Expert Adjudicators or Extra Adjudicators

I was having coffee with a good friend of mine and colleague from the debating world recently, when the subject of debate theory came up. My colleague mused about how lucky American debaters were to have such a rich tradition of theory behind what they do.

At the time, I disagreed. I like BP/WUDC debating because ideally it acts atheoretically. The arguments occur in natural language, and the debate about “what counts” as an argument doesn’t happen beyond the point of calling out a fallacy, a weak warrant, or a fabrication. Argument theory as it exists in American debate formats relies extensively on argument theory as a block to arguments made, and therefore theoretical arguments (i.e. Your model is not a theoretically acceptable model because it does not specify which agent will enact the model) are as much the heart of the debate as the research, evidence, and disadvantages\advantages. In BP, arguments are not theoretically rejected per se, they are rejected upon the grounds of their persuasiveness.

Argumentation wise I still hold this view, but recent judging experiences and recent adjudications have me thinking that the adjudication system needs a method and a theoretical justification behind it.

Here are some things on my mind considering adjudication that debate scholars could and should address:

1. When, if ever, are solo judged rooms ok?
It seems to me that there are possible justifications for this, but I am not convinced by any of them as they all rely on the theory of “judge as expert in argumentation.” This theory is a carry over (hold over?) from American policy debate, a format that I believe operates under a theory of creating a forum to practice persuasion among simulated experts. BP on the other hand appears to operate under the idea of practicing persuasion for a simulated public. The loss of the simulated public change the game to a simulated expert appeal, with debaters practicing a narrowing of argumentation for the one specific adjudicator’s tastes instead of broadening appeal for a whole panel. This is distinct from American policy debate panels where you can go for 2 of the panel and ignore the outlier judge.

2. Is the purpose of paneled judging to reach consensus or to agree?
During a recent final round where I was a panelist, we went to adjudicate where the chair asked us for an initial idea as to who won. When we all said what we thought, he said “okay” and started to walk back in. I protested, saying we need to discuss the decision. The response was amusement. “Why talk if we all agree? Should we pretend to disagree?” I didn’t have a good response other than a gut feeling that simple agreement was not the telos of consensus judging. I think some work here using theories of deliberation, discussion and the re-articulation of argument in the public sphere might help us appreciate the consensus portion of the adjudication more than the agreement portion of the deliberation.

On the verso, what happens when there is no discussion, or a discussion that goes past each other? What happens when a wing refuses to accept the community norms? My situation as a chair was having a wing who refused to judge the debate on the community norm of “who was most persuasive?” He said it was a bad way he didn’t buy, and he was an argumentation expert. When I forced him to talk about persuasiveness, he couldn’t – he talked about their style in a superficial manner. What can be said or done about such a judge? It seems a body of theory would help bend this sort of judge to a more reasonable and more functional role within the BP community.

3. Are wing judges extra judges? Are chairs expert judges?
By now I suppose you realize I’m going to say no to both. But the scholarly potentials here are interesting. What if the role of the chair is not expert on debate, but discussion leader? I think the decision becomes a different one if that’s the function of the chair. If the function of the chair is to be expert, are they a technical one or one based upon experience? Either way will change the function of the adjudication.

As far as wings go, I think most people accept the idea that wings are chairs in training. This is a fantastic charitable attitude that I think does not exist outside of this format. The strike system in American policy has eliminated the idea of judge training, as well as the idea that rhetors should alter their message for audiences.

A strike system (this means choosing adjudicators that will not hear you during a tournament) is a move more toward a truth-seeking or positivist format of debating. However, some say should be given to debaters about the variety of judges that will hear them. After all, in rhetorical situations, many rhetors select whom they address and do not speak to all or everyone. Perelman even points out keenly that philosophers who claim to be addressing the universal are imagining that category based upon the best critical qualities of thought of their era.

The wing system theoretically addresses this problem by putting judges in the chair that are “trusted” which mean, I think, are consistent with the best sorts of judging of the era. They are to act as expert in some ways, but through guiding the discussion and making sure all wings are heard. Another theory might be that the chair can persuade the wings as to his or her credibility, so the panel is more like a simulated segment of the public, rallied to vote in one way or another by an enthusiastic citizen. And I’m sure there are other models that might be instructive to pursue.

Unfortunately there is no theory to support all of this yet, and often panelists are thought of extra judges. Panels of 3 are common, when a panel of 5 would be more justified. A 3 person panel indicates the need for a split in a solo, expert based decision process without consensus. Rounds are run with a solo judge under the assumption that it will be just the same as if there were wings. But I like so many other chairs know that many times a wing has caught some detail that makes me re think my orientation to the debate. This is an invaluable element of the debate, key to the format, and a backing of some scholarly work on the theory of BP debating would make it easier and more consistent, especially among Americans where the tradition of expert, professional scholar-coaches is bending WUDC format away from the elements that make it unique and pedagogically vibrant.

