On Flexibility, Plus Another TOC Prediction (Bob Overing)

Introduction, Prediction

Last year after the TOC, I wrote that “Flexibility is King” and praised champion Parker Whitfill for his ability to go for 1AR theory, Kant, afropessimism, topicality, Hobbes, queer pessimism, the cap K, politics, etc. etc. etc. I also promised I’d write more about the rock-paper-scissors of the LD metagame and its development, so here we are. And with an added predictive twist!

To succeed at the highest levels of competition in LD today, one must master a variety of argument styles: plans and counterplans, kritiks of all stripes, theory, and even some moral philosophy. The last three TOC champs, Phoenix PW, Harker PR and Harvard-Westlake NS, exemplified this flexibility. His senior year, Nick won rounds in front of me on afropessimism, virtue ethics, and PICs bad; I can’t think of many debaters from before the 2014-15 season who could pull that off.

I’ve categorized the meta into four argument types: consequentialism, moral philosophy & tricks, all-in kritiks, and theory. My prediction is that this year’s 2018 TOC champion will demonstrate mastery of three of the four argument types in the metagame. More specifically, I predict the champ at TOC will win multiple debates on stock structural violence/oppression arguments, at least one debate going for a kritik aff or a kritik in the 2NR, and at least one debate going for 1AR theory or 1NC topicality/theory.

The last part of my prediction is the shakiest – I anticipate the champion will demonstrate T/theory mastery in winning a T/theory debate, but I’m not super sure the champ will initiate, go for, and win a theory debate. It’s also possible that mastery of one of these three types deters opponents from engaging on that layer, so the relevant skill will warp the outcome of the debate but not appear in the 2NR/2AR.

The meta may have shifted so much as to render my prediction obvious to some, but in the history of LD debate, flexibility hasn’t been nearly as strategically necessary as it is today. And it certainly hasn’t been a requirement for TOC success in years past. I recall debating very, very good teams that would rely exclusively on moral philosophy and completely collapse in the face of a theory argument. Similarly, there were stubborn util/policy-style teams that never wavered from short frameworks consisting of the classic Sunstein & Vermuele card followed by Bostrom. Extinction first: What else is there?

Many of the top debaters in years past were rather one-dimensional. To the extent that they even had secondary argument styles, they cultivated theory skill more to protect a primary style than to deploy as offensive, strategic weapon. E.g. NIBs bad used to eliminate pesky NCs and get back to a policy aff or plans bad used to strengthen the NC contention and avoid debating the plan proper. The one-dimensional label isn’t meant to denigrate these debaters – given a different metagame, different strategies and tactics can be dominant. The 2012 and 2013 TOC champions were primarily consequentialist debaters; the 2014 TOC champion, more philosophy-inclined; the 2015 TOC finalist, philosophy and theory. These were elite debaters who specialized. Today, they would need to master a wider variety of skills to be as successful (and they probably would be).

Metagame Explanation

There are a number of decent explanations for these observations. Maybe it’s recency bias and I’m selling short debaters from the olden days. Perhaps they were more flexible than I remember. I doubt this is true. My preferred explanation is that the meta today simply requires more flexibility than in seasons past, and at least three factors explain why: (1) policy influences on LD, (2) strategic leveling, and (3) institutional stubbornness.

(1) Policy Influences

There’s a positive feedback loop in LD’s growing incorporation of policy styles. As soon as policy arguments started winning more, the meta shifted in that direction, and policy arguments became more acceptable and intelligible to debaters and judges. This made it easier for debaters to one-up each other by becoming even more policy-esque. LDers started watching policy rounds, going to policy camps, and even hiring policy coaches. The 50 States CP, once lampooned as a poor policy backfile, became a legitimate elims tactic. And we saw stylistic changes too: tabletote stands, highlighting cards, and the infamous we. For whatever reason, policy debate became cool.

All of this happened right as accessibility to policy debate content rapidly expanded. Use of the NDCA disclosure wiki in policy is ubiquitous, and some of the best teams are open-source. There are more rounds uploaded to YouTube each season than ever before. This means LDers have much better resources for learning policy arguments, even having gone to an LD camp that doesn’t offer a lecture on the agenda politics disad. More knowledgeable LDers means more knowledgeable judges down the line until policy-style arguments are accepted, and in some regions, the norm.

So what does this have to do with flexibility? Well, policy debate is more argumentatively deep and diverse than LD was five or more seasons ago. Policy has, of course, every counterplan and disad strategy ever invented, but it also sports an extremely robust K meta-game right now in addition to several deep theory debates. So, it’s not surprising that in mimicking policy debate, LDers picked up a number of different argument styles.

(2) Strategic Leveling

Another explanation is strategic leveling, by which I mean responses to metagame trends designed to gain a comparative edge. Here’s some history of leveling in LD: Util-heavy consequentialist topical debates were common in the late 2000s and early 2010s, so moral philosophy naturally arose to combat them (with the help of more clearly values-oriented resolutions). A couple precocious debaters introduced meta-ethics, and soon everyone needed to know how to run or answer Velleman, Korsgaard, Katsafanas, and Hare. Alongside these strategies, we saw more NIBs and NIB-like positions to avoid opponents’ large investments in consequentialist topic debate. To combat moral philosophy and NIBs, theory exploded. First came fairly vanilla shells about frameworks – NIBs bad, side constraints bad, turn ground theory, descriptive standards bad, etc. – and then the more complicated – AFC, robust defenses of TJFs, and “parameters.” What beats theory? Roles of the ballot and kritiks, of course. Biopower, capitalism, and militarism begat afropessimism, feminism, and “high theory.” And what beats those Ks? Intuitive topical arguments that judges can hang their hats on without a deep knowledge of ontology or Deleuze. Those topical arguments tend to be consequentialist, so we’ve seen a huge number of util positions, disguised as ‘oppression,’ but looking a lot like affs from the 2010 Jan-Feb topic on economic sanctions.

There’s more to be said here, but that quick history is instructive enough. Leveling produced new strategies in LD (especially moral philosophy, theory, and kritiks), and those strategies stuck around, albeit to different degrees. Because moral philosophy still has its place in defeating weaker frameworks and framework debaters, its relevance in the metagame will endure. This is true for the other argument types as well. The rock-paper-scissors played out over several years can be seen within a season or a given tournament now that all three options have been more fully developed, maintain ardent supporters, and have good judging for each.

(3) Institutional Stubbornness

Camps, coaches, teams, and even tournaments can affect the metagame. When those in power don’t adapt to the metagame but instead try to define it (for better or worse), there can be inefficiencies in shifting to newer, more dominant strategies. For instance, if a prominent person writes a series of articles lambasting plan-focused debate, we might see less of it. Or suppose a camp disproportionately focuses on moral philosophy when the strategy is no longer dominant in the metagame. Or a coach requires his debaters to run 50 States and politics every round. Or Kant. A tournament that mandates disclosure neutralizes ‘tricks’ debate.

All of these actions slow down the metagame’s response time, preserving old strategies at the expense of new ones. They are acts of intervention that can extend an argument type’s life in the metagame longer than would otherwise be possible. Institutional actors can also speed up a metagame shift, but because of the rock-paper-scissors effect described above, they will rarely eliminate an argument type from the metagame.

Conclusion

So, Kant isn’t going anywhere soon. Neither is Deleuze, metatheory, or Wilderson. Debaters have to grapple with all of these styles, and the ones who do it best will find themselves on top. That could mean mastering one style and merely preparing to defeat the other three, but more often than not, gaining competence in many is the way to go in the current meta.