Sample FW File

Rounds to Watch
Rutgers MN v Emory KS 2-1 Neg. Debate is a game! https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=k9xxuuV7TMU
USC BL v Michigan AP 3-0 Neg. Debate is about the topic!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sm4rFEw64E
Kansas BR v Cal Berkeley SW 3-2 Aff. Debating the state is good!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ioQPJKitas

SSD

SSD Good Education

Switch side encourages flexibility and develops real world
knowledge of connect.
Muir, 93. Star A., Department of Communications at George Mason University, A Defense of the Ethics of
Contemporary Debate, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 26, No. 4, pg. 285
The melding of different areas of knowledge, however, is a particular benefit of debate, as it

addresses topics of

considerable importance in a real world setting. Recent college and high school topics include energy policy,
prison reform, care for the elderly, trade policy, homelessness, and the right to privacy. These topics are notable because
they exceed the knowledge boundaries of particular school subjects, they reach into
issues of everyday life, and they are broad enough to force students to address a variety
of value appeals. The explosion of "squirrels," or small and specific cases, III the 1960s and 1970s has had the effect of opening up
each topic to many different case approaches. National topics are no longer of the one-case variety (as in 1955's "the U.S. should recog nize
Red China"). On the privacy topic, for example, cases include search and seizure issues, abortion, sexual privacy, tradeoffs with the first
amendment, birth control, information privacy, pornography, and obscenity. The

multiplicity of issues pays special

dividends for debaters required to defend both sides of many issues because the value
criteria change from round to round and evolve over the year. The development of
flexibility in coping with the intertwining of issues is an essential component in the
interconnection of knowledge, and is a major rationale for switch-side debate.]

This is key to real world solutions.

Muir, 93. Star A., Department of Communications at George Mason University, A Defense of the Ethics of
Contemporary Debate, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 26, No. 4, pg. 286-287
A third point about isolation from the real world is that switch-side

debate develops habits of the mind and

instills a lifelong pattern of critical assessment. Students who have debated both sides of
a topic are better voters, Dell writes, because of "their habit of analyzing both sides before
forming a conclusion. "33 O'Neill, Laycock and Scales, responding in part to Roosevelt's indictment, iterated the basic position
in 1931: Skill in the use of facts and inferences available may be gained on >either side of a
question without regard to convictions. Instruction ~and practice in debate should give young men this skill. And
where these matters are properly handled, stress is not laid on getting the speaker to think rightly in regard to the merits of either side of
these questions-but to think accurately on both sides. Reasons

for not taking a position counter to one's

beliefs (isolation from the "real world," sophistry) are largely outweighed by the benefit of such mental
habits throughout an individual's life. The jargon, strategies, and techniques may be alienating to "outsiders," but they
are also paradoxically integrative as well. Playing the game of debate involves certain skills, including research and policy evaluation, that

This conceptual
development is a basis for the formation of ideas and relational thinking necessary for
effective public decision making, making even the game of debate a significant benefit in
solving real world problems.
evolve along with a debater's consciousness of the complexities of moral and political dilemmas.

Switch-side makes education more valuable by attaching it to the

real world.
Muir, 93. Star A., Department of Communications at George Mason University, A Defense of the Ethics of
Contemporary Debate, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 26, No. 4, pg. 285
The isolation of debate from the real world is a much more potent challenge to the activity. There are indeed "esoteric" techniques, special
terminologies, and procedural constraints that limit the applicability of debate knowledge and skills to the rest of the student's life. The first
and most obvious rejoinder is that debate

puts students into greater contact with the real world by

forcing them to read a great deal of information from popular periodicals, scholarly
books and journals, government documents, reports, newsletters, and daily newspapers.
Debaters also frequently seek out and query, administrators, policymakers, and public personae to gain more data. The constant

consumption of material by, from, and about the real world is significantly constitutive: The

information grounds the

issues under discussion, and the process changes the relationship of the citizen to the
public arena. Debaters can become more involved than uninformed citizens because they
know about important issues, and because they know how to find out more information
about these issues. Switch-side debating is not peripheral to this value. A thorough research effort is guided
in large part by the knowledge that both sides of the issues must be covered. Where a particular
controversy might involve affirmative research among conservative sources, the negative must research the liberal perspective. Where
scientific studies predominate in justifying a particular policy, research in cultural studies may be necessary to counter the adoption of the
policy. Debating a ban on the teaching of creationism in public schools, for example, forces research on the scientific consensus on

A primary value
of switch-side debate, that of encouraging research skills is fundamentally an attachment
to the "real world," and is enhanced by requiring debaters to investigate both sides of an
issue.
evolution, the viability of theological grounds for public policy, and a consideration of the nature of science itself.

SSD Good Advocacy

Forced switch side debate is a superior pedagogical
methodology for teaching portable life skills for advocacy no
loss of conviction.
Harrigan 8 Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, Vol. 29 (2008) 37 AGAINST DOGMATISM: A
CONTINUED DEFENSE OF SWITCH SIDE DEBATE Casey Harrigan, University of Georgia
Third, there is an important question of means. Even the best activist intentions have little practical utility as long as they remain purely
cordoned off in the realm of theoretical abstractions. Creating programs of action that seek to produce material change should be the goal of
any revolutionary project. Frequently, for

strategies for change, the devil lies in the details. Lacking a

plausible mechanism to enact reforms, many have criticized critical theory as being a
fatally flawed enterprise (Jones 1999). For activists, learning the skills to successfully
negotiate hazardous political terrain is crucial. They must know when and when not to
compromise, negotiate, and strike political alliances in order to be successful. The pure number
of failed movements in the past several decades demonstrates the severity of the risk assumed by groups who do not focus on refining their
preferred means of change. For example, some have argued that anti-nuclear and other peace movements have been largely ineffective
because of their inability to coalesce around plans and methods for change (Martin, 1990). Given

the importance of
strategies for change, SSD [switch side debate] is even more crucial . Debaters
trained by debating both sides are substantially more likely to be effective
advocates than those experienced only in arguing on behalf of their own convictions.
For several reasons, SSD instills a series of practices that are essential for a successful activist agenda. First, SSD

creates more

knowledgeable advocates for public policy issues . As part of the process of

learning to argue both sides, debaters are forced to understand the intricacies of multiple
sides of the argument considered. Debaters must not only know how to research and
speak on behalf of their own personal convictions, but also for the opposite side in order to defend
against attacks of that position . Thus, when placed in the position of being required to publicly defend an
argument, students trained via SSD are more likely to be able to present and persuasively defend their positions. Second, learning
the nuances of all sides of a position greatly strengthens the resulting convictions of
debaters, their ability to anticipate opposing arguments, and the effectiveness of their
attempts to locate the crux, nexus and loci of arguments. As noted earlier, conviction is a
result, not a prerequisite of debate . Switching sides and experimenting with
possible arguments for and against controversial issues, in the end, makes students more
likely to ground their beliefs in a reasoned form of critical thinking that is
durable and robust in the face of knee-jerk criticisms. As a result, even though it may
appear to be inconsistent with advocacy, SSD actually created stronger
advocates that are more likely to be successful in achieving their goals (Dybvig and Iverson,
2000).

Switch-side debating on the topic is uniquely important. It

allows debaters to become better advocates and increases
critical thinking
Dybvig and Iverson 99 Kristin Chisholm Dybvig, and Joel O. Iverson, Can Cutting Cards Carve into
Our Personal Lives: An Analysis of Debate Research on Personal Advocacy,
http://www.uvm.edu/~debate/dybvigiverson1000.html

Not all debate research appears to generate personal advocacy and challenge peoples'
assumptions. Debaters must switch sides, so they must inevitably debate against various cases. While this
may seem to be inconsistent with advocacy, supporting and researching both sides of an
argument actually created stronger advocates. Not only did debaters learn both
sides of an argument, so that they could defend their positions against attack, they also
learned the nuances of each position . Learning and the intricate nature of various
policy proposals helps debaters to strengthen their own stance on issues .

Switch Side Debate encourages political activism

Coverstone, 95. Alan, Government/Economics teacher at Montgomery Bell School, An Inward Glance: A
Response to Mitchell's Outward Activist Turn, Wake Forest Online, Accessed online,
http://groups.wfu.edu/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/Coverstone1995China.htm

Debaters will experiment with political activism on their own. This is all part of the
natural impulse for activism which debate inspires. Yet, in the absence of such individual motivation, an
outward turn threatens to short circuit the learning process. Debate should capitalize on
its isolation. We can teach our students to examine all sides of an issue and reach
individual conclusions before we force them into political exchanges.

Switch-side education is more persuasive.

Underwood, 1. Prof of Communication Studies, (Psychology of Communication,
http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/psy/hovland3.html)
Whether or not you should include arguments for and against your case depends very much on your audience. If you know that they already
agree with you, a one-sided argument is quite acceptable. If they are opposed to your point of view, then a one-sided message will actually
be less effective, being dismissed as biased. Even

if your audience don't know much about the subject,

but do know that there are counterarguments (even if they don't know what they are) will lead them
to reject your views as biased. Hovland's investigations into mass propaganda used to
change soldiers' attitudes also suggests that the intelligence of the receivers is an
important factor, a two-sided argument tending to be more persuasive with the more
intelligent audience.

AT: SSD Unethical

Debate is a space through which we examine arguments and
become better at beating them in the real world.
G.D.U. 09 (Georgia Debate Union, University of Georgia; November 11, 2009; The Project and Switch-Side
Debate; <http://www.georgiadebate.org/2009/11/the-project-and-switch-side-debate>)
Ive heard some arguments/questions that I have heard some project teams make, and Ive been frankly shocked at how poor the answers to
these questions has been. Ill address a couple here. The first one is a subset of the switch side debate is unethical argument, and it goes
something like this: Are you saying that on a slavery topic, we would have to advocate slavery good? First, I take issue with the question.

Switch side debating isnt just taking both sides of any good/bad debate. Theres more to
it than that, especially since sometimes there are more than 2 sides to an issue. Second, this is
an extreme example, but even if I grant the premise of the question, I would say that you should be willing to examine
that argument and advocate it in the space of a debate. That doesnt mean that you take
on that belief; it does mean that you dont close off an argument just because you dont
agree. The debate round should be a space to test out arguments, and part of the
education one gets from that testing is the experience of advocating something
unfamiliar, and even oppositional to your beliefs. Plus, you can better argue against the
offending argument if you have tried it on in an environment that encourages you to
learn how it works. Ultimately, I dispute the slippery slope in the premise of this argument, though. Maybe you wouldnt, as a
matter of conscience, be willing to go as far as say slavery good, but on this years topic, you should be willing to argue that either we

the fact that

the potential exists advocate bad things in a debate round isnt by itself a sufficient
reason to refuse switch side debate. I'm sure many people arguments they may not be
willing to make for their own reasons, but that fact alone is not a condemnation of switch
side debating.
should reduce our nuclear weapons or we shouldnt. You can support your claim with reasons based in your project, but

Debating for a truly unethical side only strengthens the ethical

side means 1) no offense, and 2) they reject alternative
strategies, which enables cooption by dogmatists, because they
never better their argument
Harrigan 8 (Casey, M.A. Wake, http://globaldebateblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/from-httpwww.html.)
The second premise, that the truth

is strengthened through collision with error, is slightly more contentious but

ultimately correct. Some absolutists have maintained that 49 opening up all issues for discussion is more likely
to draw the publics opinion to the middle than strengthen the original correct position. While empirical support for
this claim is sorely lacking, it can also be rebuked purely on theoretical grounds. Debating both sides of important
issues is far more likely to refine and strengthen the support for truthful positions than
weaken it. Dissent and disagreement challenge adherents of the dominant opinion to
constantly refine and reconfigure their position, driving it towards truth. Moreover, the
risk involved in this process is slight, because if the dominant position is more correct
than the minority, then the chances that the silenced position would sway a large
number of people are very slim. Further, Mills premise here accounts for a third (very likely) stagethe position where
both the dominant and minority arguments contain elements of truth an d error. In this instance, the collision of the two in public
deliberation will (hopefully ) produce a combination of opinions that is more error-free than either of the original positions. Even the
relatively conservative Roman Catholic Church understands the merits of such an argumentative method. Until the practice was abolished
by Pope John Pa ul II in 1983, the Church would summon an individual to assume the role of the Devils Advocate, or Advocatus Diaboli ,
to present all the arguments against the canonization of saints. Once all opposing arguments were stated, the case for canonization was of
ten greater because it was understood that no possible argument could render the case unjustified.

