https://www.slowboring.com/p/how-critical-theory-is-radicalizing wrote:Every year, hundreds of thousands of students around the U.S. participate in competitive debate. Most start competing at a young age (early high school or even middle school), eager to learn about politics. At its best, the activity teaches students how to think critically about the government and the trade-offs that policymakers face. They are assigned to argue for different positions that they may not agree with and engage with their peers’ diverse perspectives.
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In a traditional debate round, students argue over a topic assigned by the tournament — for example, “The U.S. should adopt universal healthcare.” One side is expected to argue in favor of the motion (the affirmation side), and one against (the negation side). However, in recent years, many debaters have decided to flat-out ignore the assigned topic and instead hijack the round by proposing brand new (i.e., wholly unrelated to the original topic), debater-created resolutions that advocate complex social criticisms based on various theories — Marxism, anti-militarism, feminist international relations theory, neocolonialism, securitization, anthropocentrism, orientalism, racial positionality, Afro-Pessimism, disablism, queer ecology, and transfeminism. (To be clear, traditional feminism is out of fashion and seen as too essentialist.)
These critical theory1 arguments, known as kritiks, are usually wielded by the negation side to criticize the fundamental assumptions of their affirmation side opponents. Kritik advocates argue that the world is so systematically broken that discussing public policy proposals and reforms misses what really matters: the need to fundamentally revolutionize society in some way. For example, if the topic was “The U.S. should increase the federal minimum wage,” the affirmation side might provide some arguments supporting this policy. But then the negation side, instead of arguing that the government shouldn’t raise the minimum wage, might reject spending any time on the original resolution and counter-propose a Marxist kritik.2 Here’s an example of how the negation might introduce this kritik:
Revolutionary theory is a prior question — the aff [proposal about raising the minimum wage] is irrelevant in the grand scheme of capitalism... [You as a judge should] evaluate the debate as a dialectical materialist — you are a historian inquiring into the determinant factors behind the PMC [first affirmation speech] — The role of the ballot is to endorse the historical outlook of the topic with the most explanatory power... Vote negative to endorse Marxist labor theory of value.
Quote:Kritiks are so persuasive to left-wing judges that debaters can’t succeed in the activity without being great at them. Competitors who don’t want to argue for kritiks themselves still have to learn how to respond to them without contesting their radical premises. For example, many leftist judges will not accept a response to a Marxism kritik that argues that capitalism is good. Instead, debaters have to concede that capitalism is a bad system and make other leftist arguments like, “it’s capitalistic to fail to argue for the topic” and “Marxism isn’t the most effective response to capitalism; instead we need to look to other critical theories” (like Afro-Pessimism or transfeminism). This drives out students who don’t want to learn about critical theory and creates a vicious cycle where the only people left are kritik debaters.Amazing trolling exploit.
Furthermore, even though kritiks philosophically attack power structures, in practice they have frequently entrenched inequities in debate. Kritiks are often (although not always) strategically employed by students from big, well-funded debate programs. Their opponents—who often attend schools with fewer coaches and resources—may not be familiar with the dense philosophical arguments. This is especially challenging because kritik teams reject the topic that their opponents are expecting, and surprise them with completely new content that they have not prepared for.
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