Coaches Roundtable: Sept-Oct Metagame
This is Premier Debate’s first panel-style post of the new season. In this edition, we probe the minds of three prominent coach-judges on the national circuit what they’ve seen so far on the topic and what they’d like to see at upcoming tournaments. For more on what to expect in your region, T-military only, and the roads aff, read on!
Question 1: What argument styles are dominating in your region early this season? Any change from this time last year, and to what would you attribute that change?
Katya Ehresman: Texas has always been pretty flex in terms of popular styles in the region since the state is so big. However, I noticed at Grapevine, Greenhill and locals in the Austin area that people are prepping a lot more kritikal and framework-type affs, expanding the topic a lot more than just the traditional core topic positions. This time last year, Austin was much more stock and larp-heavy, so the change was surprising. I think the shift can be attributed to what was seen as successful on the circuit last year as well as curriculum focused on at camps – more students saw the successful popularity of philosophical and flex positions and consequently those became a larger part of the meta for Texas.
Xavier Roberts-Gaal: The conscription aff is huge. Usually run with a util or structural violence framework, this aff has a solid literature base, allowing readiness and civil-military gap advantages, which usually are fleshed out with impact scenarios depending on the framework. For example, at Yale, I judged a civil-military gap advantage with race impacts, where the aff argued that in a volunteer military, participation is largely avoidable for privileged Americans, while poor and minority communities face disproportionate impacts from military recruitment. The next round, I saw a civil-military gap advantage where the aff argued that civilians participating in the military improved their ability to be self-governing citizens, which impacted back to a neo-republicanism framework.
Like last year’s nuclear waste/Natives structural violence aff, the conscription aff represents the increased dominance in recent years of consequentialist frameworks arguing that oppression is the primary evil to be alleviated. Unlike last year, however, the conscription aff also allows the affirmative to explore “big-stick” impacts like readiness. Last year’s affirmatives were limited to largely warming and security scenarios with their nuclear power offense; this year, affirmatives have a lot more tools to diversify their impacts and make their affs more flexible. I think this is partly a result of the topic—national service just has a lot of literature about it—but some amount of the Northeast’s increased focus on diverse impacts seems, to me, to be a (good!) shift toward strategic, modular, and flexible affs.
Also, for some reason, everyone was reading the cyber-conscription plan. I think it’s way too narrow to be fair, but it has some pretty good impact scenarios (although its solvency is a little iffy) with little counterplan ground.
John Scoggin: I bear witness to the rise of util debate, like a phoenix from the ashes, sometimes down, but never dead, and when alive, burning in fiery glory. I attribute that change to the long-term tendency of humanity to be rational and good.
Q2: How do you expect strategies to evolve over the course of the topic? Are there any really under-explored areas of the topic literature?
KE: After judging and coaching the past 4 weeks I have definitely noticed the strategies already evolving on this topic. While it always tends to happen towards the second month with teams breaking new, trickier or further left positions – I think this shift started earlier this year. A lot more people started out on the edge of the topic lit with some teams running affs about organ procurement or the borderlands. I think this may be because of the ambiguity of ‘National Service’ and debaters wanting to evade defending militarism by talking about other branches or just taking the concept less literally.
An area that I think is particularly pertinent on this topic but I think is definitely underdeveloped is the FEMA aff about national disasters. With so much of the world affected by hurricanes recently, I think that the FEMA aff would be very well timed and there is a lot of literature on that topic area.
XRG: I think the service-learning aff is fairly under-explored. Affs will probably get smaller and smaller as more people frontline the conscription plan (although I still think it’s one of the better plans out there, particularly to pair with a less-common framework like Hobbes). Where I’d like to see the most exploration, though, is in case negs and counterplans. Many neg rounds I saw hinged on topicality or spec debates, as well as on generic Ks like militarism. While that’s fairly usual for the beginning of the topic, I think there’s a lot more to be done with enforcement counterplans. Programs and country models use different incentive schemes, from student loan repayment to taxes and fines. So, I think “normal means” is up for debate. Negs should take advantage of that.