Predictable Limits

Limits Good Steinberg and Freeley!

Limits---a limited topic of discussion that provides for equitable
ground is key to productive decision-making and advocacy skills
in every and all aspects of life---even if their position is
contestable thats distinct from it being valuably debatable---this
still provides room for flexibility, creativity, and innovation, but
targets the discussion to avoid mere statements of fact---they
destroy effective deliberation
Steinberg and Freeley 13, * David, Lecturer in Communication studies and rhetoric. Advisor to
Miami Urban Debate League. Director of Debate at U Miami, Former President of CEDA. And ** Austin, attorney who
focuses on criminal, personal injury and civil rights law, JD, Suffolk University, Argumentation and Debate, Critical
Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making, 121-4

Debate is a means of settling differences , so there must be a controversy, a difference of opinion

or a conflict of interest

value

or policy,

before there can be a debate . If everyone is in agreement on a feet or

there is no need or opportunity for debate; the matter can be settled by unanimous consent.

Thus, for example, it would be pointless to attempt to debate "Resolved: That two plus two equals four, because there is simply no controversy about this state-

Controversy is an essential prerequisite of debate . Where there is no clash

of ideas, proposals, interests, or expressed positions of issues, there is no debate. Controversy
invites decisive choice between competing positions. Debate cannot produce
ment.

effective decisions without clear identification of a question

or questions

to be

answered. For example, general argument may occur about the broad topic of illegal
immigration. How many illegal immigrants live in the United States? What is the impact of illegal immigration and immigrants on our economy? What
is their impact on our communities? Do they commit crimes? Do they take jobs from American workers? Do they pay taxes? Do they require social services? Is it a
problem that some do not speak English? Is it the responsibility of employers to discourage illegal immigration by not hiring undocumented workers? Should they
have the opportunity to gain citizenship? Does illegal immigration pose a security threat to our country? Do illegal immigrants do work that American workers are
unwilling to do? Are their rights as workers and as human beings at risk due to their status? Are they abused by employers, law enforcement, housing, and
businesses? How are their families impacted by their status? What is the moral and philosophical obligation of a nation state to maintain its borders? Should we
build a wall on the Mexican border, establish a national identification card, or enforce existing laws against employers? Should we invite immigrants to become

you can think of many more concerns to be addressed by a conversation about

the topic area of illegal immigration. Participation in this debate is likely to be
emotional and intense. However, it is not likely to be productive or useful without
focus on a particular question and identification of a line demarcating
U.S. citizens? Surely

sides in the controversy. To be discussed and resolved effectively , controversies are

best understood when seated clearly such that all parties to the debate share an
understanding about the objective of the debate . This enables focus on
substantive and objectively identifiable issues facilitating comparison of competing
argumentation leading to effective decisions. Vague understanding results in
unfocused deliberation and poor decisions , general feelings of tension without
opportunity for resolution, frustration, and emotional distress, as evidenced by the failure of
the U.S. Congress to make substantial progress on the immigration debate . Of course,
arguments may be presented without disagreement. For example, claims are presented and supported within speeches,
editorials, and advertisements even without opposing or refutational response. Argumentation occurs in a range of settings
from informal to formal, and may not call upon an audience or judge to make a forced

choice among competing claims. Informal discourse occurs as conversation or panel discussion without
demanding a decision about a dichotomous or yes/no question. However, by
definition , debate requires "reasoned judgment on a proposition . The proposition is a
statement about which competing advocates will offer alternative (pro or con)
argumentation calling upon their audience or adjudicator to decide. The proposition provides
focus for the discourse and guides the decision process. Even when a decision will be made
through a process of compromise, it is important to iden tify the beginning positions of competing
advocates to begin negotiation and movement toward a center, or consensus position. It is
frustrating and usually unproductive to attempt to make a decision when deciders are
unclear as to what the decision is about. The proposition may be implicit in some applied debates (Vote for me!); however,
when a vote or consequential decision is called for (as in the courtroom or in applied parliamentary debate) it is essential that the
proposition be explicitly expressed (the defendant is guilty!). In academic debate, the proposition
provides essential guidance for the preparation of the debaters prior to the
debate, the case building and discourse presented during the debate, and the decision
to be made by the debate judge after the debate. Someone disturbed by the problem of a growing underclass of
socially disenfranchised youths might observe, Public schools are doing a
terrible job! They' are overcrowded, and many teachers are poorly qualified in their subject areas. Even the best teachers can do little more than struggle
to maintain order in their classrooms." That same concerned citizen , facing a complex range of issues,
poorly educated,

might arrive at an unhelpful decision, such as " We ought to do something about

this or, worse, Its too complicated a problem to deal with." Groups of concerned citizens worried
about the state of public education
emotions regarding the schools,

could join together to express their frustrations , anger, disillusionment, and

but without a focus for their discussions , they could easily

agree about the sorry state of education without finding points of clarity or
potential solutions. A gripe session would follow. But if a precise question is
posedsuch as What can be done to improve public education?then a more
profitable area of discussion is opened up simply by placing a focus on the search
for a concrete solution step. One or more judgments can be phrased in the form of debate propositions, motions for
parliamentary debate, or bills for legislative assemblies, The statements "Resolved: That the federal government should implement a program of charter schools in

more clearly identify specific ways

of dealing with educational problems in a manageable form , suitable for debate. They
at-risk communities and Resolved; That the state of Florida should adopt a school voucher program"

provide specific policies to be investigated and aid discussants in identifying points

of difference . This focus contributes to better and more informed decision making
with the potential for better results . In academic debate, it provides better depth of
argumentation and enhanced opportunity for reaping the educational benefits of participation. In the next section,
we will consider the challenge of framing the proposition for debate, and its role in the debate. To have a productive debate, which
facilitates effective decision making by directing and placing limits on the
decision to be made, the basis for argument should be clearly defined . If we
merely talk about a topic, such as "homelessness, or abortion, Or crime, or global
warming, we are likely to have an interesting discussion but not to establish a profitable

basis for argument. For example, the statement Resolved: That the pen is mightier than the sword is debatable ,
yet

by itself

fails to provide much basis for dear argumentation . If we take this statement to mean

Iliad the written word is more effective than physical force for some purposes, we can identify a problem area: the comparative effectiveness of writing or physical
force for a specific purpose, perhaps promoting positive social change. (Note that loose propositions, such as the example above, may be defined by their
advocates in such a way as to facilitate a clear contrast of competing sides; through definitions and debate they become clearly understood statements even

in any debate, at some

point, effective and meaningful discussion relies on identification of a clearly stated or
understood proposition.) Back to the example of the written word versus physical force. Although we now have a
general subject, we have not yet stated a problem. It is still too broad , too loosely worded to promote well-organized argument.
though they may not begin as such. There are formats for debate that often begin with this sort of proposition. However,

What sort of writing are we concerned withpoems, novels, government documents, website development, advertising, cyber-warfare, disinformation, or what?
What does it mean to be mightier" in this context? What kind of physical force is being comparedfists, dueling swords, bazookas, nuclear weapons, or what? A
more specific question might be, Would a mutual defense treaty or a visit by our fleet be more effective in assuring Laurania of our support in a certain crisis?
The basis for argument could be phrased in a debate proposition such as Resolved: That the United States should enter into a mutual defense treaty with

This is not to say that

debates should completely avoid creative interpretation of the controversy by advocates,
or that good debates cannot occur over competing interpretations of the controversy; in
fact, these sorts of debates may be very engaging. The point is that debate is best
facilitated by the guidance provided by focus on a particular point of
Laurania. Negative advocates might oppose this proposition by arguing that fleet maneuvers would be a better solution.

difference , which will be outlined in the following discussion.

Limits Good K2 Participation

Their model of debate disincentives in depth debate and pre
round prep---its impossible to prepare for the infinite number
of possible advocacies which means the aff is always ahead
because they can develop issue-specific tricks to beat generics--they spent a bunch of time researching, practicing, and refining
the 1ac---this means novices quit the activity---someone who has
no experience cant have a debate about debate
Rowland 84, Kansas University communications professor, 1984 (Robert C., Baylor U., Topic Selection in
Debate, American Forensics in Perspective. Ed. Parson, p. 53-4)
The first major problem identified by the work group as relating to topic selection is the decline in participation in the National Debate
Tournament (NDT) policy debate. As Boman notes: There is a growing dissatisfaction with academic debate that utilizes a policy
proposition. Programs which are oriented toward debating the national policy debate proposition, so-called NDT programs, are
diminishing in scope and size.4 This decline

broad topics.

in policy debate is tied, many in the work group believe, to excessively

The most obvious characteristic of some recent policy debate topics is extreme breath. A resolution calling for

regulation of land use literally and figuratively covers a lot of ground. Naitonal debate topics have not always been so broad. Before the late
1960s the topic often specified a particular policy change.5 The

move from narrow to broad topics has had,

effect of limiting the number of students who participate in policy debate. First,
the breadth of the topics has all but destroyed novice debate . Paul Gaske argues that because the
according to some, the

stock issues of policy debate are clearly defined, it is superior to value debate as a means of introducing students to the debate process.6
Despite this advantage of policy debate, Gaske belives that NDT debate is not the best vehicle for teaching beginners. The problem is that

broad policy topics terrify novice debaters, especially those who lack high school debate experience. They are
unable to cope with the breadth of the topic and experience negophobia,7 the fear of debating
negative. As a consequence, the educational advantages associated with teaching novices through policy debate are lost: Yet all of
these benefits fly out the window as rookies in their formative stage quickly experience humiliation at being caugh without evidence or
substantive awareness of the issues that confront them at a tournament.8 The ultimate result is that fewer novices participate in NDT, thus
lessening the educational value of the activity and limiting the number of debaters or eventually participate in more advanced divisions of
policy debate. In addition to noting the effect on novices, participants argued that broad

topics also discourage

experienced debaters from continued participation in policy debate. Here, the claim is that it
takes so much times and effort to be competitive on a broad topic that students who are
concerned with doing more than just debate are forced out of the activity.9 Gaske notes, that broad topics discourage
participation because of insufficient time to do requisite research.10 The final effect may be that entire
programs

either

cease functioning

or shift to value debate as a way to avoid unreasonable research burdens.

Boman supports this point: It is this expanding necessity of evidence, and thereby research, which has created a competitive imbalance
between institutions that participate in academic debate.11 In this view, it is the competitive imbalance resulting from the use of broad
topics that has led some small schools to cancel their programs.