Two Related Observations: The Consumerist Mind

Not really in the office today as my good friend who teaches debate in the U.K. (as well as around the world) is staying with me. He’s catching up on his jet lag and we are about to hit the bar in an hour or so. Can’t think of a better way to spend an afternoon of thunderstorms. But what I want to talk about is some tentative evidence of the importance of ideology and place to rhetoric, conceived of in this case as perhaps tactics/Strategy (like Michel de Certeau talks about the crayon lines on the paper).
1) Last night my friend who works at the University described in great detail how she reads books for free by going to the Barnes & Noble, special ordering what she wants, and then when it comes in deciding she doesn’t want it. The book stays in the store and she goes there to read it until she is done. She found this quite clever, until I pointed out the library (a 3 minute walk instead of 20) will ILL anything for free and you can keep it for 2-4 weeks. She said, “I forgot about the library.”
2) My wife worked part time at a pet store for a while. People would “drop off” or abandon their unwanted pets at the pet store, or persuade the staff to take unwanted animals for cash. The free shelter is less than 2 miles away from the pet store.
Unrelated stories? Not likely. They are evidence of the transformation of options brought about by the ideology and rhetoric of consumer capitalism. These two examples indicate the decline of the potential to imagine any alternative to a consumer capitalist model, and force the imagination to work hard to develop tactics within consumer capitalist strategies. The space, if there ever was one, of imagining an alternative to this ideology is nearly gone (if it ever existed) at the point where someone walks thoughtlessly by the library on their way to “scam” the bookstore. The better “scam” is to use the facility dedicated to an anti-consumerist model of books – no longer “commodity,” they can be re-imagined as “resource.”
The lack of imagining an alternative to a shop of animals is even more disturbing. The farthest people can reach is to trade “sideways” within the same grammatical case to rhetorically “solve” their problem – a “shop of animals” becomes a “shop for animals” with a rhetorical “squint.” The effort is to change the vision, not to “turn away.” There is no other place to go that can be thought of, well no place outside of the model of the consumer oriented business. If the staff refused to take the animals, the rhetoric of “customer rights” is invoked or blackmail – “I’m just going to kill it if you don’t take it.”
de Certeau discusses rhetorical options within dominating rhetorical systems in his book The Practice of Everyday Life. A “tactic” is distinct from a “strategy” because a “strategy” depends on “the proper” in order to operate. Words like “competitors” and “customers” are part of the vocabulary of strategy because they are force-relationships which do not require (as I interpret it) a lot of thought or effort on the part of the consumer or competitor (in business) to occupy them. “Tactics” depend not on the “proper” but on the “timely.” De Certeau argues that propriety as a value is a “triumph of place over time.” So a tactic can be read as “seizing the moment.” The example that de Certeau gives is the woman at the market planning a dinner party where the force-relationships (guest, size of fridge, ingredients at home) are taken advantage of by her shrewd purchase of sale items and ingredients that might be cheaper but not within the “proper” items for such a meal. (all of this is on page xix in the introduction of the book). Tactics are timely and are created, strategies eliminate time from the decision and are placed upon.
So what’s the payoff here? What we see is the “tactical” being limited in its application under the crushing force of consumerism. Perhaps de Certeau does not believe that it can operate outside of strategy (although it is a question what it’s oppositional stance is because it is the “Other” – in the French sense then, it would require strategy to exist in order to be, so it would never be Archimedian). He links it to the Greek sense of metis – “ways of operating” or perhaps “getting by in the world” or something like that.
I would say that our “tactical” moves are especially restricted in the dominance of the role of the consumer and the increasing unintelligibility of rights outside of a customer service sensibility. This can perhaps go toward explaining the intense anger and crazy outbursts of people at health care town meetings. They cannot imagine an alternative outside of a consumer-capitalist sensibility, where health is a product, and even more threateningly, the tactics they have discovered within the health care strategies that work for them would be wiped away if there were an alternative system. This is the motive for the behavior, and suggests a response where instead of telling people that they will not be turned away for insurance, explain that they will still be considered the customer, which diffuses the fury at the loss of such moments of triumph that people have discovered within the current health care system.
At once both disturbing for the lack of imagination left in our relationships, but a good discovery I think since it suggests a new way of “lining up the ducks” when ordered to “get your ducks in a row” within the dominant consumer-capitalist ideology.


Explanation Addiction

Wow. It’s nice to have access to blogger again. For some reason most of the past two weeks had me suspicious that my University had blocked blogger for some reason. I even sent an email to IT about it, but since it’s summer and they only work from 3:00 to 3:15PM on Tuesdays instead of their normal semester schedule of 2:00PM to 3:ooPM Monday through Wednesday, I figured it was just sitting in some email inbox somewhere waiting to be deleted.

So I’ve been working away most days but since I have a deadline looming, there’s no better time to blog. I don’t understand why when I have to write, I don’t really feel like it, and write in order to procrastinate.

