Biopower K

A. Link
1) The idea of human rights and a states obligation to protect things like hunger is just the moving of
security discourse into the private life. This idea of an ethical responsibility is just the states excuse for
further bio political control of everyday life.
Doucet1 1 2008
What we propose below is an examination of the complementarity between sovereign power and biopower via the concept of human security as it has been articulated
from the realm of the international, while concurrently revealing how the human security discourse itself provides a way of tracing some of the complexity highlighted
above, thus problematizing the more formal and theoretical assemblage of sovereign power and biopower found in the work of Foucault and Agamben. In order to place
this analysis in context, we begin by tracing the discourse of security from the post-World War II context onward. What we intend to show is that the shift from the term
defence to security helps set the terrain from which the interweaving of biopower and sovereign power found in the concept of human security is rendered possible.
The formal origins of the concept of human security are to be found in the worldview of an international organization that was concerned with post- Cold War
humanitarian issues, and only subsequently became enmeshed in the discourse of national foreign policy concerns and academic debates on security. Generally
attributed to the 1994 UNDP Human Development Report and some of the concurrent writings of Mahbub ul-Haq , the

initial impulse was to shift

the referent from the state to the legitimate concerns of ordinary people who s[eek] security in their daily
lives (UNDP, 1994: 22). In other words, the objective was to bring security down to the level of human life by
seeking to develop strategies in the provision of both safety from such chronic threats as hunger, disease
and repression and protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life
whether in homes and jobs or in communities (UNDP, 1994: 23). In so doing, security was to be decoupled from
the particular national interest of states and tied to the universal concern[s] (UNDP, 1994: 22) of all people.
In articulating itself universally, human security was therefore initially meant to be built upon the bedrock of
universal human rights. This move would be accompanied by efforts to identify a comprehensive list of
threats that the all encompassing (UNDP, 1994: 24) concept of human security would respond to that
is, economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community and political security (UNDP, 1994: 2425). Clear
connections were made between severe impediments to human development and pervasive and chronic threats to the fulfilment of human potential.
Such a broad formulation sought to transcend the state, insofar as it brought into question its role as a provider of security relative to other actors
for example, international organizations, NGOs and non-military government agencies while simultaneously identifying the state itself as a
potential source of insecurity. This elision of the state also served to make the quotidian the object of security. Whereas security tended to be
understood in terms of defining historical moments centred around the survival and integrity of the state, we now see emerging an understanding of
(in)security that arises more from worries about daily life than from the dread of a cataclysmic world event (UNDP, 1994: 22). In this way, human
security certainly participated in the broader redefinition of security begun in the 1970s and 1980s; however, it also set off on new terrain, in that
shifting its referent to the individual introduces as threats a host of contingencies that emerge from daily life. This initial deployment of the concept in
the mid-1990s was subsequently accompanied by other efforts to theorize human security in ways that would be more amenable to the multilateral
and middle-power approaches found in the foreign policy concerns of certain states. Examples

like the Responsibility To Protect

generally moved away from the broader development concerns of the Human Development Report
towards a more narrow focus on introducing a new set of international norms on intervention that would
guide and restrict the conduct of the state and the international community in extreme and exceptional
cases (ICISS, 2001: 31). Here, the threats are concomitantly narrowed down to violent threats to individuals
(Human Security Center, 2005: viii), such as mass murder and rape, ethnic cleansing by forcible expulsion and
terror, and deliberate starvation and exposure to disease (United Nations, 2004: 65). Emphasis shifts from an understanding
of threats that stem from a broad set of quotidian political, social, economic and environmental contingencies, to what are deemed to be avoidable
catastrophe[s] (United Nations, 2004: 65). Within this context, there is a partial but significant return to the state, in that it is through the nexus of the
state that the provision of both security and insecurity, by state and non-state actors, is predominantly understood.

