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A CALL FOR NEGATIVE COORDINATION
John
Barrett, Georgetown University |
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No individual has ever won or lost a ballot in contemporary debate. To the best of my knowledge, all ballots conclude with a statement that "The better debating was done by the ______ TEAM", a simple fact of competition that far too many debaters take too long to learn, if they ever do at all. Particularly, at the high school level, individual debaters think of themselves as "good" (even "great", depending on the size of the ego involved) and reflect on their debating in a vacuum of its own or in a "ME against them: mindset. Such delusions only work against real success, whether intellectual or competitive, for they mistake the nature of the game. Simply put, debating either side of the resolution is a TEAM activity. From the negative team perspective, this article calls (as a high school judge, 'pleads" might be a better word) for negative COORDINATION in every sense of the term. Success demands no less. The Argumentative
Framework The first negative can attack affirmative significance in any number of ways. Most common is direct clash with the harms claimed by a case, both at the levels of cause and of quantity. Arguments that arms sales do not promote tensions, instability or military conflict are common and utterly safe - they get at the premise of an affirmative without restricting the options of the second negative speaker. Specific indictments (of sources, studies, methodologies, applications etc.) are also standard ways to reduce or eliminate an affirmative harm. The real sources of most arguments against U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are P.R.C. officials; that simple statement, especially when supported by evidence that attacks a SPECIFIC affirmative source, goes a long way toward undercutting the advantage of a plan stopping arms sales to Taiwan. A first negative attack that concentrates on minimizing significance should be the goal of any standard negative attack. It allows both negative debaters the greatest argumentative latitude, and keeps debate closest to real world policy truths. If at all possible, such an approach makes the most common sense, and directly lessens the AMOUNT of disadvantage a second negative must win. "Minimizing significance" aside, any other first negative approach tends to create argumentative "tension" with your second negative partner, a tension the negative TEAM must resolve before a debate round or entrust to the mind of that subjective fool we call "judge." This is not to argue against any strategy, for in many cases the same argument that causes such trouble is the best (or only) negative position available. What I do recommend is reflection and caution; "let's see if it flies" is a great philosophy, but you'll lost a lot of debates when 1N/2N tension kills the negative "bird." "Inherency" is a word that first negatives, particularly in high school (although some person with whom I've recently debated might claim that college debaters can be even worse), know, love, and overuse. It is a simple fact of life that the present system allows many "problems" to continue and shows no sign of solving them. Whether that constitutes an "inherent barrier" in the classic sense of debate theory is a subject for other discussions. What matters is that a great many judges happen to BELIEVE it does, which reduces first negative inherency arguments to the functional equivalent of prep time in a great many debates. Inherency should be viewed as an all-or-nothing proposition: make it THE argumentative focus only if you will absolutely WIN IT. "Minimizing" inherency is a conceptual abortion, a misnomer for minimizing significance. Such an emphasis undercuts negative coordination -- inherency arguments create some kind of tension with all second negative disadvantages. They create substantial uniqueness problems. They burden the second negative with empirically verifying his plan objections. Worst of all, they introduce the "bozo factor" into what used to be a rational process: weird judges do weird things with arguments and debaters that stand in tension (i.e. CONTRADICT). A coordinated negative team does not give these people opportunities to resolve debates beyond the content of the debate, at least not intentionally. "Solvency" arguments, by any of their many names, are another standard first negative approach which can cause big problems if the second negative wants to argue disadvantages. What the plan can't do or can't solve can't be the link to a disadvantage. And unless a solvency argument is absolute, it may reduce affirmative significance below disadvantage threshold and still leave the affirmative with enough of an advantage to "vote for." Such "3-on-l" debating can hardly be called coordinated, yet it happens all the time. The negative debater has already come a long way when s/he sees that it doesn't HAVE to happen. A final warning about "extra-topicality" arguments. Many, if not most, judges believe that a negative team that wins an extra-topicality argument wins only the plan plank in question. In other words, that plank is simply stricken from the round and the affirmative retains the rest of the plan. It should be obvious what a first negative who argues or extends an extra-topicality position against a particular affirmative plan plank has done if his partner has used that very provision as the link to a disadvantage. A coordinated marksman rarely shoots himself in the foot; a coordinated negative team should seek to be as successful. The Counterplan Debate Counterplans deserve special emphasis