JS: One example of how arguments cycle through in a util meta would be the grids advantage. Several teams were running parts as part of their cybersecurity advantages that the energy grids in the US were vulnerable. This was a logical advantage area because it possessed several advantages: first, it didn’t follow the same internal link as other big impacts and second, it accessed a pretty large impact. Over the course of the Greenhill tournament I saw several teams run very compelling impact defense alongside their disadvantages, which severely mitigated the utility of the advantage. Consequently, at Valley and Long Beach I saw fewer grid advantages, while seeing a similar amount of cyber affs. As the topic moves forward I expect people to run more diverse advantages and expect affirmatives to explore smaller and more niche plans outside of military affs.
Q3: What are your thoughts on the military/non-military definitions of national service? Have you seen any plans that you think are blatantly non-topical or otherwise unfair?
KE: This t debate has gotten really stale and repetitive in my opinion.
Personally, I believe that the concept of national service as a policy in the US doesn’t have to be military because CNCS blatantly references other branches of service. However, I do buy a lot of the limits arguments in favor of T- military that debaters can just pick and defend any of the infinite branches. Some affs are pretty non-T like the organs aff as well as affs about pro bono lawyers or sorcery that try to pass themselves off as topical but are so far on the edge of the topic that they are pretty abusive. Of course, there are just blatantly non-t affs that refuse to defend the state or national service which I think are really cool and a lot more prominent on this topic than almost any other that I’ve seen. Another interesting take on the topic are the people specifying groups, ages or lengths of enforcement i.e. the high school service learning aff, conscript the rich etc. I think these are ripe for good T debate because they clearly enhance the policy ground but also unfairly overlimit the mechanisms that affs or pics can choose from.
XRG: In the United States, “national service” probably refers to a whole host of civil volunteer programs dating back to at least the New Deal, in addition to the 1940 Selective Service Act and the military draft. In other countries, like in Singapore, “national service” more often refers to the military side of the debate, with civilian alternatives available for people who don’t want to fight. I think the military/nonmilitary debate is largely reducible to the questions of conscientious objection and aff spec, however. If the aff gets to defend a conscientious objector exemption to military service, or any more permissive set of exemptions, they effectively defend the volunteering aff in addition to the conscription aff.
The cyber aff is probably unfair as above. It’s just too narrow.
JS: I think the nonmilitary stuff is likely T. The substance debates are actually pretty compelling, and there are unique Ks that only link to nonmilitary stuff. I have also seen a ton of positions that are just too darn small. I think the ‘case list’ aspect of T has been woefully neglected, and judges have not been voting on T enough. Given the variety of national service programs that exist in the squo, judges should have a very high bar for solvency advocates.
Q4: What is the coolest or weirdest argument you’ve seen on the topic?
KE: The coolest arguments I have seen were all of the Puar QSB positions, Walt Whitman CC’s PMC grief aff, Dulles MK’s Era of the Anthropocene and Success Academy AB’s Queer Womxn AC. I don’t think I have seen anything really weird yet but there’s still a month left with some pretty big tournaments like Bronx, Marks, and FBK for weird arguments to be broken at.
XRG: Definitely the “We” k, read by Andrew Garber (CRLS AG) in Yale triples. [Ed note: that’s not on the topic!!] I’m a #proudcoach, so I really like the Spanos militarism aff my kids wrote at the beginning of the topic. They argued that a draft would force Americans to reckon with the current and historical consequences of going to war. Spanos makes some pretty cool arguments about how remembering the horrors of the Vietnam War is pivotal to counter American exceptionalism, for which he claims debate is a crucial training ground.
JS: I have to give a shout out to Varun Paranjpe from Mountain View for the roads aff. There is a chapter of Force and Freedom about roads that I never really thought would have utility in debate — Varun has proven me wrong.
Q5: If you were coaching a perfectly flexible debater, what aff would you have him/her read in most rounds?
KE: The debaters I coach tend to stay further left with their takes on the topic haha but I think a perfectly flex aff would probably be one of the community service affs on this topic. They can have a lot of phil ground (I.e ethics of care or agonism) but community service gives diverse impacts (I.e breaking cycle of poverty, service learning increases stem growth etc.) and K ground (I.e. Breaking social barriers, shifts from militarism etc.). The lit base for community service is so big that I think the affs in that area are perfect for flex debaters.
XRG: conscription + Hobbes <3
JS: My three favorite affs on the topic are the Brentwood cyber aff, the Immac Laich military aff and the Loyola China aff, although I will admit my bias on the last one. I think these affs are good examples of what good util debate can look like. I also think if you are a K debater you should be happy there are affs like this present, as they are effective foils for a lot of the stuff you want to run.