1 (Miguel De Larrinaga and Marc G, Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa, Associate Professor at the Department of
Political Science at Saint Marys University, Sovereign Power and the Biopolitics of Human Security Sage Journals)

DT

2) The ability of the state to apply good or bad ethical claims is the root of security discourse. In the name
of ethics the affirmative gives the state increased biopolitical control.
Doucet 2 2008
(Miguel De Larrinaga and Marc G, Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa, Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at Saint Marys
University, Sovereign Power and the Biopolitics of Human Security Sage Journals) MF

In (re)defining the threats to human life as its most basic operation, the discourse of human security must
begin by defining and enacting the human in biopolitical terms. The target of human security, whether
broad or narrow, is to make live the life of the individual through a complex of strategies initiated at the
level of populations. In defining and responding to threats to human life, these strategies have as their
aim the avoidance of risk and the management of contingency in the overall goal of improving the life
lived by the subjects invoked in their own operation. In this sense, as with Foucaults understanding of the biopolitical, the health and
welfare of populations is human securitys frame of intervention; however, until its recent institutionalization within the UN , the human security
discourse, from the vantage point of the international, has been marked mostly by defining and identifying the global
patterns and trends of human insecurity. In other words, the human security discourses initial move is found
in creating the measurements that aggregate the threats to human life. The clearest example of this initial labour in relation to
the narrower understanding of human security can be found in the Human Security Report in 2005, which boasts that no annual publication maps the trends in the
incidence, severity, causes and consequences of global violence as comprehensively (Human Security Centre, 2005: viii). This quest to properly order, categorize and
account for the true threats to human life in the post-Cold War world is also exemplified in the series of UNDP reports. As Mark Duffield & Nicholas Waddell (2006:
5) point out, the UNDP . . . launched its annual Human Development Report in 1990, dedicating it to . . . ending the mismeasure of human progress by economic
growth alone.

It is through this mapping that the human security discourse then advocates on behalf of
specific areas of strategic intervention in the name of the health and welfare of targeted populations .
Although still in their infancy, the strategies are meant to foster development as a means of securing the health and
welfare of targeted populations. Recent programmes detailed by the Human Security Unit include preventing the abuse of illicit drugs in Afghanistan;
addressing the health of women and adolescents affected by HIV in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala; contributing to the provision of more secure access to smallscale energy services for local basic necessities in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Guinea; combating the trafficking of women and children in Cambodia and
Vietnam; providing access to education in Kosovo; integrating displaced peoples in Colombia; promoting the radio broadcasting of information covering humanitarian
issues in areas of Africa and Afghanistan; building civic participation and self-reliance in Timor-Leste; and stabilizing refugee host communities through a multifaceted
strategy that includes the reduction of small arms and the provision of basic education, food and environmental security in Tanzania (United Nations Human Security
Unit, 2006). Such programmes operate at the level of the chronic insecurities in the day-to-day life of targeted populations. They envision human security as part of
comprehensive, integrated, people-centered solutions (United Nations Human Security Unit, 2006: 2) that are meant to provide a measure of remedy to quotidian
threats. While the programmes target specific populations in delimited locales,

the threats are themselves framed in regards to

circulation and seek to ultimately distinguish the bad from the good flows in terms of (in)security . In this
scenario, following from the programme examples above, good circulation would include information on humanitarian issues,
civic participation and self-reliance; bad circulation would entail, inter alia, trafficking, illicit drugs and
small arms. Returning to Foucaults understanding of security and circulation elaborated earlier, the frame of intervention of the human
security discourse, in seeking to maximize the positive elements and minimize the risks to human life,
operates on a terrain of calculability that attempts to manage the incalculable through probabilities. In its
initial stages, the objective of the human security discourse, in seeking to distinguish between bad and good
circulation, had as its primary grammar of reference sustainable human development.12 With the post-9/11 moment
and the ensuing war on terror, however, the distinction between good and bad circulation tends to take as its frame of reference global order. With the attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as well as the subsequent bombings in Madrid and London, the globality of the circulation of threats for the West becomes more
explicit, and consequently a new cartography of threats and vulnerabilities is drawn up and rationalities and technologies are deployed to counter them. As Duffield &
Waddell (2006: 10) explain in relation to the war on terrorism: The

predominance of security concerns, especially homeland

security, means that issuesof global circulation of people, weapons, networks, illicit commodities,
money, information, and so on emanating from, and flowing through the worlds conflict zones, now
influence the consolidating biopolitical function of development. Unlike Duffield & Waddells work, the tack we would
like to follow in the section below is not directed towards tracing the biopolitical function of international
development practices in relation to the war on terror, but to the way in which the human security
discourse participates in setting the terrain for and the deployment of sovereign power.

