The New York Sophist

Instead of working and doing the writing I need to do, I spent yesterday wandering around the city. I did have a few meetings and business to do and stuff like that, sure. But I had fun so it’s hard for me to classify it as a day of work. I suppose it’s hard for me to classify any day recently as work then.

I feel a bit guilty about it, but due to my contract and its various technicalities, this is the last summer I have off of the tenure clock. So I don’t feel too bad about goofing off a bit. It’s the last real summer I’ll have until I am promoted, I suppose.

I got a new phone – a blackberry – and I like it very much. I stopped in the mobile phone store to look to see if they had some cool cases for my phone. At the counter there was an upset woman talking to the sales clerk. Next to her was a guy and his little girl, probably about 2 or 3 sitting on the counter. The woman described her phone to the salesguy as “total crap.”

The dude looked at her and said, “Could you not use that sort of language around a child please?”

First reaction: What year do you think this is? I suspected they probably spent too long in Johnny Rocket’s (right next door).

Second Reaction: Where does the “sort” of language come from?

There is an assumption Dad has here about the badness of the word – that it’s internal and material. And the presence of the bad word, like a bad spell, can corrupt and ruin the child.

But we could give Dad some credit here, and perhaps assume he believes that the word is socially marked as bad, tabling the origin of the “sort.” Perhaps he doesn’t want that langauge used around her because she will start to use it and mark herself as a certain “sort.”

I wonder which one it is. For the first belief, no matter how comfortable that might make us, doesn’t really offer a lot in terms of understanding the fluid and independent nature of language. The second option fails to take into account the very real beliefs of people as to the nature of evil and suffering in the world. Either way, someone is going to be left out. The first option is like the somnambulist – blissfully unaware that where they are walking is not where they tread. The second is like the plastic Buddhist master – aware of the imagined elements of reality – “the pencil laughs; the desk counts to ten” – phrases that try to point this out but merely alienate those who are keen to listen and understand their errors.

Is there an intervention I could make here to discover, help, or interrogate the role of language? What is the function of the rhetorician in these situations? Is there a compelling need to bring these issues to the forefront of minds?

I will never know what could have been in this situation as they only had one Blackberry case, and it was not what I wanted. It was also 20 dollars, and I’d seen it for five on the internet. I left.

I have a large video backlog, mostly because I am too cheap or too poor to afford a nice new computer that can do some serious video editing. But with the recent reconfiguration of my University-supplied laptop with some new software, I am able to edit and prepare some older debate videos from the past season for your viewing pleasure.

As always, these videos are available to you on my Vimeo site. But I’ll embed them here for convenience. Feel free to link, copy and use for educational purposes. Just a bit of a sample of what we are doing in the Northeastern US as far as BP debate goes.

Here’s the Semifinal from the Ithaca College tournament held last semester. I hope to put up some more in July. Right now I’m visiting family in Texas.

Ithaca College: Semifinal Round [Spring 2010] from Steve Llano on Vimeo.

My first attempt at video blogging!

This week marks the beginning of the National Forensic League (NFL) National Tournament in Kansas City. About 11 years ago at this time I was preparing to travel to my first NFL nationals ever. When I was a high school debater I remember chatting with my team mates about how cool it would be if there was a national championship in high school debating. We were very much unaware that the NFL existed, and were quite happy that the UIL state tournament in Austin was our season ending tournament. Needless to say, I was very excited and very curious what NFL nationals would be like. I am certain that everyone who is either in Kansas City or on their way will have a fantastic debating experience this week.

Reading about the preparations for the tournament over on the Global Debate Blog got me thinking – I know next to nothing about the high school or secondary school experiences of debaters in other countries. What is secondary school debating like for those outside the United States? I would love any and all comments and/or links to posts discussing it.