AT: Creativity
Strict limits enable creativity beauty emerges from identifying
constraints and working within them.
Flood 10 (Scott, BS in Communication and Theatre Arts St. Josephs College, School Board Member Plainfield
Community School Corporation, and Advertising Agent, Business Innovation Real Creativity Happens Inside the Box,
http://ezinearticles.com/?Business-Innovation---Real-Creativity-Happens-Inside-the-Box&id=4793692)

It seems that we can accomplish anything if we're brave enough to step out of that bad, bad box, and thinking
"creatively" has come to be synonymous with ignoring rules and constraints or pretending they
just don't exist. Nonsense. Real creativity is put to the test within the box . In fact,
that's where it really shines . It might surprise you, but it's actually easier to think outside
the box than within its confines. How can that be? It's simple. When you're working outside the
box, you don't face rules , or boundaries, or assumptions. You create your own as you go along. If
you want to throw convention aside, you can do it. If you want to throw proven practices out the window, have
at it. You have the freedom to create your own world. Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with
thinking outside the box. At times, it's absolutely essential - such as when you're facing the biggest oil spill
in history in an environment in which all the known approaches are failing. But most of us don't have the luxury of
being able to operate outside the box. We've been shoved into reality, facing a variety of
limitations, from budgets, to supervisors' opinions and prejudices, to the nature of the
marketplace. Even though the box may have been given a bad name, it's where most of
us have to spend our time. And no matter how much we may fret about those limits, inside that box is
where we need to prove ourselves . If you'll pardon the inevitable sports analogy, consider a baseball player
who belts ball after ball over 450 feet. Unfortunately, he has a wee problem: he can't place those hits between the foul lines, so they're
harmful strikes instead of game-winning home runs. To the out-of-the-box advocates, he's a mighty slugger who deserves admiration, but to
his teammates and the fans, he's a loser who just can't get on base. He may not like the fact that he has to limit his hits to between the foul
poles, but that's one of the realities of the game he chose to play. The same is true of ideas and approaches. The

most dazzling
and impressive tactic is essentially useless if it doesn't offer a practical, realistic way
to address the need or application. Like the baseball player, we may not like the realities, but
we have to operate within their limits. Often, I've seen people blame the box for their
inability or unwillingness to create something workable. For example, back in my ad agency days, I
remember fellow writers and designers complaining about the limitations of projects. If it was a half-page ad, they didn't feel they could
truly be creative unless the space was expanded to a full page. If they were given a full page, they demanded a spread. Handed a spread,
they'd fret because it wasn't a TV commercial. If the project became a TV commercial with a $25,000 budget, they'd grouse about not
having a $50,000 budget. Yet the

greatest artists of all time didn't complain about what they didn't
have; they worked their magic using what they did. Monet captured the grace and beauty
of France astonishingly well within the bounds of a canvas. Donatello exposed the breathtaking emotion
that lurked within ordinary chunks of marble. And I doubt that Beethoven ever whined because there were only 88 keys on the piano.
Similarly, I've watched the best of my peers do amazing things in less-than-favorable circumstances. There were brilliant commercials
developed with minimal budgets and hand-held cameras. Black-and-white ads that outperformed their colorful competitors. Simple
postcards that grabbed the attention of (and business from) jaded consumers. You see, real

creativity isn't hampered or

blocked by limits. It actually flowers in response to challenges. Even though it
may be forced to remain inside the box, it leverages everything it can find
in that box and makes the most of every bit of it. Real creativity is driven by a
need to create . When Monet approached a blank canvas, it's safe to say that he didn't
agonize over its size. He wanted to capture something he'd seen and share how it looked through his eyes. The size of the canvas
was incidental to his talent and desire. Think about the Apollo 13 mission. NASA didn't have the luxury of flying supplies or extra tools to
the crew. They couldn't rewrite the laws of physics. Plus, they faced a rapidly shrinking timeline, so their box kept getting smaller and less
forgiving. And yet they arrived upon a solution that was creative; more important, that was successful. The

next time someone

tells you that the real solution involves stepping outside the box, challenge him or her to
think and work harder. After all, the best solution may very well be lurking in a corner of that familiar box.

Constraints are more conducive to creative thinkingfollowing

the rules is key to innovation.
Gibbert et al. 2007 [Michael Gibbert, Assistant Professor of Management at Bocconi University (Italy), et
al., with Martin Hoeglis, Professor of Leadership and Human Resource Management at WHUOtto Beisheim School of
Management (Germany), and Lifsa Valikangas, Professor of Innovation Management at the Helsinki School of Economics
(Finland) and Director of the Woodside Institute, 2007 (In Praise of Resource Constraints, MIT Sloan Management
Review, Spring, Available Online at https://umdrive.memphis.edu/gdeitz/public/The%20Moneyball
%20Hypothesis/Gibbert%20et%20al.%20-%20SMR%20(2007)%20Praise%20Resource%20Constraints.pdf, Accessed
04-08-2012, p. 15-16)

Resource constraints can also fuel innovative team performance directly . In the
spirit of the proverb "necessity is the mother of invention," [end page 15] teams may produce
better results because of resource constraints. Cognitive psychology provides
experimental support for the "less is more" hypothesis . For example, scholars in
creative cognition find in laboratory tests that subjects are most innovative when
given fewer rather than more resources for solving a problem . The reason seems to be
that the

human mind is most productive when restricted . Limited or better

focusedby specific rules and constraints, we are more likely to recognize an unexpected
idea. Suppose, for example, that we need to put dinner on the table for unexpected guests arriving later that day. The main constraints
here are the ingredients available and how much time is left. One way to solve this problem is to think of a familiar recipe and then head off
to the supermarket for the extra ingredients. Alternatively, we may start by looking in the refrigerator and cupboard to see what is already
there, then allowing ourselves to devise innovative ways of combining subsets of these ingredients. Many cooks attest that the latter option,
while riskier, often leads to more creative and better appreciated dinners. In fact, it is the option invariably preferred by professional chefs.

The heightened innovativeness of such "constraints-driven" solutions comes from team

members' tendencies, under the circumstances, to look for alternatives beyond "how
things are normally done," write C. Page Moreau and Darren W. Dahl in a 2005 Journal of Consumer Research article.
Would-be innovators facing constraints are more likely to find creative
analogies and combinations that would otherwise be hidden under a glut of
resources.

Limits are vital to creativity and innovation

Intrator 10. [David, President of The Creative Organization, Thinking Inside the Box October 21 -http://www.trainingmag.com/article/thinking-inside-box]
One of the most pernicious myths about creativity, one that seriously inhibits creative thinking and innovation, is the belief that one needs
to think outside the box. As someone who has worked for decades as a professional creative, nothing could be further from the truth. This
a is view shared by the vast majority of creatives, expressed famously by the modernist designer Charles Eames when he wrote, Design
depends largely upon constraints. The myth of thinking outside the box stems from a fundamental misconception of what creativity is, and
what its not. In the popular imagination, creativity is something weird and wacky. The creative process is magical, or divinely inspired. But,
in fact, creativity

is not about divine inspiration or magic. Its about problem-

solving, and by definition a problem is a constraint , a limit, a box. One of the best illustrations of
this is the work of photographers. They create by excluding the great mass whats before them, choosing a small frame in which to work.
Within that tiny frame, literally a box, they uncover relationships and establish priorities. What makes creative problem-solving uniquely
challenging is that you, as the creator, are the one defining the problem. Youre the one choosing the frame. And you

alone
determine whats an effective solution. This can be quite demanding, both intellectually and emotionally.
Intellectually, you are required to establish limits , set priorities, and cull
patterns and relationships from a great deal of material , much of it
fragmentary. More often than not, this is the material you generated during brainstorming sessions. At the end of these sessions,

youre usually left with a big mess of ideas, half-ideas, vague notions, and the like. Now, chances are youve had a great time making your
mess. You might have gone off-site, enjoyed a brainstorming camp, played a number of warm-up games. You feel artistic and empowered.
But to be truly creative, you have to clean up your mess, organizing those fragments into something real, something useful, something that
actually works. Thats the hard part. It takes a lot of energy, time, and willpower to make sense of the mess youve just generated. It also can
be emotionally difficult. Youll need to throw out many ideas you originally thought were great, ideas youve become attached to, because
they simply dont fit into the rules youre creating as you build your box.

Rules increase creativity.

Mayer, 6. Marissa Ann Mayer, February 13, 2006, Creativity Loves Constraints, ProQuest, Business Week
When people think about creativity, they think about artistic work--unbridled, unguided
effort that leads to beautiful effect. But look deeper, and you'll find that some of the most
inspiring art forms, such as haikus, sonatas, and religious paintings, are fraught with
constraints. They are beautiful because creativity triumphed over the rules. Constraints
shape and focus problems and provide clear challenges to overcome. Creativity
thrives best when constrained . But constraints must be balanced with a healthy disregard for the impossible. Too
many curbs can lead to pessimism and despair. Disregarding the bounds of what is known or accepted gives rise to ideas that are nonobvious, unconventional, or unexplored. The

creativity realized in this balance between constraint and

disregard for the impossible is fueled by passion and leads to revolutionary change.
Innovation is born from the interaction between constraint and vision.

Neg Ground

Fairness First Galloway

Fairness first its key to meaningful clash engagement and
recognizing the other.
Galloway 7. Ryan, Samford pf of Comm, Dinner And Conversation At The Argumentative Table:
Reconceptualizing Debate As An Argumentative Dialogue Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, Vol. 28, 2007

Debate as a dialogue sets an argumentative table , where all parties receive a

relatively fair opportunity to voice their position . Anything that fails to allow
participants to have their position articulated denies one side of the
argumentative table a fair hearing . The affirmative side is set by the topic and
fairness requirements. While affirmative teams have recently resisted affirming the topic, in fact, the topic selection process is
rigorous, taking the relative ground of each topic as its central point of departure. Setting the affirmative
reciprocally sets the negative . The negative crafts approaches to the topic
consistent with affirmative demands. The negative crafts disadvantages, counter-plans, and critical arguments
premised on the arguments that the topic allows for the affirmative team. According to fairness norms, each side
sits at a relatively balanced argumentative table. When one side takes more than its
share, competitive equity suffers . However, it also undermines the respect
due to the other involved in the dialogue. When one side excludes the other, it
fundamentally denies the personhood of the other participant (Ehninger, 1970, p.
110). A pedagogy of debate as dialogue takes this respect as a fundamental component. A
desire to be fair is a fundamental condition of a dialogue that takes the form of a demand
for equality of voice. Far from being a banal request for links to a disadvantage, fairness is a demand for
respect , a demand to be heard, a demand that a voice backed by literally months upon
months of preparation, research, and critical thinking not be silenced. Affirmative cases
that suspend basic fairness norms operate to exclude particular negative
strategies. Unprepared, one side comes to the argumentative table unable to
meaningfully participate in a dialogue. They are unable to understand what went on and are left to the whims of
time and power (Farrell, 1985, p. 114). Hugh Duncan furthers this line of reasoning: Opponents not only tolerate but
honor and respect each other because in doing so they enhance their own chances of
thinking better and reaching sound decisions. Opposition is necessary because it
sharpens thought in action. We assume that argument, discussion, and talk, among free
an informed people who subordinate decisions of any kind, because it is only through
such discussion that we reach agreement which binds us to a common causeIf we are to
be equal relationships among equals must find expression in many formal
and informal institutions

(Duncan, 1993, p. 196-197). Debate compensates for the exigencies of the world by offering

a framework that maintains equality for the sake of the conversation (Farrell, 1985, p. 114). For example, an affirmative case on the 20072008 college topic might defend neither state nor international action in the Middle East, and yet claim to be germane to the topic in some
way. The case essentially denies the arguments that state action is oppressive or that actions in the international arena are philosophically
or pragmatically suspect. Instead

of allowing for the dialogue to be modified by the interchange of

the affirmative case and the negative response, the affirmative subverts any
meaningful role to the negative team , preventing them from offering effective
counter-word and undermining the value of a meaningful exchange of

speech acts . Germaneness and other substitutes for topical action do not accrue the
dialogical benefits of topical advocacy.