B. Implications
1) Power Is What Justifies Genocide, Mass Destruction, And Atomic Sacrifice
Foucault 1 1978
(Michel Foucault, Smarter than your grandmother and Chair of the History of Systems of Thought at the College of France, The Foucault Reader, Ed. Rabinow, 1984,
pg. 259-260, Originally 1978 in the History of Sexuality Vol. I)
Since the classical age, the

West has undergone a very profound transformation of these mechanisms of power. "Deduction" has
tended to be no longer the major form of power[s] but merely one element among others, working to incite, reinforce, monitor.
optimize, and organize the forces under it: a power bent on generating forces, making them grow, and
ordering them to submit or destroying them. There has been a parallel shift in the right of death, or at least a
tendency to align itself accordingly. This death that was based on the right of the sovereign is now manifested as
simply the reverse of the right of the social body to ensure, maintain, or develop its life. Yet wars were
never as bloody as they have been since the nineteenth century. and all things being equal, never before
did regimes visit such holocausts on their own populations. But this formidable power of deathand this is
perhaps what accounts for part of its force and the cynicism with which it has so greatly expanded its limits now presents itself as the
counterpart of a power that exerts a positive influence on life. that endeavors to administer, optimize and
multiply it, subjecting it to precise controls and comprehensive regulations. Wars are no longer waged in the name of
a sovereign who must be defended; they are waged on behalf of the existence of everyone. entire populations are
mobilized for the purpose of wholesale slaughter in the name of life necessity: massacres have become
vital. It is as managers of life and survival, of bodies and the race, that so many regimes have been able to wage so many wars, causing so many people to be killed.
And through a turn that closes the circle, as the technology of wars has caused them to tend increasingly toward all-out destruction, the decision that initiates them and
the one that termites them are in fact increasingly informed by the naked question of survival. The atomic situation is now at the end point of this process: the power to
expose a whole population to death is the underside of the power to guarantee and individual's continued existence. The principle underlying the tactics of battlethat
one has to be capable of killing in order to go on livinghas become the principle that defines the strategy of states. But the existence in question is no longer the

genocide is indeed the dream of modern powers this

is not because of a recent return of the ancient right to kill; it is because power is situated and exercised at
the level of life, the species, the race, and the large-scale phenomena of population.
juridical existence of sovereignty; at stake is the biological existence of a population. If

2) Biopower is the root of racism

Foucault2 2
I think that, broadly speaking, racism justifies the death-function in the economy of' biopower by
appealing to the principle that the death of others makes one biologically stronger insofar as one
is a member of a race or a population, insofar as one is an element in a unitary living plurality. You
can see that, here, we are far removed from the ordinary racism that takes the traditional form of mutual
contempt or hatred between races. We are also far removed from the racism that can be seen as a sort of
ideological operation that allows States, or a class, to displace the hostility that is directed toward
[them], or which is tormenting the social body, onto a mythical adversary. I think that this is something
much deeper than an old tradition, much deeper than a new ideology, that it is something else. The
specificity of modern racism, or what gives it its specificity, is not bound up with mentalities,
ideologies, or the lies of power. It is bound up with the technique of power, with the technology of
2 Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collge de France, 1975-76 p.258

power. It is bound up with this, and that takes us as far away as possible from the race war and the
intelligibility of history. We are dealing with a mechanism that allows biopower to work. So racism
is bound up with the workings of a State that is obliged to use race, the elimination of races and
the purification of the race, to exercise its sovereign power. The juxtaposition of-or the way
biopower functions through-the old sovereign power of life and death implies the workings, the
introduction and activation, of racism. And it is, I think, here that we find the actual roots of racism.

C. Alternative
The Alternative is to Reject Biopower
3
Michael Foucault 3writes:
Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are, but to refuse what we are. We have to imagine
and to build up what we could be to get rid of a political 'double bind', which is the simultaneous
individualization and totalization of modern power structures. The conclusion would be that the
political, ethical, social, philosophical problem of our days is not to try and liberate the individual from
the state, and from the state's institutions, but to liberate us both from the state and from the type of
individualization which is linked to the state. We have to promote new forms of subjectivity through
refusal of this kind of individuality which has been imposed upon us for several centuries.

