The quarterfinals debate that I judged at West Georgia has brought up an interesting theoretical question. Namely, when does an argument have to be explicitly conceded in order for a team to make use of it later? There was a short discussion of this on The 3NR.
I expand this discussion and provide a bit more background on the debate. A summary of the relevant parts of the quarterfinals debate:
1AC: NFU.
1NC: CBW PIC.
2AC: NFU solves CBW & No Impact to CBW.
2NC: Kicks the CP, does not explicitly mention the 2AC CBW add-on or impact takeout, nor does he extend the 1NC impact.
1AR: Extends the add-on and the 1NC impact to CBW attack.
2NR: Extends the 2AC impact takeout to CBW.
2AR: Contests the legitimacy of the 2NR’s extension of the impact takeout.
Was the 2NR’s move legitimate? I argue that it was because there is a prevailing set of debate practices that are consistent with allowing this type of extension, and requiring the explicit concession of the impact takeout in the block would rely on a model of debate that could result in nonsense and shenanigans.
Generally, what is the status of an opponent’s argument that is neither explicitly answered nor explicitly extended by a team in a debate? Is there a case where this situation occurs that we consider an argument to be implicitly extended? There most definitely is and the cases are sufficiently similar to justify interpreting the negative’s move in the block as an implicit concession of the 2AC arguments.
Case – The turned DA. When the 2AC turns a disadvantage, be it a link or impact turn, they rarely explicitly extend the other component of the turn that makes it offense. Despite this lack of explicit extension, if the block were to stand up in the face of a straight link-turned DA and say “we are no longer advancing the argument that there is an impact to this disad,” the affirmative would rightly call foul.
Though this case is not controversial, I will belabor the discussion of it for the sake of future clarity. Why don’t we make the 2AC explicitly concede the impact to the link turn? It would take very little time to make it transparent that the link turn accesses the negative’s impact, really just a formal statement of “Extend the negative’s impact evidence; economic decline causes war, Mead 92.”
Given the ease of this explicit concession, why don’t we require it of the 2AC? The answer is that it is wholly unnecessary. The presence of the link turn, and the lack of explicit contestation of the impact, leads to the overwhelmingly logical assumption that the 2AC has conceded the impact. In this case, we do not force the 2AC (and probably not even the 1AR) to go through the rote exercise of explicitly extending the negative’s impact, nor should we.
So, are the two cases similar? Does the negative’s silence in the face of the 2AC add-on and impact takeout constitute an implicit concession of both, or a strategic blunder? Our case study seems to suggest that when in doubt, we are willing to spot a team the implicit concession. Why do we force the block to demonstrate that they possess the strategic wherewithal to acknowledge that one argument takes another out, but do not force the 2AC to demonstrate that they know that the impact to their link turn is the original 1NC impact? Both situations seem sufficiently basic to infer that an implicit concession has occurred.
One possible distinction between the two is that the implicit concession of the impact is the conclusion of the link turn while the failure of the negative to explicitly concede affirmative arguments represents a lack of resolution or conclusion. The chief response to this objection is that the resolution is the concession of all affirmative arguments and the conclusion is the sum total of those arguments. If the combination of the 2AC arguments represents something to the effect of “we prevent a CBW attack, which has no impact,” then I fail to see why the negative’s silence in the face of this conclusion fails to resolve the situation.
Published in: Debate Theory, Debate Pedagogy
I don't understand why the analogy here is to a 2ac that straight-turns a disad, when the intuitive analogue is to a 2ac that mixes offense and defense. Suppose the 2ac reads a link turn and a link takeout, and the block just ignores the flow. The 1ar will extend the link turn. Do you propose that it would be legitimate for the 2nr to extend the 2ac's no link argument? If so, you must defend the world of debate in which teams must decide immediately whether they want to put defense or offense on a flow, the world in which reading a single defensive argument makes all offensive arguments completely irrelevant.
Further, there is a significant flaw in your reasonabout about the hypothetical 2ac link turn and the actual round. In the case of the link turn, the 2ac puts ink on the flow, the 2nc/1nr fail to put ink on the flow, and then the next affirmative speech, the 1ar, puts ink on the flow. The aff makes args in consecutive speeches, so they benefit.
In the actual case described, again the 2ac puts ink on the flow, the neg fails to do so, and then the 1ar puts ink on the flow. This seems to run precisely parallel to the hypothetical link-turn case, but instead of following that model, you are giving the negative the benefit.
This principle can be summarized: a speaker must say something to 'renew' the binding property of an argument made in either of the 2 previous speeches (counting the 2nc/1nr as 1 speech). Eg, the aff must make a link turn arg in the 2ac, thus interacting with the internal link and impact of the disad, to keep those internal links and impacts binding. The 1ar then extends the link turn, which because it interacts with the internals and impact, keeps all of those alive. This allows the 2ar to explain the impact to the disad as affirmative offense.
However, the neg did not say anything in the block to renew the impact takeout, so it had ceased to be binding. The aff should have been able to choose which arg (impact or no impact) they wanted in the 1ar.
The 2AC straight turn case was used to illustrate that there are situations where implicit concessions occur through silence, what you call "binding" argumentation. In the case of the aforementioned 2AC straight turn, the aff doesn't have to explicitly concede the impact to the disad in order to make it binding, we agree about this. Why then does the neg have to explicitly concede an impact takeout (or no link) in order to make it binding?
You say "you must defend the world of debate in which teams must decide immediately whether they want to put defense or offense on a flow, the world in which reading a single defensive argument makes all offensive arguments completely irrelevant."
That is precisely what I have in mind, debates where teams consider how their arguments interact and plan accordingly. If the 2AC considers the straight turn the best option, and they believe that the neg is going to kick the disad, then they shouldn't make other arguments that disprove the straight turn. There is still room for argumentative diversity, but not at the cost of the logical relationship between the arguments. As the debate evolves teams can and should use arguments that have been conceded to their advantage, but not if those arguments rely on a suspension of disbelief regarding what else they have said.
There is also precedent for mutliple speech extension and concession, such as when an affirmative does not explicitly extend advantages that are rendered irrelevant by a counterplan that is then later kicked. Most everyone seems fine with then allowing the 2AR to extend those advantages if they are now relevant.
My point is that it seems strange to force debaters to demonstrate, through rote exercise, that they understand that one of their opponent's arguments takes out another. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, we should have a low threshold for allowing debaters to use the arguments of their opponents in future strategy making.
WMJ