Our ground claims turn their exclusion arguments---makes it

impossible to be neg
Galloway 2007 [Ryan Galloway, Assistant Professor and Director of Debate at Samford University, 2007,
Dinner and Conversation at the Argumentative Table: Re-Conceptualizing Debate As An Argumentative Dialogue,
Contemporary Argumentation & Debate, Volume 28, September, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via
Academic Search Premier, p. 12]

the affirmative also relies upon an

unstated rule to exclude the negative response . This unstated but understood rule
is that the negative speech act must serve to negate the affirmative act . Thus, affirmative
teams often exclude an entire range of negative arguments , including arguments
designed to challenge the hegemony, domination, and oppression inherent in topical
approaches to the resolution. Becoming more than just a ritualistic tag-line of fairness, education, time skew, voting issue, fairness
exists in the implicit right to be heard in a meaningful way . Ground is just thata
While affirmative teams often accuse the negative of using a juridical rule to exclude them,

ground to stand on, a ground to speak from, a ground by which to meaningfully

contribute to an ongoing conversation

Neg Ground Good Clash and Education

Fairness is a prerequisite to clash and in depth education
Speice and Lyle 3 (Speice, Patrick, Wake Forest ,and Lyle, Jim, debate coach at Clarion, 2003, Traditional
Policy Debate: Now More Than Ever, Debaters Research Guide,
http://groups.wfu.edu/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/SpeiceLyle2003htm.htm)FS

The structure of intercollegiate and high school debate builds on to this competitive framework .
Judges not only answer a yes/no question regarding the resolution/plan, their
decision generates a winner and a loser

for the event. Judges assign winners, determine who does the

better debating, and give speaker points and ranks to determine which teams are excelling more than others in advancing particular claims
that provide an answer to the question asked by the resolution. And, the

competitiveness of the activity extends

across rounds as tournaments promote the better teams to elimination rounds and
crown a champion. Participants at tournaments such as the Tournament of Champions and the National Debate
Tournament are determined by evaluating competitive success across the entirety of
the debate season. Debate, neither in an ultra-generic form nor the specific form that we participate in can be classified merely as
discussion or dialogue. If it were decided that the promotion of education is of greater
importance than preserving debate as a game, then the activity would begin to fall
apart . Imagine that if instead of having two teams argue over competing viewpoints
about a particular resolution/plan that debate instead asked debaters to simply inform
the other participants of a different viewpoint regarding the plan. What would the activity look like then?
Instead of hearing why the plan was good and bad, or why one policy alternative was better than another, we
instead would hear why the plan is good, and why the plan reminded us of a story about
ones childhood. How would the judge evaluate such claims? If the desirability of the
plan loses its importance and debate ceases to answer a yes/no question, what criteria
should be used to resolve the debate (Smith, 2002)? While promoting intellectual
development and enterprise are important components of the activity, the promotion
of these values at the expense of the value of clash can only lead to the
transformation of debate into discussion . In fact, it is not only that such a development spurs the loss of
such a turn for the activity risks the loss of debate itself . Teams can begin to
argue however they wish, and the 2 + 2 = 4 strategy becomes viable. What comes to matter then is word choice or performance. The
result is a loss of depth of the education provided by the activity. Learning loses
competitiveness,

direction and begins to wander into the realm of acquiring random trivia. The
entire purpose of having a policy resolution is rendered moot. Certainly one of the things most debaters
enjoy about debate is that it really has no rules, however, if we decide to completely throw away rules, even as
guiding principles, then the activity becomes something other than debate as an activity
premised on fairness and competitive equity. Does any of this mean that there is no room for experimentation in
the activity? Does any of this mean that there is no room for critical argumentation in debate,
in policy debate? The answer to both questions is No. What this does suggest, however, is that before we adopt, and
use, these newer debate practices we need to consider how these tools fit into the overall scheme of the activity and its goals.

Procedural fairness is most importantit establishes

expectations for preparation and facilitates respectful and
productive dialogue between well-prepared opponents.
Massaro 89 Toni M. Massaro, Professor of Law at the University of Florida, 1989 (Legal Storytelling:
Empathy, Legal Storytelling, and the Rule of Law: New Words, Old Wounds?, Michigan Law Review (87 Mich. L. Rev.
2099), August, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Lexis-Nexis)
B. The Rule-of-Law Model as Villain Most writers who argue for more empathy in the law concede that law must resort to
some conventions and abstract principles. That is, they do not claim that legal rules are, as rules, intrinsically sinister.
Rather, they argue that we should design our legal categories and procedures in a way that encourages the decisionmakers
to consider individual persons and concrete situations. Generalities, abstractions, and formalities should not dominate the
process. The law should be flexible enough to take emotion into account, and to respond openly to the various "stories" of
the people it controls. We should, as I have said, move toward "minimalist" law. Yet despite

their
acknowledgment that some ordering and rules are necessary, empathy proponents tend
to approach the rule-of-law model as a villain. Moreover, they are hardly alone in their deep skepticism
about the rule-of-law model. Most modern legal theorists question the value of procedural regularity when it denies
substantive justice. n52 Some even question

the whole notion of justifying a legal [*2111] decision

by appealing to a rule of law, versus justifying the decision by reference to the facts of the
case and the judges' own reason and experience. n53 I do not intend to enter this important
jurisprudential debate, except to the limited extent that the "empathy" writings have suggested that the rule-of-law chills
judges' empathic reactions. In this regard, I have several observations. My first thought is that the

rule-of-law

model is only a model . If the term means absolute separation of legal decision and "politics," then it surely is
both unrealistic and undesirable. n54 But our actual statutory and decisional "rules" rarely mandate
a particular (unempathetic) response. Most of our rules are fairly open-ended .
"Relevance," "the best interests of the child," "undue hardship," "negligence," or "freedom of speech" -- to name only a few

legal concepts -- hardly admit of precise definition or consistent, predictable application.

Rather, they represent a weaker, but still constraining sense of the rule-of-law
model. Most rules are guidelines that establish spheres of relevant conversation ,
not mathematical formulas . Moreover, legal training in a common law system emphasizes the
indeterminate nature of rules and the significance of even subtle variations in facts. Our legal tradition stresses
an inductive method of discovering legal principles. We are taught to distinguish
different "stories," to arrive at "law" through experience with many stories, and to revise
that law as future experience requires. Much of the effort of most first-year law professors is, I believe,
devoted to debunking popular lay myths about "law" as clean-cut answers, and to illuminate law as a dynamic body of
policy determinations constrained by certain guiding principles. n55 As

a practical matter, therefore, our rules

often are ambiguous and fluid standards that offer substantial room for
varying interpretations . The interpreter, usually a judge, may consult several sources to
aid in decisionmaking. One important source necessarily will be the judge's own experiences -- including the
experiences that seem to determine a person's empathic capacity. In fact, much ink has been spilled to illuminate that our
stated "rules" often do not dictate or explain our legal results. Some writers even have argued that a rule of law may be, at
times, nothing more than a post hoc rationalization or attempted legitimization [*2112] of results that may be better
explained by extralegal (including, but not necessarily limited to, emotional) responses to the facts, the litigants, or the
litigants' lawyers, n56 all of which may go unstated. The

opportunity for contextual and empathic

decisionmaking therefore already is very much a part of our adjudicatory law, despite
our commitment to the rule-of-law ideal. Even when law is clear and relatively inflexible,
however, it is not necessarily "unempathetic." The assumed antagonism of legality and empathy is belied by
our experience in rape cases, to take one important example. In the past, judges construed the general, open-ended
standard of "relevance" to include evidence about the alleged victim's prior sexual conduct, regardless of whether the
conduct involved the defendant. n57 The solution to this "empathy gap" was legislative action to make the law more
specific -- more formalized. Rape shield statutes were enacted that controlled judicial discretion and specifically defined

relevance to exclude the prior sexual history of the woman, except in limited, justifiable situations. n58 In this case, one
can make a persuasive argument not only that the rule-of-law model does explain these later rulings, but also that
obedience to that model resulted in a triumph for the human voice of the rape survivor. Without the rule, some judges
likely would have continued to respond to other inclinations, and admit this testimony about rape survivors. The example
thus shows that radical rule skepticism is inconsistent with at least some evidence of actual judicial behavior. It also
suggests that the principle of legality is potentially most critical for people who are least understood by the decisionmakers

the
principle of legality reflects a deeply ingrained, perhaps inescapable, cultural instinct.
We value some procedural regularity law for law's sake" because it lends
-- in this example, women -- and hence most vulnerable to unempathetic ad hoc rulings. A final observation is that

stasis and structure to our often chaotic lives. Even within our most intimate
relationships, we both establish "rules," and expect the other

[*2113]

party to

follow them . n59 Breach of these unspoken agreements can destroy the
relationship and hurt us deeply , regardless of the wisdom or "substantive fairness"
of a particular rule. Our agreements create expectations , and their consistent
application fulfills the expectations. The modest predictability that this sort of
"formalism" provides actually may encourage human relationships . n60

State Good

State Good Reformism Good (General)

Radical demands are counter-productive; history
overwhelmingly supports moderate legal reforms as the best
mode of racial progress
-- reformers succeed where radicals fail; emancipation, unions, the Voting Rights Act
-- coalitions are key; Jewish immigrants and black Americans, rich college students and working class minorities, white
and black abolitionists

Kazin 11 Michael Kazin (Professor of History at Georgetown), Has the US Left Made a Difference, Dissent Spring,
2011 p. 52-54
But when

political radicals made a big difference, they generally did so as decidedly junior partners
in a coalition driven by establishment reformers. Abolitionists did not achieve their goal
until midway through the Civil War, when Abraham Lincoln and his fellow Republicans
realized that the promise of emancipation could speed victory for the North. Militant
unionists were not able to gain a measure of power in mines, factories, and on the waterfront until
Franklin Roosevelt needed labor votes during the New Deal. Only when Lyndon Johnson and
other liberal Democrats conquered their fears of disorder and gave up on the white South
could the black freedom movement celebrate passage of the civil rights and voting rights
acts. For a political movement to gain any major goal, it needs to win over a section of the
governing elite (it doesnt hurt to gain support from some wealthy philanthropists as well). Only on a handful of
occasions has the Left achieved such a victory, and never under its own name. The divergence between political
marginality and cultural influence stems, in part, from the kinds of people who have been the mainstays of the American
Left. During

just one period of about four decadesfrom the late 1870s to the end of the First World War
could radicals authentically claim to represent more than a tiny number of Americans
who belonged to what was, and remains, the majority of the population: white Christians
from the working and lower-middle class. At the time, this group included Americans from various trades
and regions who condemned growing corporations for controlling the marketplace, corrupting politicians, and degrading
civic morality. But this period ended after the First World Wardue partly to the epochal split in the international
socialist movement. Radicals lost most of the constituency they had gained among ordinary white Christians and have
never been able to regain it. Thus, the
Labor parties

wage-earning masses who voted for Socialist, Communist, and

elsewhere in the industrial world were almost entirely lost to the American

Leftand deeply skeptical about the vision of solidarity that inspired the great welfare states of Europe. Both before and
after this period, the public face and voice of the Left emanated from an uneasy alliance:
between men and women from elite backgrounds and those from such groups as Jewish
immigrant workers and plebeian blacks whom most Americans viewed as dangerous
outsiders. This was true in the abolitionist movementwhen such New England brahmins as
Wendell Phillips and Maria Weston Chapman fought alongside Frederick Douglass and Sojourner
Truth. And it was also the case in the New Left of the 1960s, an unsustainable alliance of
white students from elite colleges and black people like Fannie Lou Hamer and Huey
Newton from the ranks of the working poor. It has always been difficult for these top and- bottom
insurgencies to present themselves as plausible alternatives to the major parties, to convince more than a small minority

But furious
penchant for dogmatism, and hostility toward both nationalism and
organized religion helped make the political Left a taste few Americans cared to acquire.
of voters to embrace their program for sweeping change. Radicals did help to catalyze mass movements.
internal conflicts, a

However, some of the same qualities that alienated leftists from the electorate made them pioneers in generating an
alluringly rebellious culture. Talented orators, writers, artists, and academics associated with the Left put forth new ideas
and lifestyles that stirred the imagination of many Americans, particularly young ones, who felt stifled by orthodox values
and social hierarchies. These ideological pioneers also influenced forces around the world that adapted the culture of the
U.S. Left to their own purposesfrom the early sprouts of socialism and feminism in the1830s to the subcultures of black
power, radical feminism, and gay liberation in the 1960s and 1970s. Radical ideas about race, gender, sexuality, and social

justice did not need to win votes to become popular. They just required an audience. And leftists who were able to
articulate or represent their views in creative ways often found one. Arts created to serve political ends are always
vulnerable to criticism. Indeed, some radicals deliberately gave up their search for the sublime to concentrate on the
merely persuasive. But as George Orwell, no aesthetic slouch, observed, the opinion that art should have nothing to do
with politics is itself a political attitude. In a sense, the

radicals who made the most difference in U.S.

