Debate For All: OCI’s Part 1
Jargon
Plank – Interpretations are composed of one or more planks that prescribe what practices should be allowed. With a bit of practice, you’ll know it when you see it. The interpretation:
The aff must not read a plan
has one plank because it prescribes one thing – namely, that the aff must not read a plan.
On the other hand, the interpretation:
“The aff may only read spikes if for each spike the aff specifies potential violations and whether the argument or debater is dropped if violated.”
or more crudely:
“The aff may read spikes. The aff must specify potential violations for each spike. The aff must specify whether the argument or debater is dropped if the spike is violated.”
prescribes three things – namely, that 1) the aff may read spikes 2) each spike must specify what might violate that spike and 3) that the spike clarifies whether its drop the argument or debater. Thus, there are three planks here.
What’s an OCI?
Following the developing discussion over OCI’s has been interesting. It’s only been going on for a handful of years and it’s one example of LD growing into something different than one-person policy. Consensus on OCI’s have changed throughout the years too.
As a project, arguments for OCI’s are partially reactions to omnipresent theory, especially frivolous theory that’s clearly false but read as a time-suck. To that end, RVI’s just don’t work anymore because every decent theory debater has a massive RVI bad dump that’s difficult to wade through. OCI’s are attempts to bypass this debate while still generating an offensive out on theory.
To make this more concrete, consider the following interpretations:
1) Interpretation – The affirmative must not read a plan.
2) Counter-Interpretation – The affirmative may read a plan.
3) Offensive Counter-Interpretation – The neg must not prohibit the aff from reading a plan.
What does it mean for the interpretation to be offensively worded?
An interpretation is offensively worded if the interpretation prohibits a practice. The first and third interpretations share this feature by claiming their opponent must not do something. The second interpretation is different; it is not offensively worded because it merely says the aff may do something, not that the neg must not do something.
Are offensively worded interpretations always actually offensive?
This cannot be the case. Consider the alternate offensive counter-interpretation:
The aff may read a plan. My opponent must not be Bob.
Or even more bluntly:
Neither debater must murder each other. My opponent must not be Bob.
Assume all the offense in the shell is about the affirmative murdering their opponent being a bad thing. But that the reason my opponent Bob (in fact, Bob is always my opponent!) violates the shell is that he is, in fact, Bob.
This clearly is an incoherent shell. Yes, textually Bob violates the interpretation. But if you parse out the plank Bob ACTUALLY violates and the abuse attached to that plank, Bob has done nothing abusive.
The take-away is this: genuinely offensive interpretations must identify abuse your opponent caused. Superficial word changes are not magical.
I thought we were talking about OCI’s. What’s the deal?
Let’s return to the original interpretation:
The neg must not prohibit the aff from reading a plan.
Suppose the rest of the shell merely argues plans are good. The same issue we outlined above applies here. The plank violated is that the neg read false theory. But the only thing the shell justifies is that plans are good. This interpretation has not identified abuse your opponent caused.
So what’s the OCI missing? It’s missing arguments for why it’s abusive for debaters to read false theory. Perhaps plans are good, but theory is so educational that the neg should indict them anyways. Theory does help debaters think on the fly and feel empowered to push forward their own activity through hard work and deep thought. Perhaps theory helps level the playing field for small-school debaters who can’t cut as many cards.
By no means am I saying that the above claims are true. Rather, my aim is to merely challenge the unwarranted assumption that false theory is abusive: there is a debate to be had. In fact, a lot of this debate overlaps onto the same old RVI debate.
What does this all mean?
Here’s the community consensus as best as I can tell: OCI’s can work. It’s possible to justify the offensive plank and say false theory is abusive, but that’s just an RVI. If so, then OCI’s are trivial because they merely changed the location of an RVI from being underneath a counter-interp to inside it.
I don’t agree with the above paragraph’s pessimism. This article followed the most well-known criticism against OCI’s, but relied on the following assumptions: 1) that most people reading OCI’s won’t actually justify the offensive plank and that 2) any justification for the offensive plank is just an RVI with Groucho glasses. We’ll challenge those assumptions a bit in part two and look at the different arguments put forth on behalf of OCI’s.
7 Comments
so an OCI is just like an AT to frivolous theory? Sounds a lot like a meta-shell. Determining the rules for the theory debate, saying: “neg can’t prohibit the aff from doing a plan” sounds a lot like “can’t read multiple shells”, in the way one garners offense of the shell.