3 Godiwala, Dimple. "The Western patriarchal impulse (1)/Batinin ataerkil guc birligi." Interactions 15.1
(2006): 77+. Student. Web. 8 Aug. 2010. This is Dimple quoting Foucault, which is where I came across this

D. Role of the Ballot

The words with which we speak have the power to create real damage. We must monitor
our language to stop oppression, as discourse shapes reality.
Shepherd4, 2010
In our personal lives, we know that language

matters, that words are constitutive of reality. There are words that have
been excised from our vocabularies, deemed too damaging to use. There are forbidden words that children whisper with guilty
glee. There are words we use daily that would be meaningless to our grandparents. Moreover, the cadence and content of our communications vary by
context; words that are suitable for the boardroom may not be appropriate for the bedroom or the bar. In

our personal lives, we admit that words

have power, and in Formal politics we do the same. It is not such a stretch to admit the same in our Professional lives. I
am not claiming that all analysis must be discourse-theoretical must take language seriously to be policy-relevant, for that would clearly be nonsense. I
am, however, claiming that post-structural

theories of language have much to offer policy makers and

practitioners, and arguing that in order to understand how best to implement policy we first need to
understand how a policy means, not just what it means. That is, we must understand a policy before we can
implement it. This article argues that we need to engage critically with how that understanding is mediated
through and facilitated by our ideas about the world we live in . If we are to avoid unconsciously
reproducing the different forms of oppression and exclusion that different forms of policy seek to
overcome, we need to take seriously Jacques Derridas suggestion that il ny a pas de hors-texte
The Roll of the Ballot dictates that you must reject Biopower as an educator, and if we embrace such ideals, real damage
will occur as a result of such bio political discourse. K comes before anything else in the round.

**Respond to theory spikes in the AC if applicable

Rejecting the affirmative will reject Biopower and thus I strongly urge a negative ballot.

4 Laura, Lecturer in International Relations and International Law, Women, armed conflict and language Gender,
violence and discourse, March 2010, http://journals.cambridge.org, RL

AFC bad
A. Interpretation: Negatives must be allowed to challenge the affirmative framework.
B. Violation: The aff forbids me from challenging the aff framework choice
C. Standards:
1. Philosophical ground-AFC destroys philosophical ground because we presume an
ethical theory is true. This prevents us from having framework clash which is bad for
education and is also unfair because the aff can set the philosophical terms for the
debate. Philosophical education outweighs topic education because it is more abstract.
Thats empirically verified by the fact that our topic arguments are framed by the
criterion.
2. Qualitative ground:-You cant run certain frameworks successfully on both the aff and
the neg. For instance, if the aff had a deontological standard and the neg couldnt
contest it, they would be severely disadvantaged. You cant run deontology successfully
on the neg for the nukes topic, for example. This skews neg ground and subsequently
destroys fairness because one side has a substantial advantage in terms of ground.
3. Predictability: -AFC makes negating impossible if debaters dont have specific cases
adaptable to each possible framework. AFC encourages affs to run obscure framework
arguments that they know their opponents are not prepared for. The neg should at least
be given the opportunity to compare frameworks so they dont have to forfeit the round
if they dont have a case adaptable to the affs random framework. AFC destroys fairness
because with certain unpredictable frameworks you simply cant have cases prepared to
adapt to them. Predictability is also key to education because it ensures we are prepared
to debate on issues substantively.

D. Voters:
Fairness is a voter because debate is a competitive activity based on wins and
losses. The ballot asks for who did the better debating, which is impossible to
decide when each side doesnt have equal acess to the ballot.
Education is a voter because debate is an educational activity, and that is why
schools fund it
Drop the debater dont drop the arg because I had to spend valuable speech time
making this argument.
Prefer competing interps over reasonability because

FX-T Bad
A) Interpretation - The affirmative advocacy must be directly topical.
B) Violation The AC is only topical through its effects
C) Standards -

1) Limits - if the affirmative is not required to defend an advocacy that in and of itself affirms the
resolution, it becomes impossible for the neg to predict the countless potential affirmative advocacies
that do not directly affirm resolution but whose solvency is the affirmation. Being required to advocate a
direct affirmation of the resolution narrows the scope of potential aff advocacies, giving the neg a
general idea of what to expect when entering a round. Predictability is key to fairness because the aff has
a greater chance of accessing the ballot than the neg who was severely Disadvantaged with lack of
previous knowledge of the arguments in the round. Predictability is also key to education because
unpredictable advocacies decrease in depth argumentation and clash because one debater will not have
appropriate preparation to develop well-warranted responses.