history were not that radical at all. What most demanded, in essence, was the fulfillment
of two ideals their fellow Americans already cherished: individual freedom and
communal responsibility. In 1875, Robert Schilling, a German immigrant who was an official in the coopers, or
caskmakers, union, reflected on why socialists were making so little headway among the hard-working citizenry:
.everything that smacks in the least of a curtailment of personal or individual liberty is most obnoxious to [Americans].
They believe that every individual should be permitted to do what and how it pleases, as long as the rights and liberties of
others are not injured or infringed upon. [But] this personal liberty must be surrendered and placed under the control of
the State, under a government such as proposed by the social Democracy. Most

American radicals grasped

this simple truth. They demanded that the promise of individual rights be realized in
everyday life and encouraged suspicion of the words and power of all manner of
authoritiespolitical, economic, and religious. Abolitionists, feminists, savvy Marxists all
quoted the words of the Declaration of Independence, the most popular document in the national
canon. Of course, leftists did not champion self-reliance, the notion that an individual is entirely responsible for his or her
own fortunes. But they did uphold the modernist vision that Americans should be free to pursue happiness unfettered by
inherited hierarchies and identities. At the same time, the U.S. Leftlike its counterparts around the worldstruggled to
establish a new order animated by a desire for social fraternity. The labor motto An injury to one is an injury to all
rippled far beyond picket lines and marches of the unemployed. But American

leftists who articulated this

credo successfully did so in a patriotic and often religious key, rather than by preaching
the grim inevitability of class struggle. Such radical social gospelers as Harriet Beecher
Stowe, Edward Bellamy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., gained more influence than did
those organizers who espoused secular, Marxian views. Particularly during times of economic
hardship and war, radicals promoted collectivist ends by appealing to the wisdom of the people at large. To gain a
sympathetic hearing, the Left always had to demand that the national faith apply equally
to everyone and oppose those who wanted to reserve its use for privileged groups and
undemocratic causes. But it was not always possible to wrap a movements destiny in the flag. America is a trap,
writes the critic Greil Marcus, its promises and dreamsare too much to live up to and too much to escape.

Empirics prove engaging the state is the most productive mode

of activism
Themba-Nixon 2K
Makani Themba-Nixon, 7-31-2000, Executive Director of The Praxis Project, a nonprofit organization helping
communities use media and policy advocacy, Colorlines, Changing the Rules: What Public Policy Means for Organizing,
Vol 3.2
This is all about policy," a woman complained to me in a recent conversation. "I'm an organizer." The flourish and
passion with which she made the distinction said everything. Policy

is for wonks, sell-out politicians, and ivorytower eggheads. Organizing is what real, grassroots people do. Common as it may be, this
distinction doesn't bear out in the real world. Policy is more than law. It is any written agreement (formal
or informal) that specifies how an institution, governing body, or community will address shared problems or attain
shared goals. It spells out the terms and the consequences of these agreements and is the codification of the body's valuesas represented by those present in the policymaking process. Given

who's usually present, most policies

reflect the political agenda of powerful elites. Yet, policy can be a force for change-especially when we
bring our base and community organizing into the process. In essence, policies are the codification of power
relationships and resource allocation. Policies are the rules of the world we live in. Changing the world means
changing the rules. So, if organizing is about changing the rules and building power,

how can organizing be separated from policies? Can we really speak truth to power, fight
the right, stop corporate abuses, or win racial justice without contesting the rules and the rulers, the
policies and the policymakers? The answer is no-and double no for people of color . Today,
racism subtly dominates nearly every aspect of policymaking. From ballot propositions to city funding
priorities, policy is increasingly about the control, de-funding, and disfranchisement of communities of color. Take the
public conversation about welfare reform, for example. Most of us know it isn't really about putting people to work. The
right's message was framed around racial stereotypes of lazy, cheating "welfare queens" whose poverty was "cultural." But
the new welfare policy was about moving billions of dollars in individual cash payments and direct services from welfare
recipients to other, more powerful, social actors. Many of us were too busy to tune into the welfare policy drama in
Washington, only to find it washed up right on our doorsteps. Our members are suffering from workfare policies, new
regulations, and cutoffs. Families who were barely getting by under the old rules are being pushed over the edge by the
new policies. Policy doesn't get more relevant than this. And so we got involved in policy-as defense. Yet we have to do
more than block their punches. We have to start the fight with initiatives of our own. Those who do are finding offense a
bit more fun than defense alone.

Living wage ordinances, youth development initiatives, even gun

control and alcohol and tobacco policies are finding their way onto the public agenda,
thanks to focused community organizing that leverages power for community-driven
initiatives. - Over 600 local policies have been passed to regulate the tobacco
industry. Local coalitions have taken the lead by writing ordinances that address local
problems and organizing broad support for them. - Nearly 100 gun control and violence
prevention policies have been enacted since 1991. - Milwaukee, Boston, and Oakland are
among the cities that have passed living wage ordinances: local laws that guarantee higher than
minimum wages for workers, usually set as the minimum needed to keep a family of four above poverty. These are
just a few of the examples that demonstrate how organizing for local policy advocacy has
made inroads in areas where positive national policy had been stalled by conservatives.
Increasingly, the local policy arena is where the action is and where activists are finding success. Of course, corporate
interests-which are usually the target of these policies-are gearing up in defense. Tactics include front groups, economic
pressure, and the tried and true: cold, hard cash. Despite these barriers, grassroots organizing can be very effective at the
smaller scale of local politics. At the local level, we have greater access to elected officials and officials have a greater
reliance on their constituents for reelection. For example, getting 400 people to show up at city hall in just about any city
in the U.S. is quite impressive. On the other hand, 400 people at the state house or the Congress would have a less
significant impact. Add to that the fact that all 400 people at city hall are usually constituents, and the impact is even
greater. Recent trends in government underscore the importance of local policy. Congress has enacted a series of measures
devolving significant power to state and local government. Welfare, health care, and the regulation of food and drinking
water safety are among the areas where states and localities now have greater rule. Devolution has some negative
consequences to be sure.

History has taught us that, for social services and civil

rights in particular, the lack of clear federal standards and mechanisms for
accountability lead to uneven enforcement and even discriminatory
implementation of policies . Still, there are real opportunities for advancing progressive
initiatives in this more localized environment. Greater local control can mean greater community power to shape and
implement important social policies that were heretofore out of reach. To do so will require careful attention to
the mechanics of local policymaking and a clear blueprint of what we stand for. Much of the work of framing
what we stand for takes place in the shaping of demands. By getting into the policy arena in a proactive
manner, we can take our demands to the next level . Our demands can become law, with real consequences
if the agreement is broken. After all the organizing, press work, and effort, a group should leave a decisionmaker with
more than a handshake and his or her word. Of course, this

work requires a certain amount of interaction

with "the suits," as well as struggles with the bureaucracy, the technical language, and the all-too-common
resistance by decisionmakers. Still, if it's worth demanding, it's worth having in writing-whether as law, regulation, or
internal policy. From ballot initiatives on rent control to laws requiring worker protections, organizers are leveraging their
power into written policies that are making a real difference in their communities. Of course, policy work is just one tool in
our box.

Engaging the government is key activism alone does nothing

Chandler 9 (David, Professor of International Relations at the University of Westminster, Questioning Global
Political Activism, What is Radical Politics Today?, Edited by Jonathan Pugh, pp. 78-9)

People often argue that there is nothing passive or conservative about radical political activist
protests, such as the 2003 anti-war march, anti-capitalism and anti-globalisation protests, the huge march to Make
Poverty History at the end of 2005, involvement in the World Social Forums or the radical jihad of Al-Qaeda. I
disagree; these new forms of protest are highly individualised and personal ones there is no
attempt to build a social or collective movement. It appears that theatrical suicide, demonstrating, badge
and bracelet wearing are ethical acts in themselves: personal statements of awareness, rather than attempts to engage
politically with society. This is illustrated by the celebration of differences at marches, protests and social forums. It is as
if people

are more concerned with the creation of a sense of community through differences than
with any political debate, shared agreement or collective purpose. It seems to me that if someone was really
concerned with ending war or with ending poverty or with overthrowing capitalism, political views
and political differences would be quite important. Is war caused by capitalism, by human nature, or by the existence of
guns and other weapons? It

would seem important to debate reasons, causes and solutions; it

would also seem necessary to give those political differences an organisational expression if
there was a serious project of social change. Rather than a political engagement with the world, it seems that
radical political activism today is a form of social disengagement expressed in the anti-war marchers slogan of Not in
My Name, or the assumption that wearing a plastic bracelet or setting up an internet blog diary is the same as engaging in
political debate. In fact, it seems that political activism is a practice which isolates

individuals who think

commitment or awareness of problems is preferable to engaging
with other people who are often dismissed as uncaring or brainwashed by consumerism. The narcissistic
that demonstrating a personal

aspects of the practice of this type of global politics are expressed clearly by individuals who are obsessed with reducing
their carbon footprint, deriving their idealised sense of social connection from an ever-increasing awareness of themselves
and by giving political meaning to every personal action. Global ethics appear to be in demand because they offer us a
sense of social connection and meaning, while at the same time giving us the freedom to construct the meaning for
ourselves, to pick our causes of concern, and enabling us to be free of responsibilities for acting as part of a collective
association, for winning an argument or for success at the ballot-box. While the appeal of global ethical politics is an
individualistic one, the lack

of success or impact of radical activism is also reflected in its rejection of any

form of social movement or organization.

Legal norms are inevitable, which means only demand for legal
rights can spur change
Kimberle Crenshaw 88, Law @ UCLA, RACE, REFORM, AND RETRENCHMENT: TRANSFORMATION
AND LEGITIMATION IN ANTIDISCRIMINATION LAW, 101 Harv. L. Rev. 1331, lexis
One wonders, however, whether a demand for shelter that does not employ rights rhetoric is likely to succeed in America
today. The

underlying problem, especially for African-Americans, is the question of how to

extract from others that which others are not predisposed to give . As Tushnet has said himself,
rights are a way of saying that a society is what it is, or that it ought to live up to its deepest commitments. 135 This is
essentially what all groups of dispossessed people say when they use rights rhetoric. As

demonstrated in the
civil rights movement, engaging in rights rhetoric can be an attempt to turn
society's "institutional logic" against itself - to redeem some of the rhetorical promises and the
self-congratulations that seem to thrive in American political discourse. NOTE 136 BEGINS 136 Cf. F. PIVEN & R.
CLOWARD, POOR PEOPLE'S MOVEMENTS 22-23 (I977) (noting that " the

opportunities for defiance

are structured by features of institutional life"). NOTE 136 ENDS. Questioning the Transformative
View: Some Doubts About Trashing The Critics' product is of limited utility to Blacks in its present form. The implications
for Blacks of trashing liberal legal ideology are troubling, even though it may be proper to assail belief structures that
obscure liberating possibilities. Trashing legal ideology seems to tell us repeatedly what has already been established -that legal discourse is unstable and relatively indeterminate. Furthermore ,

trashing offers no idea of how to

avoid the negative consequences of engaging in reformist discourse

or how to

work around such consequences. Even if we imagine the wrong world when we think in terms of legal discourse, we must
nevertheless exist in a present world where legal protection has at times been a blessing -- albeit a mixed one. The
fundamental problem is that, although Critics criticize law because it functions to legitimate existing institutional
arrangements, it is precisely this legitimating function that has made law receptive to certain demands in this area. The
Critical emphasis on deconstruction as the vehicle for liberation leads to the conclusion that engaging in legal discourse
should be avoided because it reinforces not only the discourse itself but also the society and the world that it embodies. Yet
Critics offer little beyond this observation. Their

focus on delegitimating rights rhetoric

seems to suggest that, once rights rhetoric has been discarded, there exists a
more productive strategy for change, one which does not reinforce existing
patterns of domination. Unfortunately, no such strategy has yet been
articulated, and it is difficult to imagine that racial minorities will ever be able to discover one. As Frances Fox
Piven and Richard Cloward point out in their [*1367] excellent account of the civil rights movement, popular
struggles are a reflection of institutionally determined logic and a challenge to that logic .
137 FOOTNOTE 137 BEGINS 137 See id. at 22-25. The observation concerning the inability to bring about change in
some non-legitimating fashion does not, of course, rule out the possibility of armed revolution. For