But today I have excuses that are really good. I have a very sore shoulder and can’t move around that easily without pain. So it’s slowed the progression of the day. It’s ok because once my shoulder recovers, tomorrow I’ll make up everything that I didn’t get done today. Yea, right. Anyway. . .

I’ve been enjoying teaching this summer as I decided to scrap my now 4 year old public speaking teaching “cow path” (as Burke might call it) and venture out into the fields without a guide. I handed out a syllabus that was almost one page and have been playing it by ear. Here’s what I’ve picked up so far from this experiment:

1. Students give much better speeches if they are given an area of exploration from which to write the speech.

2. 4-5 pages of reading seems to get more participation than a whole chapter or article.

3. Addressing concepts, or realms of thought with formal speeches as tools (say, protists and microscopes) communicates to them concepts and ideas for effective speaking that I would not have been able to do with a traditional approach.

4. Students behave strangely when given no explanations. Often the way people who are smokers behave when they go cold turkey.

This June I gave a few lectures in Japan about debating and arguing. Most of these were about assumptions people who are uninitiated have about it. One of the things I referenced a ton was the fantastic Ranciere book The Ignorant Schoolmaster, using it as the exception that proves the rule when teaching debate. Often times it’s just you and a student trying to come to a satisfying critical conclusion about the quality of a text.

In this book, Ranciere details the idea that explanation is self-serving, keeping students at a perpetual distance from learning, making them dependent on teachers for all information and thought. The argument goes that ignorance is the best point of departure for teaching because it focuses on verifying the thought instead of comparing it to what it’s “supposed to be.” Evaluation centers on thinking – the quality of thought that goes into a work by a student – instead of lining up something that might be the tracing of the instructor’s explanation.

So after returning to the U.S. I tried to embrace this idea in Public Speaking with some pretty good results. I have the class broken into modules/themes: First on the role of language, second on propaganda, and the upcoming last week will be about intellectualism. The texts are speeches, book segments, academic articles, and whatever else I think might be good to look at. In the end, the speeches have been much better than any other class, except for the addiction part. You have to be careful not to give them what they want. And they try to trick you the way good recovering addicts should attempt to trick their caretakers.

Everyone’s class discussion contributions end with a question, or questioning tone. This cannot be acknowledged. I try to rephrase people’s contributions after they say them and ask them if this is what they meant. They wait for me to tell them whether this is correct or not. It takes some struggling to get them to realize I am just clarifying what they said.

It’s tough to enter the conversation with your own opinions as an equal. This is not what they think it is – they think it is the “real answer.” One’s rhetoric has to be shaped to show that it is not the answer but perhaps a poorly thought out reaction to the text. The purpose of entering the conversation as an equal is to stimulate more contributions from the students, not to shape or extract particular responses from them. This is really hard to do, and I miss it nearly every day. More study of technique is required. Ranciere’s schoolmaster had the benefit of being able to teach subjects that he knew nothing about or could not explain (teaching French to people with whom you have no common language is the first example in the book). How does the expert teacher rhetorically figure ignorance?

Is that figuration enough or does one really have to be ignorant?

This experience has made me want to teach an online class as I feel that the decentered nature of such a course might make these explorations more insightful.

Unintended Hiatus

Apologies for the blog silence, but I must admit that since arriving back in the U.S. I have been enjoying a life of nearly constant work.

In the mornings and afternoons I am writing and researching, and making great progress. After lunch, I do a little planning for teaching, both the summer course I am assigned now and the two speech courses I have planned for the fall.

In the evenings I try to read or listen to something that has nothing to do with my day. Well it is supposed to be different, but it has much to do with my work. Tonight I am listening to old recordings of Allan Watts’ talks on Buddhism and spirituality.

I am trying something new with my public speaking classes mostly because I am dissatisfied with how they go. The best way to come up with new ideas is to go for spontaneity – but not a class on a whim. It means, at least for me, to go with the flow and be ready for speeches and student action that I might not be prepared for. To prepare for what you expect them to do is to not be prepared at all. So I have very loose speech assignments and very interesting but vague readings.

Tonight we had a look at Rashomon in order to understand audience perspective and how to structure arguments. I think it was a pretty good way of approaching argument models. Style will be interesting. I think we will listen to and watch some public intellectuals speak. Then we can move from that into reading some pieces on intellectualism and what that means. Do you see?

I find it a hard class to teach as most of the students are new not only to college but to the U.S. I wonder what they must think of me jumping around and filling the board with nonsense.

I hope you will forgive the hiatus, but there will be some good stuff coming. Allow me to just enjoy doing my work for now, and after I have fermented some ideas we can both enjoy that blogger buzz again.

Finally

Good to see a scientist using his own terministic vocabulary to respond to the pop “we are our brains” discourse flooding the world.

I hope this is the start of a turn in neuroscience that recognizes the fallacy of reductionism in beings as complicated as humans.