2) Counterplan ground - the affirmative denies crucial strategic counterplan ground by

claiming a way to solve for the harms of other affirmative advocacies while achieving an external netbenefit from the extra-topical advocacy. My interpretation effectively prohibits affs usage of such
ground and thus returns counterplan ground to the negative which is entitled to run alternative solvency
mechanisms for the aff Counterplan ground is crucial negative ground because it is key to fairness in
debate because it clearly defines which arguments debaters are and are not allowed to make, and so by
taking the negatives ground, the aff is taking the negs capability to make arguments. Thus loss of such
critical ground destroys fairness. Counterplan ground is also key to education because if the affirmative
steals counter-plan ground, debate loses the educational clash over the plan v counterplan debate
because the plan is altogether eliminated from the round if the aff defends the counterplan.

3) D/A Ground - Permitting the affirmative to gain topical impacts through non-topical advocacies
gives them the ability to access D/A ground because they can link into neg specific impacts through
advocacies that arent topical. By disallowing this fairness is increased because the neg maintains
ground that should only be theirs and is only gained by a non-topical advocacy. This also increases
education in the round because it causes the affirmative to come up with new advocacies that have new
impacts which furthers their general knowledge.

4) Research skew - We do research in preparation for the topic if the affirmative advocacy has
nothing to do with the topic or only does the aff by effects it skews prep this is an internal link to
fairness because the aff can do specific research on just one advocacy while the negatives research is
void because the affirmative doesnt affirm the resolution its also an internal link to education because if
one side doesnt have any prep against an aff it destroys clash and topic specific education.

D. Voters:

A/T Kritiks Bad

1. Time skew1) By running a kritik, Im not skewing time. My opponent has the chance to defend
her/his position in the 1AR and beat the K. The AC can play a role within the round
if the affirmative attempts to defend it and show why it is still relevant/why it
doesnt bite into the K. I dont put the affirmative at a structural disadvantage by
running a strategic position.
2) Theres no brightline on time skew- an infinite number of things can skew time. For
example, if my opponent runs an AC with multiple preclusive arguments that
restrict how I spend my time in the NC, we wouldnt consider that time skew. Also,
various other factors influence how we spend our speech time, including the speed
of delivery and number of arguments on the flow. The implication of there being
no brightline means this standard should be rejected.
2. Reciprocal burdens1) The argument says that the K is abusive since it lets me access an area of the topic
not available to the aff. Thats fundamentally untrue, though, since (s)he has
access to arguments like discourse which operate before the text of the topic in the
same way the kritik does.
2) There is always some burden skew because of what the resolution implies, ie,
some resolutions clearly imply a categorical affirmation, which sets up nonreciprocal burdens.
3. Predictability
1) Theres no brightline for how predictable an argument needs to be to be fair.
Strategic cases will use diverse and unique warrants which nobody would consider
abusive. Just because nobody else is running the K doesnt mean its abusive.
2) Predictability decreases education by forcing us to only deal with arguments inside
of the stock topic area. Running unpredictable arguments introduces new
arguments that wed never hear if predictability were an absolute constraint on
argumentation. Breadth outweighs depth since it introduces to lots of different
topics that we can substantively engage in out of round where most of our learning
is done, so introducing new diverse arguments into round.
3) The structure of debate is designed to account for unpredictable arguments. If all
arguments were totally predictable everyone would have prewritten blocks to
every argument ever run, we wouldnt have a need of cross examination or prep
time. The fact that both of these systems exists is a structural check to stop
unpredictable arguments from being unfair.
4) Kritiks are more predictable than any topic specific argument since theyre run on
every resolution and thus are used more in debate than the arguments that rely on
the topic. Thus, if predictability matters you negate since my advocacy is more
predictable than anything (s)he running.
4.Researchburdens

1) Everybodyhasthesameresearchburdenbecauseanyonecanrunakritik.Justbecauseyouhadtoresearchalottoengagethe
kritikdoesntmeanthereareunfairresearchburden.IhadtoresearchalottojustifyandrunthisKritikaswellasalotto
defendagainstothers.
2) TheresnoreasonwhyresearchisnecessarytoengagetheargumentationoftheKritiks.Kritiksfunctiononanalytical
argumentssothereareeasytoengageevenwithoutpreroundresearchonthesubject.
3) ReadingcertainschoolsofphilosophythatareusedinKssuchaspostmodernism,NeoMarxism,andsemioticsare
consideredpartofnecessaryreadingforunderstandingargumentsrunindebaterounds.Thusbecauseitisgenerallyknown
thatKsarebasedontheseandsimilarschoolsofthoughteveryonehasthesameburdentoresearchthem.