most
oppressed peoples, however, the costs of such a revolt are often too great. That is, the
oppressed cannot realistically hope to overcome the "coercive" components of hegemony .
More importantly, it is not clear that such a struggle , although superficially a clear radical challenge to the
coercive force of the status quo, would be a lesser reinforcement of the ideology of America n society
(i.e., the consensual components of hegemony). FOOTNOTE 137 Ends. People can only
demand change in ways that reflect the logic of the institutions that they are
challenging. 138 Demands for change that do not reflect the institutional logic
-- that is, demands that do not engage and subsequently reinforce the dominant ideology -- will probably be
ineffective. 139 FOOTNOTE 139 BEGINS 139 Reforms necessarily come from an
existing repertoire of options. As Piven and Cloward note, "if impoverished
southern blacks had demanded land reform, they would probably have still
gotten the vote." Id. at 33. FOOTNOTE 139 ENDS. The possibility for ideological change is
created through the very process of legitimation, which is triggered by crisis .
Powerless people can sometimes trigger such a crisis by challenging an
institution internally, that is, by using its own logic against it. 140 Such crisis
occurs when powerless people force open and politicize a contradiction
between the dominant ideology and their reality . The political consequences [*1368] of
maintaining the contradictions may sometimes force an adjustment -- an attempt to close the gap or to make things
appear fair. 141 Yet, because the adjustment is triggered by the political consequences of the contradiction, circumstances
will be adjusted only to the extent necessary to close the apparent contradiction. This

approach to
and change is applicable to the civil rights movement.
Because Blacks were challenging their exclusion from political society, the
only claims that were likely to achieve recognition were those that reflected
American society's institutional logic: legal rights ideology. Articulating their formal
understanding legitimation

demands through legal rights ideology, civil rights protestors exposed a series of contradictions -- the most important
being the promised privileges of American citizenship and the practice of absolute racial subordination. Rather

than using the contradictions to suggest that American citizenship was itself
illegitimate or false, civil rights protestors proceeded as if American
citizenship were real, and demanded to exercise the rights that citizenship
entailed. By seeking to restructure reality to reflect American mythology,
Blacks relied upon and ultimately benefited from politically inspired efforts to resolve
the contradictions by granting formal rights. Although it is the need to maintain legitimacy that
presents powerless groups with the opportunity to wrest concessions from the dominant order, it is the very

accomplishment of legitimacy that forecloses greater possibilities. In sum, the potential for change is both created and
limited by legitimation. The

central issue that the Critics fail to address, then, is how to avoid the
"legitimating" effects of reform if engaging in reformist discourse is the
only effective way to challenge the legitimacy of the social order . Perhaps the only
situation in which powerless people may receive any favorable response is where there is a political or ideological need to
restore an image of fairness that has somehow been tarnished. Most efforts

to change an oppressive
situation are bound to adopt the dominant discourse to some degree .142
FOOTNOTE 142 BEGINS 142 This

engagement is apparently required of successful

efforts at change . See F. PIVEN & R. CLOWARD, supra note 136, at I-32. FOOTNOTE 142 ENDS.

The aff is a step in the right direction which is key to realizing

the full alternativeall of their links apply more to the status
quo
Wright

Erik Olin
, Professor, Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Guidelines for Envisioning Real Utopias, SOUNDSINGS, 4
www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/Published%20writing/Guidelines-soundings.pdf

07,

5. Waystations The final guideline for discussions of envisioning real utopias concerns the importance of waystations. The central problem
of envisioning

real utopias concerns the viability of institutional alternatives

that embody emancipatory values, but the practical achievability of such institutional
designs often depends upon the existence of smaller steps, intermediate institutional innovations
that move us in the right direction but only partially embody these
values.Institutional proposals which have an all-or-nothing quality to them are both less
likely to be adopted in the first place, and may pose more difficult transition-cost
problems if implemented. The catastrophic experience of Russia in the shock therapy approach to market reform is historical
testimony to this problem. Waystations are a difficult theoretical and practical problem because there are many instances in which partial
reforms may have very different consequences than full- bodied changes. Consider the example of unconditional basic income. Suppose that
a very limited, below-subsistence basic income was instituted: not enough to survive on, but a grant of income unconditionally given to
everyone. One possibility is that this kind of basic income would act mainly as a subsidy to employers who pay very low wages, since now
they could attract more workers even if they offered below poverty level earnings. There may be good reasons to institute such wage

What we
intermediate reforms that have two main properties: first, they concretely
demonstrate the virtues of the fuller program of transformation, so they
contribute to the ideological battle of convincing people that the alternative is credible
and desirable; and second, they enhance the capacity for action of people,
increasing their ability to push further in the future . Waystations that increase popular
participation and bring people together in problem-solving deliberations for collective
purposes are particularly salient in this regard. This is what in the 1970s was called nonreformist reforms:
reforms that are possible within existing institutions and that pragmatically
solve real problems while at the same time empowering people in ways
which enlarge their scope of action in the future.
subsidies, but they would not generate the positive effects of a UBI, and therefore might not function as a stepping stone.
ideally want, therefore, are

State Good Inevitable

State institutions are inevitable---must work within them rather
than the alt
Paul A. Passavant 7, Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York, The Contradictory State of Giorgio
Agamben, Political Theory Volume 35, Number 2, April, SAGE
Fourth,

the state's institutions are among the few with the capacity to respond

to the exigency of human needs identified by political theorists. These actions will necessarily be finite and
less than wholly adequate, but responsibility may lie on the side of acknowledging these
limitations and seeking to redress what is lacking in state action rather than
calling for pure potentiality and an end to the state . We may conclude that claims to justice or
democracy based on the wish to rid ourselves of the state once and for all are like George W. Bush claiming to be an environmentalist because he has proposed

in the here and now, there are urgent claims that

demand finite acts that by definition will be both divisive and less than what a situation
demands.52 In the end, the state remains. Let us defend this state of due process and equal
protection against its ruinous other.
converting all of our cars so that they will run on hydrogen.5" Meanwhile,

Pure resistance entrenches the status quo---must be willing to

propose imperfect reforms
Pyle 99Boston College Law School, J.D., magna cum laude (Jefferey, Race, Equality and the Rule of Law: Critical
Race Theory's Attack on the Promises of Liberalism, 40 B.C.L. Rev. 787)
For all their talk of "realism,"'" race-crits are strangely unrealistic in their proposals for reform . 1 m7 Most
probably realize that radical measures like racial or ethnic reparations are not likely to be granted, especially by a court. But even unrealistic
proposals are rare, because race-crits generally prefer

not to suggest solutions, but to "resist" the dominant

legal thought, doctrine and policy, whatever that happens to be.'" As Derrick Bell has put it, "most critical race theorists are
committed to a program of scholarly resistance, and most hope scholarly resistance will lay the groundwork for wide-scale resistance."'"

How this ivory tower oppositionalism would foment grassroots revolt is

unclear, because CRT professors rarely suggest anything practical.

Rather, their

exhortations are meant, as Bell says, to "harass white folks" and thereby "make life bearable in a society where blacks are a permanent,
subordinate class."'"

One of the race-erns' few practical programs of "resistance" is Paul Butler's proposal that inner-city juries practice raciallybased jury nullification.'91 jurors of color, Butler argues, have the "moral responsibility" not to apply the criminal law to
blacks and whites equally, but to "etnancipate some guilty black outlaws" because "the black community" would be "better
off" if there were fewer black men in prison.'" If enough juries were hung or not-guilty verdicts rendered, he imagines, the
white-dominated government would change its excessive reliance on incarceration.'" Butler rejects the ordinary
democratic process of legal reform.' Democracy, he says, ensures a "permanent, homogenous majority" of whites that
"dominat[es]" African Ainericans.w5 Butler is probably correct that occasional acts of jury nullification might well express
the resentment that many African Americans justifiably feel towards discriminatory law enforcement.'"`' As Randall
Kennedy has pointed out, however, black Americans are disproportionately the victims of crimes,'97 and therefore tend to
favor more, not less, criminal prosecution and punishment. 1 "8
The race-crits' preference

for "resistance"'99 over democratic participation seems to flow from a

fear of losing their status as "oppositional scholars] "200 to the game of mainstream law and
politics, which they regard as "an inevitably co-optive process?"' Better to be radically opposed to the
"doniinant political discourse""2 and remain an out than to work within the current system and lose one's "authenticity?" In
rejecting the realistic for the "authentic," however, race- crits begin to look
like academic poseursideological purists striking the correct radical

stance, but doing little within the confines of the real world, so sure are
they that nothing much can be done."

Reformism is effective and brings revolutionary change closer

rather than pushing it away
Richard Delgado 9, self-appointed Minority scholar, Chair of Law at the University of Alabama Law School, J.D.
from the University of California, Berkeley, his books have won eight national book prizes, including six Gustavus Myers
awards for outstanding book on human rights in North America, the American Library Associations Outstanding
Academic Book, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. Professor Delgados teaching and writing focus on race, the legal
profession, and social change, 2009, Does Critical Legal Studies Have What Minorities Want, Arguing about Law, p.
588-590

CLS critique of piecemeal reform Critical scholars reject the idea of piecemeal reform. Incremental
change, they argue, merely postpones the wholesale reformation that must occur to create a
decent society. Even worse, an unfair social system survives by using piecemeal reform to
disguise and legitimize oppression. Those who control the system weaken resistance by
pointing to the occasional concession to, or periodic court victory of, a black plaintiff or worker as
evidence that the system is fair and just. In fact, Crits believe that teaching the common law or using the case method in law school is a disguised means of
2. The

preaching incrementalism and thereby maintaining the current power structure. To avoid this, CLS scholars urge law professors to abandon the case method, give up the effort to nd rationality
and order in the case law, and teach in an unabashedly political fashion.

The

CLS

critique of piecemeal reform is familiar,

imperialistic and wrong . Minorities know from bitter experience that occasional court victories do not mean the Promised Land is at hand. The
critique is imperialistic in that it tells minorities and other oppressed peoples how they should
interpret events affecting them. A court order directing a housing authority to disburse
funds for heating in subsidized housing may postpone the revolution , or it may not .
In the meantime, the order keeps a number of poor families warm. This may mean more
to them than it does to a comfortable academic working in a warm office. It smacks of
paternalism to assert that the possibility of revolution later outweighs the certainty of
heat now, unless there is evidence for that possibility. The Crits do not offer such evidence. Indeed, some incremental
changes may bring revolutionary changes closer , not push them further away.
Not all small reforms induce complacency; some may whet the appetite for further
combat. The welfare family may hold a tenants union meeting in their heated living
room. CLS scholars critique of piecemeal reform often misses these possibilities, and neglects the
question of whether total change, when it comes, will be what we want.

The State is inevitable and should not be rejectedsolving global

problems like nuclear war and environmental destruction
require a recognition of state power and an attempt to
transform it
Eckersly 4--Professor and Head of Political Science in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of
Melbourne, Australia Robyn, The Green State, p. 4-5

While acknowledging the basis for this antipathy toward the nation-state, and the limitations of
state-centric analyses of global ecological degradation, I seek to draw attention to the positive role that
states have played , and might increasingly play, in global and domestic politics. Writing
more than twenty years ago, Hedley Bull (A proto-constructivist and leading writer in the English school) outlined the
states positive role in world affairs, and his arguments continue to provide a powerful
challenge to those who somehow seek to get beyond the state, as if such a move

would provide a more lasting solution to the threat of armed conflict or nuclear
war, social and economic injustice, or environmental degradation. 10 As Bull argued, given that
the state is here to stay whether we like it or not, then the call to get beyond the
state is a counsel of despair at all events if it means that we have to begin by abolishing or
subverting the state, rather than that there is a need to build upon it. 11 In any event, rejecting the statist
frame of world politics ought not prohibit an inquiry into the emancipatory potential of
the state as a crucial node in any future network of global ecological governance. This is especially so, given that one
can expect states to persist as major sites of social and political power for at
least the foreseeable future and that any green transformations of the present
political order will, short of revolution, necessarily be state dependent .

