cultivating self-belief. Another good techniqueis to do drills in front of a mirror to observe your own mannerisms anddemeanor. You may be surprised by what your non-verbals are saying about you.While demeanor is a multi-faceted thing, there are three touchstones that mightbe helpful to think about.

First,if you can’t help getting angry, you probably need to examine your demeanor.Overt expressions of anger are rarely situationally appropriate in a debateround. Reasonableness is built into the ethos of the activity. Some argumentsseem to have an innately more emotional tone, e.g. positions that passionatelycondemn a particular injustice. That type of emotion is justified and sometimeshelpful, but it should always be directed at passionate advocacy rather thanhostility toward an opponent.

Second,be cognizant of the volume at which you speak. You would be amazed how quicklyyour deportment can change simply by virtue of speaking louder or softer. Ifyou feel like you don’t have a great deal of confidence, try to increase yourvolume by 20%, and do drills even louder than that. Most often people have aproblem with speaking to softly rather than too loudly, but if you are gettinga look of surprise from judges when you start speaking you might considerlowering the volume a tad.

Finally,avoid asking rhetorical questions. They are almost always more confidentlyexpressed as statements. Instead of asking “Do you really think that a studentsurvey is as rigorous as a study published in a peer-reviewed journal?” you canargue “A study published in a peer-reviewed journal is much more rigorous thana student survey.” The problem with inviting a judge to answer a question inher own mind is that she might not think the answer is quite so self-evident asyou do. Better to express the same idea as an argument.

2. Give status updates.

Animportant technique for perceptual dominance is to frequently update the judgeon what is happening in the round. More specifically, as you go along tell thejudge about the significance of your arguments not just in argumentative termsbut also in terms of constructing a reason for her decision on the ballot. Forexample, after defending and extending your standard you might say “That meansthat all I have to do to win is to show that valuing rehabilitation overretribution minimizes suffering.” After extending a contention you might say“That’s the first place you can pull the trigger on the AC,” or “That’s thefirst place you can exclude the NC.”

Thisis perceptually dominant for several reasons. First, status updates make itlook like you are in command of your strategy and executing it purposively.Instead of wandering around the flow without a plan you appear to be telling acohesive story about what is happening in the round. Second, it is easy to highlightthe fact that you are layering. “This is the first place you reject the NC,this is the second place, this is the third place.” Finally, status updates area framing device. They allow you to tell the judge which arguments are the mostimportant so as to cast your opponent’s strongest argument as a secondaryconsideration.

3. Pressweakness in CX

Cross-examinationis critical for establishing perceptual dominance. The best way to do this isto press your opponent to explain weak or missing links in their casepositions. If your opponent’s argument doesn’t make sense to you, you shouldstart with the assumption that the argument is non-sense rather than theassumption that you just don’t understand it. Don’t let them obfuscate orotherwise wriggle out of your question. Keep asking them about the link untileither they give you a real answer or you are satisfied that the judgeunderstands that there is no link.

Notonly will this kind of press set up the refutation strategy for your rebuttals(and sometimes produce some useful admissions), but it will let you takecommand of the round on a perceptual basis. Some of the best cross-examinationsI have seen have dealt with only one or two issues. But, they were criticalissues, and pressing on them both served strategic interests and helped theinterlocutor to establish the tone for the round.

Goforth with confidence!

Three Common Misunderstandings of Fiat

“Fiat” is a Latin word meaning “Let it bedone.” In debate, “fiat” refers to a debater’s right to assume that heradvocacy will happen. In other words, when a debater runs a plan or acounterplan, she does not have to argue that the plan is likely to happen. She needs only to argue that it would be netadvantageous if the plan wereimplemented.

To say that a plan is politically unpopularand therefore unlikely to pass is no answer. The basic logic is that in debatewe want to argue about whether an advocacy is good or bad, not whether it islikely to be implemented. On the current topic, the Affirmative might arguethat the United States should implement a single-payer healthcare system. The Negativemay argue that this is a bad idea relative to the status quo or a competitivecounterplan, but she may not argue “that would never get through Congress.” TheAffirmative debater gets to fiat thatthe plan would pass congress.

This notion is not entirely uncontroversial,and there are many complexities that are beyond the scope of this article, butthe basic idea that a debater has a right to fiat her advocacy is widelyaccepted. Despite this, I see many rounds in which there is confusion about therole of fiat. I hope to clear up a few common misconceptions.

1.Pre-Fiat versus Post-Fiat

Many LD debaters have a hard time parsing thedistinction between pre-fiat and post-fiat arguments. This is not surprising,given that the nature of fiat in more traditional LD cases is ambiguous. (For agood discussion of this issue, see Scott Phillips’ article in thevictorybriefs.com archives on fiat in Kritik debate).