A/T Kritiks harm education

1. T/Running kritiks engages the resolution on a new level by evaluating it critically
rather than just accepting all the assumptions we usually operate under. Henry
Giroux5 explains that education relies on constant critique. He writes: Education as
a critical practice could provide[s] the means for disconnecting
commonsense learning from the narrowly ideological impact of mass media,
the regressive tendencies associated with hyper-masculinity, the rituals of
everyday violence, the inability to identify with others, as well as from the
pervasive ideologies of state repression and its illusions of empire. Adorno's
response to retrograde ideologies and practices was to emphasize the role of
autonomous individuals and the force of self-determination, which he saw as the
outcome of a moral and political project that rescued education from the narrow
language of skills, unproblematized authority, and the seduction of common sense.
Self-reflection, the ability to call things into question, and the willingness to
resist the material and symbolic forces of domination were all central to an
education that refused to repeat the horrors of the past and engaged the
possibilities of the future. Adorno urged educators to teach students how to be
critical, to learn how to resist those ideologies, needs, social relations, and discourses
that led back to a politics where authority was simply obeyed and the totally
administered society reproduced itself through a mixture of state force and often
orchestrated consensus. Freedom in this instance meant being able to think critically
and act courageously, even when confronted with the limits of one's knowledge.
Without such thinking, critical debate and dialogue degenerate into
slogans, and politics, disassociated from the search for justice, becomes a
power grab.
2. Kritiks increase the types of argumentation in debate which means we get a wider
scope of education. This doesnt trade off with the depth of education we get on other
parts of the resolution because there are still plenty of debates that occur on stock
positions. The content of Kritiks is arguments that we do not traditionally engage
within the confines of debate. Kritiks uniquely add a new type of educational position
to the activity.
3. Kritiks force debaters to be accountable for their arguments and understand their
implications. Running the K will teach debaters to increase research of positions and
to learn the impacts of their arguments before using them in the round.

5 Henry A. Giroux, What Might Education Mean After Abu Ghraib: Revisiting Adorno's Politics of
Education, "Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24.1 (2004) 3-22"

Kritiks Good
1. Kritiks force us to deal with the actual impacts of our arguments rather than being
disengaged spectators just playing a game. Gordon Mitchell6 notes: While an
isolated academic space that affords students an opportunity to learn in a
protected environment has significant pedagogical value (see e.g. Coverstone
1995, p. 8-9), the notion of the academic debate tournament as a sterile laboratory
carries with it some disturbing implications, when the metaphor is extended to its
limit. To the extent that the academic space begins to take on
characteristics of a laboratory, the barriers demarcating such a space
from other spheres of deliberation beyond the school grow taller and less
permeable. When such barriers reach insurmountable dimensions,
argumentation in the academic setting unfolds on a purely simulated
plane, with students practicing critical thinking and advocacy skills in
strictly hypothetical thought-spaces. Although they may research and track
public argument as it unfolds outside the confines of the laboratory for research
purposes, in this approach, students witness argumentation beyond the walls of
the academy as spectators, with little or no apparent recourse to directly
participate or alter the course of events (see Mitchell 1995; 1998). The sense of
detachment associated with the spectator posture is highlighted during
episodes of alienation in which debaters cheer news of human suffering
or misfortune. Instead of focusing on the visceral negative responses to news
accounts of human death and misery, debaters overcome with the
competitive zeal of contest round competition show a tendency to
concentrate on the meanings that such evidence might hold for the
strength of their academic debate arguments. For example, news reports
of mass starvation might tidy up the "uniqueness of a disadvantage" or
bolster the "inherency of an affirmative case" (in the technical parlance of
debate-speak). Murchland categorizes cultivation of this "spectator"
mentality as one of the most politically debilitating failures of
contemporary education: "Educational institutions have failed even more
grievously to provide the kind of civic forums we need. In fact, one could easily
conclude that the principle purposes of our schools is to deprive successor
generations of their civic voice, to turn them into mute and uncomprehending
spectators in the drama of political life" (1991, p. 8) Kritiks remove us from the
game of debate and let us address the actual harms of advocacies. Were humans
before were debaters, so the kritik is inherently valuable. Kritiks let us recognize
the people actually impacted by the arguments were willing to defend in
abstraction. Jayan Nayar7 writes: Located within a site of privilege, and
charged to reflect upon the grand questions of world-order and the human
condition as the third Christian Millennium dawns, we are tempted to turn the
mind to the task of abstract imaginings of "what could be" of our "world,"
6 Mitchell in 98 [Gordon R., Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh, PEDAGOGICAL
POSSIBILITIES FOR ARGUMENTATIVE AGENCY IN ACADEMIC DEBATE Argumentation & Advocacy,
Vol. 35 Issue 2, p41-60]
7 Nayar in 99 [Jayan, Fall, School of Law, University of Warwick Transnational Law &
Contemporary Problems Orders of Inhumanity]