Thus, like it or not, those

concerned about ecological destruction must contend with existing institutions

and, where possible, seek to rebuild the ship while at sea. And if states are so implicated in
ecological destruction, then an inquiry into the potential for their transformation or even
their modest reform into something that is at least more conducive to ecological sustainability would
seem to be compelling.

The state is inevitable---blanket rejecting sovereignty

exacerbates inequalities and prevents emancipation
Tara McCormack 10, Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester, PhD in IR from the University of
Westminster, Critique, Security and Power: The Political Limits to Emancipatory Approaches, p139, google books
Critics of critical and emancipatory theory have raised pertinent problems in terms both of the idealism of critical approaches and their problematic relationship to
contemporary liberal intervention. Critical theorists themselves are aware that their prescriptions seem to be hard to separate from contemporary discourses and
practices of power, yet critical theorists do not seem to be able to offer any understanding of why this might be. However,

the limitations to

critical and emancipatory approaches cannot be overcome by

distinguishing themselves from liberal internationalist policy . In fact a closer engagement
with contemporary security policies and discourse would show the similarities with critical theory and that both suffer from the same limitations. The limitations of
critical and emancipatory approaches are to be found in critical prescriptions in the contemporary political context. Jahn is right to argue that critical theory is
idealistic, but this needs to be explained why. Douzinas is right to argue that critical theory becomes a justification for power and this needs to be explained why.

. I argue here that critical and emancipatory approaches

lack a fundamental understanding of what is at stake in the political realm.
For critical theorists the state and sovereignty represent oppressive
structures that work against human freedom. There is much merit to this critique of the inequities of the state
system. However, the problem is that freedom or emancipation are not simply words
that can breathe life into international affairs but in the material
The reasons for this remain undertheorised

circumstances of the contemporary world must be linked to political

constituencies , that is men and women who can give content to that
freedom and make freedom a reality. Critical and emancipatory theorists fail to understand that there must be a
political content to emancipation and new forms of social organisation. Critical theorists seek emancipation and
argue for new forms of political community above and beyond the state, yet
there is nothing at the moment beyond the state that can give real content to
those wishes . There is no democratic world government and it is simply nonsensical to argue that the UN, for example, is a step towards global
democracy. Major international institutions are essentially controlled by powerful
states. To welcome challenges to sovereignty in the present political context
cannot hasten any kind of more just world order in which people really

matter (to paraphrase Lynch). Whatever the limitations of the state, and there are many,
at the moment the state represents the only framework in which people
might have a chance to have some meaningful control over their lives.

State Good Roleplaying Good

Role-playing solves political apathy and reinvigorates personal
politics turns the K
Mitchell 2k (Gordon, Director of Debate and Professor of Communication U. Pittsburgh, Argumentation &
Advocacy, Vol. 36, No. 3, Winter)JFS

When we assume the posture of the other in dramatic performance, we tap into who we are
as persons , since our interpretation of others is deeply colored by our own senses of selfhood. By encouraging
experimentation in identity construction, role-play " helps students discover
divergent viewpoints and overcome stereotypes as they examine subjects from multiple
perspectives..." (Moore, p. 190). Kincheloe points to the importance of this sort of reflexive critical awareness as an
essential feature of educational practice in postmodern times. "Applying the notion of
the postmodern analysis of the self, we come to see that hyperreality invites a heteroglossia of being," Kincheloe explains;
"Drawing

upon a multiplicity of voices, individuals live out a variety of possibilities,

refusing to suppress particular voices. As men and women appropriate the various forms of expression,
they are empowered to uncover new dimensions of existence that were previously
hidden" (1993, p. 96). This process is particularly

crucial in the public argument context, since a key

guarantor of inequality and exploitation

in contemporary society

is the

widespread and

acceptance by citizens of politically inert self- identities . The problems of

political alienation, apathy and withdrawal have received lavish treatment as perennial
topics of scholarly analysis (see e.g. Fishkin 1997; Grossberg 1992; Hart 1998; Loeb 1994). Unfortunately, comparatively
less energy has been devoted to the development of pedagogical strategies for countering
this alarming political trend. However, some scholars have taken up the task of theorizing
emancipatory and critical pedagogies, and argumentation scholars interested in expanding the learning
potential of debate would do well to note their work (see e.g. Apple 1995, 1988, 1979; Britzman 1991; Giroux 1997, 1988, 1987;
uncritical

Greene 1978; McLaren 1993, 1989; Simon 1992; Weis and Fine 1993). In this area of educational scholarship, the curriculum theory of
currere, a method of teaching pioneered by Pinar and Grumet (1976), speaks directly to many of the issues already discussed in this
essay. As the Latin root of the word "curriculum," currere translates roughly as the investigation of public life (see Kincheloe 1993, p.
146). According to Pinar, "the method of currere is one way to work to liberate one from the web of political, cultural, and economic
influences that are perhaps buried from conscious view but nonetheless comprise the living web that is a person's biographic situation"
(Pinar 1994, p. 108). The objectives of role-play pedagogy resonate with the currere method. By

opening discursive
spaces for students to explore their identities as public actors, simulated public
arguments provide occasions for students to survey

and appraise submerged aspects of

their political identities . Since many aspects of cultural and political life work currently to
reinforce political passivity, critical argumentation pedagogies that highlight this component of
students' self-identities carry significant emancipatory potential.

AT: Kritiks
Critiques get bogged down in theoretical jargon that distract
from efforts for true political change---we must engage in the
rhetoric of policymaking.
McClean Rutgers Philosophy Professor 1 [David E., Annual Conference of the Society for the Advancement of
American Philosophy, The Cultural Left and the Limits of Social Hope, http://www.americanphilosophy.org/archives/past_conference_programs/pc2001/Discussion%20papers/david_mcclean.htm]

leftist
critics continue to cite and refer to the eccentric and often a priori ruminations of people
like those just mentioned, and a litany of others including Derrida, Deleuze, Lyotard, Jameson, and Lacan, who are
to me hugely more irrelevant than Habermas in their narrative attempts to suggest policy
prescriptions (when they actually do suggest them) aimed at curing the ills of
homelessness, poverty, market greed, national belligerence and racism. I would like to suggest that
it is time for American social critics who are enamored with this group, those who
Yet for some reason, at least partially explicated in Richard Rorty's Achieving Our Country, a book that I think is long overdue,

actually want to be relevant, to recognize that they have a disease , and a disease regarding
which I myself must remember to stay faithful to my own twelve step program of recovery. The disease is

the need for

elaborate theoretical "remedies" wrapped in neological and multi-syllabic

jargon. These elaborate theoretical remedies are more "interesting," to be sure, than
the pragmatically settled questions about what shape democracy should take in various
contexts, or whether private property should be protected by the state, or regarding our basic human nature (described, if not defined
(heaven forbid!), in such statements as "We don't like to starve" and "We like to speak our minds without fear of death" and "We like to
keep our children safe from poverty"). As

Rorty puts it, "When one of today's academic leftists says that
some topic has been 'inadequately theorized,' you can be pretty certain that he or she is
going to drag in either philosophy of language, or Lacanian psychoanalysis, or some neoMarxist version of economic determinism. . . . These futile attempts to
philosophize one's way into political relevance are a symptom of what
happens when a Left retreats from activism and adopts a spectatorial
approach to

the

problems

of its country. Disengagement from practice produces theoretical hallucinations"(italics

mine).(1) Or as John Dewey put it in his The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy, "I believe that philosophy in America will be lost between
chewing a historical cud long since reduced to woody fiber, or an apologetics for lost causes, . . . . or a scholastic, schematic formalism,
unless it can somehow bring to consciousness America's own needs and its own implicit principle of successful action." Those who suffer or
have suffered from this disease Rorty refers to as the

Cultural Left, which left is juxtaposed to the Political Left

that Rorty prefers and prefers for good reason. Another attribute of the Cultural Left is that its members fancy
themselves pure culture critics who view the successes of America and the West, rather than some of the barbarous methods for achieving
those successes, as mostly evil, and who view anything like national pride as equally evil even when that pride is tempered with the
knowledge and admission of the nation's shortcomings. In other words, the

Cultural Left, in this country, too

often dismiss American society as beyond reform and redemption . And Rorty
correctly argues that this

is a disastrous conclusion , i.e. disastrous for the Cultural Left. I think it may also be
our social hopes, as I will explain. Leftist American culture critics might put their
considerable talents to better use if they bury some of their cynicism about America's social and
political prospects and help forge public and political possibilities in a spirit of
disastrous for

determination

to, indeed, achieve our country - the country of Jefferson and King; the country of John Dewey and Malcom X;

the country of Franklin Roosevelt and Bayard Rustin, and of the later George Wallace and the later Barry Goldwater. To invoke the words of
King, and with reference to the American society, the time is always ripe to seize the opportunity to help create the "beloved community,"

one woven with the thread of agape into a conceptually single yet diverse tapestry that shoots for nothing less than a true intra-American
cosmopolitan ethos, one wherein both same sex unions and faith-based initiatives will be able to be part of the same social reality, one
wherein business interests and the university are not seen as belonging to two separate galaxies but as part of the same answer to the threat
of social and ethical nihilism. We

who fancy ourselves philosophers would do well to create from

within ourselves and from within our ranks a new kind of public intellectual who has
both a hungry theoretical mind and who is yet capable of seeing the need to move past
high theory to other important questions that are less bedazzling and "interesting" but
more important to the prospect of our flourishing - questions such as "How is it possible to develop a citizenry
that cherishes a certain hexis, one which prizes the character of the Samaritan on the road to Jericho almost more than any other?" or "How
can we square the political dogma that undergirds the fantasy of a missile defense system with the need to treat America as but one member
in a community of nations under a "law of peoples?" The new public philosopher might seek to understand labor law and military and trade
theory and doctrine as much as theories of surplus value; the logic of international markets and trade agreements as much as critiques of

This
means going down deep into the guts of our quotidian social institutions, into the
grimy pragmatic details where intellectuals are loathe to dwell but where the
officers and bureaucrats of those institutions take difficult and often unpleasant,
imperfect decisions that affect other peoples' lives, and it means making honest attempts
commodification, and the politics of complexity as much as the politics of power (all of which can still be done from our arm chairs.)

to truly understand how those institutions actually function in the actual

world before howling for their overthrow commences. This might help keep us
from being slapped down in debates by true policy pros who actually know what they
are talking about but who lack awareness of the dogmatic assumptions from which they proceed,
and who have not yet found a good reason to listen to jargon-riddled lectures from philosophers and culture critics with their snobish
disrespect for the so-called "managerial class."