I’d also like to see what possible standards could be used under “The neg must not prohibit the aff from reading a plan”.
It’s an answer to any theory shell if you win your counter-interp is true. In fact, I’ve heard that one tricky school reads an OCI while answering nbibs bad. Nevertheless, for most debaters’ purposes, this is a way to deter stupid theory because it forces your opponent to throw some skin in the game.
And you’re right that this is a meta-theoretical argument (so are RVI’s, by the way). The offensive plank claims that false theory is abusive, which is, as you suggest, theory about how to read theory. So it’s meta-theory.
In terms of standards, most of them would just be the same as for the counter-interpretation that says “the aff may read a plan.” Before it matters that false theory is abusive, you have to win that your opponent read false theory. The only difference would be one or two justifications that explain why false theory is abusive – and the hope is that these warrants are different enough from an RVI to avoid dumps. I’ll go into the different arguments I’ve heard in favor of that offensive plank in part two.
I have a question about what can be considered as an offensive counter-interpretation. Using the example brought up in the article:
Aff reads a plan.
Neg reads the interpretation “The Aff must not read a plan.”
The Aff reads the counter-interpretation “The Aff may read a plan.”
The consensus is that the Aff’s counter-interpretation is not offensive, and it would require an RVI if the Aff wants to win the round on this theory debate. But why should this not be considered as offensive?
When the Neg reads the interpretation, they are making arguments why plans are bad, and linking these arguments back to the voting issues of Fairness and Education. Clearly that is offense. But when the Aff reads the counter-interpretation, it seems like they are doing the same thing. The Aff will make arguments why plans are good, and link those arguments back to Fairness and Education. Under a norm-setting view of competing interpretations, if the Aff wins the validity of the counter-interpretation over the interpretation, it seems like an RVI shouldn’t be necessary for the Aff to win the debate. The Neg has taken a stance in the round that has been proven less fair and less educational than the Aff’s stance in the round. Instead of making the usual RVI arguments about why the Neg should lose because they did something bad (by reading false theory), the argument could be that the Neg should lose because they defended a practice for debate that has been proven as less fair and less educational, under a competing interpretations framework that seeks the most fair and most educational interpretation.
I don’t think many people still make that argument. A few things:
This argument is committed to a strong conception of competing interpretations that’s rarely justified in-round. Usually debaters will say “Prefer competing interpretations because reasonability is based on a gut-check.” This by no means has any implication on why we should care about norm-setting.
Competing interpretations “seeks the most fair and most educational interpretation.” But why is the way it does this through dropping people who defended a bad rule for debate? Obviously that’s also a norm that can be questioned. As far as I can see, any reason for why RVI’s are bad would explain why this would be a bad norm. I think this is even more clear when the justification for norm-setting is deterrence; this is exactly what the “Grant me an rvi to deter frivolous theory” argument is saying. Whether it’s an RVI is neither here-nor-there. The argument is the same, so the responses are the same.
Using the plans bad example, if the neg reads “aff can’t read plans”, wouldn’t their interp’s solvency assume that the ballot has the power to create norms in debate. i.e if you drop someone for a bad practice, they’re less likely to do the same practice. So, if the aff wins the ci that the aff may win the plans, would it be viable to generate offense on the theoretical layer absent winning an RVI arguing that
a) the ballot would end up justifying the norm that aff can’t read plans. The aff is winning that plans are probably good, the ballot shouldn’t go the neg because it has a significant risk of deterring plans being read.
b) giving the ballot to the debater with the better interp would be net better for debate because that rule is being spread.
I’d like some input on whether that’s a viable strat to gain offense absent winning the RVI.
“wins the ci that the aff may read plans
Not all fairness voters rely on deterring future abuse. For instance, many debaters claim that theory is a gateway issue to substance because substance is permanently skewed after the time trade-off incurred by being forced to read theory.
Your question is interesting because a lot of debaters do read theory voters with only a deterrence justification. Certainly you can make the argument you suggested in your comment – it’s a decent argument. I just don’t think it ends up being true. The third paragraph in my response to Richard also applies here.
It might also be worth acknowledging how much your rhetoric seems borrowed from K’s because norm-setting is committed to similar controversial assumptions found in alternate Roles of the Ballot. No one seems to care anymore when it comes to theory debate. This baffles me.