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

and "how should we organize" our "humanity." Perhaps such contemplations

are a necessary antidote to cynicism and skepticism regarding any possibility of
human betterment, a necessary revitalization of critical and creative energies to
check the complacencies of the state of things as they are. n1 However, imagining
[*601] possibilities of abstractions--"world-order," "international society," "the
global village," "the family of humankind," etc.--does carry with it a risk. The
"total" view that is the take-off point for discourses on preferred "worldorder" futures risks deflection as the abstracted projections it provokes
might entail little consequence for the faces and the names of the
humanity on whose behalf we might speak. So, what do we do?
Kritiks increase critical education by encouraging in depth discussions of critical
thought that we normally do not encounter through debate. While we understand
the stock arguments on topics after hearing a few rounds, kritiks provide a new
type of argument dont normally engage in. Stock arguments are easy to
understand and we get diminishing returns from hearing them repeated in every
round. Kritiks provide us with a new type of education that we normally arent able
to engage in within our rounds. Kritiks challenge the ways in which we traditionally
frame our view of the world around us and challenge the assumptions we have
coming into the round. {But moreover, critical arguments are more complex than
classic stock arguments so theyll inevitably take more time to explain, justifying
using all my speech time on the K and not directly engaging the AC}.
Kritiks more accurately reflect the real world. In academics, one must be prepared
to defend ones position not only against conventional criticism but also against
critical challenges to the assumptions of ones position. In the end, debate is an
activity designed to foster education and promote the tools that will be necessary
to succeed in life. It would be unrealistic to exclude a certain type of
argumentation that challenges a position simply because it questions a different
part of the position.
Kritiks let us recognize the impacts our language has on real life. Albert Yee8 writes:
Besides vocabularies, languages also supply rules and conventions that
govern the speech or utterances that are possible and hence in part the
political actions that can ensue. In some well-defined instances, these
speech acts are themselves actions that perform illocutionary functions
(i. e., the utterances themselves are doing something). More generally,
however, speech acts produce perlocutionary effects (i. e., the effects of
utterances on listeners) only within "the structure of the discoursive
interaction." This structure consists not only of the context or "situation,"
but also "the sequence of discoursive moves."
Kritiks have out of round implications that outweigh in round argumentation. When
a Kritik is won, it generates a lot of hype and attention and spreads the critical
thought beyond the mere confines of the round. Kritiks help frame the way in
which we view the world and can restructure the thought processes of those
around us. This is more important that the imaginary arguments that we construct
about how the world ought to be because Kritiks actively change the way the real
world functions by changing the beliefs systems of those who live in it.
Kritiks are predictable negative ground. Coming into the round, the only thing both
my opponent and I knew was that there would be a debate about the resolution.
Kritiks challenge the assumptions that are presented by the resolution. Therefore
the only predictable division of ground would allow for Kritiks which question the

8 Albert Yee, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION,
Winter 1996, p.95. (MHSOLT1214)

underlying assumptions of the resolution as it reflects the negative burden to show

that the resolution can not be proved true. Predictability is key to fairness because
if arguments arent predictable it severely hurts my ability to answer them and
education because it is a prerequisite substantive clash in the round. If arguments
or strategies arent predictable it forces us to read generic responses and off case.
Without clash debates become meaningless as debaters read arguments without
have to understand them or debate their merits.
7. Kritiks force debaters to be accountable for the entirety of their arguments
including the assumptions that their arguments rely on. This increases education
because there will be a shift towards more in depth research on arguments and
positions as debaters will have to be able to defend them.