Decision Making

Decision Making Good Existential Threats

Decision making outweighs---its key to stop existential threats
Christian O. Lundberg 10 Professor of Communications @ University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
Tradition of Debate in North Carolina in Navigating Opportunity: Policy Debate in the 21st Century By Allan D. Louden,
p. 311
The second major problem with the critique that identifies a naivety in articulating debate and democracy is that it presumes that the
primary pedagogical outcome of debate is speech capacities. But the

democratic capacities built by debate are

not limited to speechas indicated earlier, debate builds capacity for critical thinking, analysis of
public claims, informed decision making, and better public judgment . If the picture
of modem political life that underwrites this critique of debate is a pessimistic view of
increasingly labyrinthine and bureaucratic administrative politics, rapid scientific and
technological change outpacing the capacities of the citizenry to comprehend them, and ever-expanding insular
special-interest- and money-driven politics, it is a puzzling solution, at best, to argue that
these conditions warrant giving up on debate. If democracy is open to rearticulation, it is open to rearticulation
precisely because as the challenges of modern political life proliferate, the citizenry's
capacities can change , which is one of the primary reasons that theorists of
democracy such as Ocwey in The Public awl Its Problems place such a high premium on education (Dewey
1988,63, 154). Debate provides an indispensible form of education in the modem articulation of democracy because it builds
precisely the skills that allow the citizenry to research and be informed about policy
decisions that impact them, to sort through and evaluate the evidence for and relative merits of
arguments for and against a policy in an increasingly information-rich environment, and
to prioritize their time and political energies toward policies that matter the most to
them. The merits of debate as a tool for building democratic capacity-building take on a
special significance in the context of information literacy. John Larkin (2005, HO) argues that one of
the primary failings of modern colleges and universities is that they have not changed curriculum
to match with the challenges of a new information environment . This is a problem for the
course of academic study in our current context, but perhaps more important, argues Larkin, for the future of a citizenry
that will need to make evaluative choices against an increasingly complex and
multimediated information environment (ibid-). Larkin's study tested the benefits of debate participation on
information-literacy skills and concluded that in-class debate participants reported significantly higher self-efficacy ratings of their ability to
navigate academic search databases and to effectively search and use other Web resources: To analyze the self-report ratings of the
instructional and control group students, we first conducted a multivariate analysis of variance on all of the ratings, looking jointly at the
effect of instmction/no instruction and debate topic . . . that

been assigned

it did not matter which topic students had

. . . students in the Instnictional [debate) group were significantly more confident in their ability to access

information and less likely to feel that they needed help to do so----These findings clearly indicate greater self-efficacy for online searching
among students who participated in (debate).... These results constitute strong support for the effectiveness of the project on students' selfefficacy for online searching in the academic databases. There was an unintended effect, however: After doing ... the project, instructional
group students also felt more confident than the other students in their ability to get good information from Yahoo and Google. It may be
that the library research experience increased self-efficacy for any searching, not just in academic databases. (Larkin 2005, 144)

Larkin's study substantiates Thomas Worthcn and Gaylcn Pack's (1992, 3) claim that debate in the
college classroom plays a critical role in fostering the kind of problem-solving skills
demanded by the increasingly rich media and information environment of modernity .
Though their essay was written in 1992 on the cusp of the eventual explosion of the Internet as a medium, Worthcn and Pack's framing of
the issue was prescient: the primary question facing today's student has changed from how to best research a topic to the crucial question of
learning how to best evaluate which arguments to cite and rely upon from an easily accessible and veritable cornucopia of materials. There

the
evidence presented here warrants strong support for expanding debate practice in the
classroom as a technology for enhancing democratic deliberative capacities. The unique
combination of critical thinking skills, research and information processing skills, oral
are, without a doubt, a number of important criticisms of employing debate as a model for democratic deliberation. But cumulatively,

communication skills, and capacities for listening and thoughtful, open engagement with
hotly contested issues argues for debate as a crucial component of a rich and vital
democratic life. In-class debate practice both aids students in achieving the best goals of college and university education, and
serves as an unmatched practice for creating thoughtful, engaged, open-minded and selfcritical students who are open to the possibilities of meaningful political engagement and
new articulations of democratic life. Expanding this practice is crucial, if only because
the more we produce citizens that can actively and effectively engage the political
process, the more likely we are to produce revisions of democratic life that are necessary
if democracy is not only to survive, but to thrive. Democracy faces a myriad of
challenges, including: domestic and international issues of class, gender, and racial justice;
wholesale environmental destruction and the potential for rapid climate change; emerging
threats to international stability in the form of terrorism, intervention and new
possibilities for great power conflict; and increasing challenges of rapid globalization including
an increasingly volatile global economic structure. More than any specific policy or proposal, an informed
and active citizenry that deliberates with greater skill and sensitivity provides one of the best
hopes for responsive and effective democratic governance, and by extension, one of the
last best hopes for dealing with the existential challenges to democracy [in an] increasingly complex world.

Decision Making Good Portable Skill

Decision-making is the most valuable portable skill---it affects
every aspect of our lives and determines success in policymaking
Freeley and Steinberg 08 (Freeley, Austin J., PhD and director of debate at John Carroll University
from 1958-85, and Steinberg, David L., communications lecturer and director of debate at U. of Miami, 2008 edition,
Argumentation and Debate: Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making, GoogleBooks, p. 1-67)FS

After several days of intense debate, rst the United States House of Representatives and then the U.S. Senate
voted to authorize President George W. Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refused to give up
weapons of mass destruction as required by United Nations's resolutions- Debate about a possible military action against Iraq continued
in various governmental bodies and in the public for six months, until President Bush ordered an attack on Baghdad beginning Operation
Iraqi Freedom the military campaign against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. He did so despite the unwillingness of the U.N. Security

Meanwhile, and perhaps equally difficult

a young couple deliberated over whether they should purchase a large home
to accommodate their growing family or should sacrice living space to reside in an area with
better public schools; elsewhere a college sophomore reconsidered his major and a senior
her choice of law school, graduate school, or a job. Each of these situations called for
decisions to be made. Each decision maker worked hard to make well-reasoned decisions. Decision making is a
thoughtful process of choosing among a variety of options for acting or thinking. It requires that the
decider make a choice. Life demands decision making . We make countless individual
Council to support the military action and in the face of significant international opposition.
for the parties involved,

decisions every day . To make some of those decisions, we work hard to employ care and consideration; others seem to just
happen. Couples, families, groups of friends and coworkers come together to make choices
and decision-making bodies form committees to juries to the U.S. Congress and the
United Nations make decisions that impact us all . Every profession requires
effective and ethical decision making , as do our school, community, and social
organizations. We all make many decisions every day. To renance or sell ones home, to buy a highperformance SUV or an economical hybrid car. What major to select, what to have for dinner,
what candidate to vote for, paper or plastic, all present us with choices. Should the president deal
with an international crisis through military invasion or diplomacy? How should the U.S.
Congress act to address illegal immigration? Is the defendant guilty as accused? The Daily
Show or the ball game? And upon what information should I rely to make my decision? Certainly some
of these decisions are more consequential than others. Which amendment to vote for, what television program to watch, what course to

we seek out research

even the choice of which information to

take, which phone plan to purchase, and which diet to pursue all present unique challenges. At our best,

and data to inform our decisions. Yet

attend to requires decision making . In 2006, TIME magazine named YOU its Person of the Year."
Congratulations! Its selection was based on the participation not of great men" in the creation of history but rather on the contributions of
a community of anonymous participants in the evolution of information. Through blogs, online networking, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace,
Wikipedia, and many other "wikis, knowledge and "math" are created from the bottom up, bypassing the authoritarian control of
newspeople, academics, and publishers. We

have access to innite quantities of information, but how

do we sort through it and select the best information for our needs? The ability of every
decision maker to make good, reasoned, and ethical decisions relies heavily upon their ability to
think critically . Critical thinking enables one to break argumentation down to its
component parts in order to evaluate its relative validity and critical thinkers are better
users of information as well as better advocates .

Everything that we do in life require good decision-making skills

school, work, and financial decisions prove
Freeley and Steinberg 08 (Freeley, Austin J., PhD and director of debate at John Carroll University
from 1958-85, and Steinberg, David L., communications lecturer and director of debate at U. of Miami, 2008 edition,
Argumentation and Debate: Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making, GoogleBooks, p. 1-67) FS

Much of the most significant communication of our lives is conducted in

the form of debates . These may take place in intrapersonal communications, in which we weigh the pros
and cons of an important decision in our own minds, or they may take place in interpersonal
communications, in which we listen to arguments intended to influence our decision or
participate in exchanges to influence the decisions of others . Our success or failures in
life is largely determined by our ability to make wise decisions for ourselves
and to influence the decisions of others in ways that are beneficial to us. Mu ch of our
significant, purposeful activity is concerned with making decisions. Whether
to join a campus organization, go to graduate school, accept a job offer, buy a car or house, move to another
city, invest in a certain stock, or vote for Garcia-- these are just a few of the thousands of decisions
we may have to make. Often, intelligent self-interest or a sense of responsibility will require
us to win the support of others. We may want a scholarship or a particular job for ourselves, a customer for our product, or
a vote for our favored political candidate.

JFK proves that lack of debate and strong decision-making skills

create policy disasters. Even if we dont influence government
directly, we will all have to make consequential decisions.
Freeley and Steinberg 08 (Freeley, Austin J., PhD and director of debate at John Carroll University
from 1958-85, and Steinberg, David L., communications lecturer and director of debate at U. of Miami, 2008 edition,
Argumentation and Debate: Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making, GoogleBooks, p. 1-67)FS
John F. Kennedy

used Cabinet sessions and National Security Council meetings to provide

debate to illuminate diverse points of view, expose errors, and challenge assumptions
before he reached decisions. As he gained experience in office, he placed greater
emphasis on debate . One historian points out: "One reason for the difference between the Bay
of Pigs and the missile crisis was that [the Bay of Pigs] fiasco instructed Kennedy in the
importance of uninhibited debate in advance of major decision ." All presidents, to
varying degrees, encourage debate among their advisors. We may never be called on to render the final
decision on great issues of national policy, but we are constantly concerned with
decisions important to ourselves for which debate can be applied in similar ways . That
is, this debate may take place in our minds as we weigh the pros and cons of the problem,
or we may arrange for others to debate the problem for us. Because we all are
increasingly involved in the decisions of the campus, community and society in general, it is
in our intelligent self-interest to reach these decisions through reasoned debate .
When we make an individual decision, we can put it into effect if we control the
necessary conditions. If we need the consent or cooperation of others to carry our
decision, we have to find a way of obtaining the appropriate response from them by
debate-- or by group discussion, persuasion, propaganda, coercion, or a combination of methods.

Stasis

Stasis Good Prerequisite

Stasis theory is necessary to acknowledge the changing
professional landscapecommon ground is a prerequisite to
decision-making and cooperative deliberation
Brizee, 2k8 (H. Allen, PhD in English at Purdue, Stasis Theory as a Strategy for
workplace teaming and decision making, J. Technical Writing and Communication, Vol.
38(4))
Practitioners and professional communication scholars tell us that technical

writers face a rapidly evolving

and challenging workplace. Experts say these growing pains are sparked by new technologies, remote teaming,
and shifting professional responsibilities [1, p. 45; 2, p. 464; 3, pp. 576-580]. Given these obstacles , a problem for
professional writers today is the ability to find common ground on which we can cooperate
and make decisions. We have at our disposal powerful applications for teaming, which give us the technological
means to communicate, but we often lack strategies for cooperation, critical analysis, and discursive knowledge building.
Furthermore, the global business realities of telecommuting and outsourcing continue to challenge work teams [1, p. 45].

Adding to this complex formula is the changing role of technical communicators . Scott L.
Jones (2005) reminds us that we now form an important nexus of workplace knowledge building and management [2, p.
464]. Moreover, Cezar M. Ornatowski (1995) asserts that our

shifting roles are taking us into new areas

of decision making in technology, culture, and public policy [3, pp. 576-580]. Given the obstacles of our
multimedia, dispersed workplace, how can we work together to find common ground and make
effective decisions? In this article, I argue that a more proactive use of stasis theory in our professional writing courses and in the workplace can help improve teaming, critical thinking, and
decision making. I argue that the stases can foster these skills in a number of ways outlined below.
Briefly defined, stasis theory is a four-question invention heuristic developed in ancient Greece and refined
by Roman rhetori- cians, such as Cicero, Quintilian, and Hermogenes. In a contemporary interpre- tation, moving through
the four stases encourages discursive knowledge building important for virtual and remote teaming. Specifically, stasis

theory asks teams to agree on the facts (conjecture), the meaning of the issue (definition), the
seriousness of the issue (quality), and the stases ask group members to work together to
determine what should be done (policy). I posit that the stases encourage teams to work with (rather
than against) parties involved in projects. I hope to show we can use stasis theory as a cooperative (and so more
user-centered) process to help us integrate all sides of a discussion so that texts emerge as multi-sided, shared artifacts. I
also hope to show how stasis

theory encourages teams to develop a critical understanding of

rhetorical situations. I argue that taxonomic patterning of information in stasis theory helps groups focus on the
matter at hand so decisions reflect the issues in contention. Critical analysis and focused
decision making are essential skills for technical writers whose responsibilities now include composition,
user-advocacy, and management in multimedia and remote workspaces.