because they are being increasingly employed at the high school level. It should be apparent that a counterplan strategy renders much traditional negative argumentation superfluous (i.e. why argue an inherency position at the same time as a counterplan?), yet many negative debaters never stop to consider the ramifications of their strategic choices. A counterplan strategy should be selected only after one evaluates its competitiveness, its non-topical nature, and its interplay with the disadvantages a negative team wishes to argue. Unless the disadvantages can offer some comparison AGAINST TIIE COUNTERPLAN, there is little point in pursuing BOTH strategies. Good disadvantages may not require a counterplan at all, whereas a counterplan definitely requires good and relevant disadvantages. Beyond avoiding contradiction and tension, a truly coordinated negative team must seek to argue COMPLEMENTARY positions. The BIG counterplan, an alternative proposal that consumes portions of both negative constructives, is a popular college tactic that is bound to "trickle-down" to the high school level. This particular approach, even more than the 'normal" counterplan where the first negative both defends and extends the relevant arguments and the second negative stays above the fray, absolutely requires negative team coordination as they "tag-team" the opposition. A large counterplan, whether "states/ federalism', 'studies", "multi-lateral", or any other approach, demands a planned attack that knows which negative debater will initiate, defend and extend which of the counterman arguments. 'Playing it by ear" gets by, but only occasionally. Recommendations Appropriately enough, since we often declare that 'debate is an oral activity", the first prerequisite for coordinated negative debating is COMMUNICATION. The problem has been the unwillingness of debaters to continue the oral activity outside of the debate itself. The only real solution is to discuss arguments and options, past rounds and problems and the lessons thereby learned, with all parties one could possibly consider relevant. The starting point for every negative debater has to be your partner: if you don't know what s/he is thinking and planning to argue in a given situation, you can't hope to coordinate 24 minutes of speaking into a TEAM ATTACK. In those situations when a negative team is "surprised" by an affirmative case, it's even more important to communicate with each other, to use your prep time WELL. Anyone can scramble for old blocks or jot down a series of panic-induced presses; thinking in this difficult situation is a mark of a sophisticated debater, and such thinking naturally translates into team conversation. In addition to communicating with each other, the members of a negative team should work with their coaches, teammates, judges and even opponents whenever possible. Depending on interest and willingness to learn, a debater can learn at least something worthwhile from virtually anyone who has debated a specific case, judged that case or debated that case against you. The knowledge gained can only produce team coordination and improved debating. Closely related
to communication as a requirement for negative coordination is STRATEGY.
The real burden of successfully defending the present system or a counterplan
against a resolutional change is the amount of research required. Coordination
without content is an impossibility, and the necessary content comes only
through hours of diligent research. Raw quantities of evidence are not,
however, enough to debate the negative well, much less in a coordinated
team fashion. After research, the negative team has to assess its options
against a particular case, make argumentative choices and decide to locate
those arguments in specific speeches. Practice speeches and intra-squad
debates are useful in developing coordinated negative strategies; criticism
and correction at this stage is the BEST way to improve a team's performance
in competition, particularly for young debaters. An affirmative case area
and a specific plan is a strategy in itself, against which a negative
teams needs to be prepared with a strategy of its own. None of this argues
for "canned" blocks, briefs or even speeches. Negative team
coordination does require hard work and careful thought. It is at this
point that mindlessness stops and strategic debate really A final recommendation is Strength Assessment. Not all debaters do everything equally well, a fact of life which a coordinated team will use to its advantage, maximizing its own collective talents and exploiting the weaknesses of the opposition. In initiating the actual debate, the first negative must set the tone for the entire round: the speed, the style and emphasis given to specific arguments. These are all choices to be made in consultation with partner and coaches, again with an overall negative strategy in mind. There are no hard-and-fast rules as to which strengths are best used in which speaker position or for which arguments, which seems to argue against hard-and-fast speaker position assignments and given argumentative responsibilities such as "the second negative initiates disadvantages." The real key to TEAM success is its ability to think and adapt, to flexibly maximize its argumentative options in each given situation. The real message of this paper is that coordinated negative team debating neither starts nor stops with the time signals in a given round. It requires hard work and careful thought, but almost certainly translates into TEAM success. The only alternatives: debate "solo" and lose, or pursue individual events. Some choice!
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