One of the things I am most curious about is how the secondary education debate experience normalizes the university debating experience in the U.S. For example, most high school policy debaters have a vision of CEDA/NDT debating – it’s faster in delivery, it’s deeper on the research, and it allows for more radical argumentation. It’s the same basic recipe for debating however – not much changes between high school and university debate as far as the theory, rules, speaker order, and philosophy surrounding the tournaments. I imagine the transition from one’s secondary format to the World’s format might require a bit of adjustment. It might not though, since many Australs debaters have enjoyed spectacular success at Worlds, and many attribute it to the skills and practices picked up while doing Australs format tournaments.

Another thing – are secondary school debate programs faculty directed? What’s it like to move to a student run club from such a background? In the US, those who participate in APDA sanctioned tournaments or on those teams can speak to that transition in the U.S. to student run programs. But I would like to hear some experiences that you might have had.

What are the qualifications for a good CA of a tournament?

I think most people would say that a good CA is someone who “understands debate.” They “get it.” They know what must be done when, and how to do it.  They know what makes a good debating speech and they know how to tell others what that looks like.

Some people might equate competitive success as proof that someone can CA effectively. It seems to make sense that if someone does well at debate, they understand the principles of a good debate and therefore can run a good tournament.

I wonder if this trend of selecting someone who either “understands debate” or shows competitive success are good standards for selecting the person who is most directly responsible for normalizing the judge pool at any tournament. I think that if we are not careful, we can end up substituting the good work a CA is supposed to do with technical prowess.

Before you get too critical, I am totally willing to concede that someone who is technically proficient at debating can also do a great job at being a CA. There are numerous examples from the year. I’m not really interested in playing the numbers game anyway. What I am more interested in is aims, goals and purpose – three key things that should always drive competitive educational activity.

One of the risks of encouraging a technical understanding of debate is the unfortunate discounting of arguments that would persuade the average person. If the team making these persuasive arguments was suspected of violating the technical requirements of their role, and another team made tepid arguments, but were well within the technical limitations, a panel might very well choose the tepid team. A CA briefing that is focused on the importance of tick-box rules might be cited in such an adjudication where judges might be less likely to go with what they felt was persuasive.

All of this stems from the briefing, which I think should not only highlight some of the rules, but also provide some perspective on what the purpose of the competition is. What are we preparing for by engaging in this contest? What do we hope to gain? What is the role of the adjudicator in this? These questions should be thought through by the CA and spoken about to the judges to help them keep some perspective during the tournament.

The choice of many teams to move away from a rather intense and interesting argument that might risk violating a rule is symptomatic of where we might be headed in how debates are judged. There is a place for admiring technical competence, but I think it must be evaluated along side the rhetorical elements of emotional appeal, and arguments that work in the moment.

I think that instead of wins – or technical competence – perhaps the following issues could be considered for conveners to consider or ask CAs when they invite them to serve:

DCAs – What is their function, and what qualities should they possess? How many will actually be needed to do this work? Should they all be people who are competitively successful, respected by the community, or would you consider other qualifications for DCAs?

Breaking Judges –  What will be the specific qualities that will be looked for in chairs? How much weight will feedback forms from debaters have? Is there a justification in breaking someone who has a slim debate resume over someone who has quite a long one?

The Bubble – How much, if any direct hand should the CA or Adjudication team have in setting the judging panels for rounds on the cusp of the break? Should software trump human judgment or not?

The Briefing – If there will not be an adjudication test, how will judging be normalized for the tournament? What will the briefing look like? How would you propose to explain the importance of an extension to a group of people who may have never seen a BP round before?

The Purpose –  What is it as CA that you wish to achieve? What do you think is best about debate tournaments?

These are just suggestions of how to proceed, and I think that perhaps most CA-ships are privately solicited things that are then announced later after the person agrees to it. Again, it’s not to knock the job that current CAs are doing – I have not one complaint or specific issue that I could list here even if I really wanted to – it’s more to alter the automatically replicating frame or truism facing the format – that competitive success is the only route toward understanding debate or serving it well, which could, given time and a dash of ignorance, push BP into a technical abyss that might take years to climb out of once it’s recognized.