A “post-fiat” impact is one that happens inthe hypothetical world where the affirmative advocacy (or a counter-planadvocacy) is implemented. “If weimplement a single-payer healthcare system, millions of people who wereotherwise uninsured will have access to healthcare services.” We don’t imaginethat this impact will actually happenby virtue of the judge voting affirmative – it’s what would happen if the agentin the resolution (in this case the United States) did what the affirmativeadvocates.

A “pre-fiat” impact is one that we imaginereally occurs as a result of something happening in the debate round itself.“If the judge votes for the Negative debater, it will teach the Affirmativedebater not to use offensive rhetoric.” “If the judge votes for the Negative,other debaters will be deterred from using the abusive tactics the Affirmativeused.” Arguments that commonly have pre-fiat impacts include:

1. Theory: Adebater should lose or an argument should be disregarded in order to preservethe fairness or educational value of the debate.

2. Kritiks: Adebater should lose or an argument should be rejected because the debater usedrhetoric which is offensive or makes problematic assumptions. Sometimesdebaters will make similar arguments without a full Kritik shell; these wecommonly call “discourse” arguments.

3. Performance: Thejudge should vote for one debater or another to affirm a praiseworthy speechact (e.g. one that helps the participants to better understand the gravity ofoppressive practices). For example, a debater may read a narrative written bysomeone struggling without health insurance to convey the seriousness ofAmerica’s uninsurance problem and inspire concrete action from fellow debatersand judges.

Debaters typically assume that pre-fiatimpacts should be lexically prior to post-fiat impacts because the former reallyhappen (supposedly). This assumption can be challenged by the idea thatresolving the substance of the post-fiat debate is more important than thepre-fiat impacts. I’ll leave it to you to fill in the details of the argumentson both sides of that issue.

2.Debaters fiat advocacies, not standards.

A common mistake in LD is to fail todistinguish between a debater’s advocacyand her standard. The standard,usually a value and criterion, is typically a moral or political rule which thedebater claims is most germane to resolving the question posed by theresolution. If I propose that Utilitarianism should be the standard on thecurrent topic, I am suggesting that whether we implement a universal healthcaresystem turns on whether doing so maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain.

An advocacy, on the other hand, is what courseof action the debater proposes for the agent of the resolution. In the presenttopic, I might advocate that the United States (the agent in the resolution)implement a single-payer healthcare system.

The standard is NOT part of the advocacy. Inother words, I don’t “fiat” the standard (assume that it will be implemented);I only fiat the advocacy (what course of action the agent will take). I don’thave to argue that the United States should adopta utilitarian mindset and then implement a single-payer system as a result.I fiat that a single-payer systemwill be implemented, and evaluatethat course of action by using the standard. The standard itself is not anargument with post-fiat impacts.

Here is a common example of this mistake:

Affirmative:   

Utilitarianism is the best moraltheory for evaluating government action. The United States should implement auniversal healthcare system because doing so would save 50,000 lives everyyear, which is a huge advantage according to utilitarianism.

Negative:

Utilitarianism justifies genocide,which would kill way more than 50,000 people, so the disadvantages to affirmingoutweigh the advantages.

The Negative debater has made the mistake ofassuming that the agent (the United States) must adopt the standard, when infact the Affirmative has only argued that it should adopt the advocacy. Theargument that Utilitarianism justifies genocide might be a reason to reject itin favor of another standard for evaluating the impacts, but it does notgenerate any post-fiat impacts.

3.Debaters advancing a probabilistic claim are not exercising the power of fiat.

The only thing that is fiated (assumed) in adebate round is that a debater’s advocacy will happen. The impacts of that advocacy are notassumed. They are probabilistic claims – claims about what is likely to happen as a result of theadvocacy. For that reason they can be contested. You can’t say that an advocacy is unlikely to pass Congress,but you can say that the impacts youropponent predicts are in fact unlikely to happen.

Affirmative:

Utilitarianism is the best moraltheory for evaluating government action. The United States should implement auniversal healthcare system because doing so would save 50,000 lives everyyear, which is a huge advantage according to utilitarianism.

Negative:

My opponent fiats that 50,000 liveswill be saved, which is abusive because we don’t know for sure that this isgoing to happen.

Here the negative has confused the Affirmativeadvocacy with Affirmative impacts. The Affirmative argues that itis probable that 50,000 lives will be saved, but he does not assume it withoutargument. The Negative may argue that it is untrue that 50,000 lives will besaved, but the Affirmative has not engaged in any kind of abusive fiat.

So, remember when you are thinking throughissues of fiat to distinguish the advocacy, the standard, and the impacts of aposition. Doing so will save you big headaches down the road.