Theorizing LD Theory: The Narrative
posted by Jon Cruz on March 6th, 2006
I have a long night of overdue work ahead of me, and I fear that while three sets of photos are awaiting uploading, I might not be done with this work until past midnight. So, I instead turn to a conversation starter. (It’s an overdue one, anyway!)
What are “narratives,” and how ought they function in Lincoln-Douglas debate rounds? Are they valid arguments? Are they desireable arguments? Why should one run a narrative?
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Posted from: 216.165.43.243
March 6th, 2006 20:16
While I am not an expert on narratives, I have a few basic thoughts to share.
A narrative is a story. See Walter Fisher for more elaboration.
On narrative as a framework for values debate, Kristine M. Bartanen writes in ‘Advanced Debate’:
Given that the narrative paradigm finds a society’s values in its stories … and views all stories as advice for good living, it is especially fitting to consider values debate within a narrative perspective. …Focus on the central action of the conveyed narratives reinforces the growing recognition that values must be debated in the context of the actions which embody them. (330-332)
The narrative paradigm has three specific impacts on debate, specifically regarding how an opponent can defeat them.
1. The negative wins if the negative can distinguish its side from that of the antagonist in the narrative (if one exists which, given the dichotomous nature of values, it probably should).
2. The negative can show why the antagonist’s choices are superior to those of the protagonist.
3. The negative can win if it establishes a better paradigm than the narrative, then meets it better than the affirmative.
Most of this analysis was written for a case I ran on the environmental topic my junior year (jan/feb). I used The Lorax.
Posted from: 130.64.139.228
March 6th, 2006 20:53
What happens if the negative tells another story in response to the affirmative story?
It would seem irresolvable unless a standard impacting debate then occurred.
Posted from: 68.175.99.147
March 6th, 2006 21:13
I’m not really sure I understand how a narrative can claim to be a legitimate form of debate if it employs a framework justifying itself, since that would seem to bow to the constraints of “conventional” debate. (I realize not all narratives contain this structure.)
Posted from: 128.135.112.141
March 6th, 2006 22:26
…because framework debate is conceptually distinct from fiat debate: given a set of concepts defining “‘conventional’ debate,” the narrative would presumably reject a particular subset, a subset which in no way is required to justify the original rejection. ok? good.
Posted from: 216.223.203.62
March 7th, 2006 04:52
i have a q: in the history of narratives, has anyone ever actually ENGAGED the narrative itself? Sure there are a ton of alright theory/philosophical/political answers, but has anyone ever looked at the narrative at hand and talked about it? Having run narrative(-esque) positions, I have not seen it. I wish people would both attack the framework of the narrative as well as the narrative itself.
Posted from: 128.135.173.63
March 7th, 2006 06:38
the last thing jaclev suggests doesnt happen, because double turning yourself is usually a bad idea. unless you run a theory argument about why mutually exclusive responses can be assessed mutually, which wastes even more time.
In response to Aram: what if debaters agree on a standard and then both impact to it?! OMGZ??!
Posted from: 24.130.67.87
March 7th, 2006 07:30
Petey:
I think Aram brings up a typical problem, and I’m not sure that your response answers. If we accept that the story-telling framework, how do you explain that your story should win?
Posted from: 128.135.173.63
March 7th, 2006 07:39
how do you explain that one argument is better than another? haven’t you ever debated a round with competing extensions?
cmon people…this isn’t hard. just think of a narrative as a case that has mostly examples instead of hypothetical policy analysis.
Posted from: 130.64.139.106
March 7th, 2006 07:43
Hey Petey,
While that would seem to be the norm, if the narrative is employing some kind of a framework to look to one specific instance (which it often does), how do you non-arbitrarily pick which story is more deserving? There couldn’t be impact weighing, as you suggest, since one debater’s ground would have to be swept out of the debate. If the standard is something like “pick the story whose protagonist suffered the most” that would:
1. Lead to terrible debate, as it would just turn into who can produce the most graphically disgusting story.
and
2. Always arbitrarily prioritize narrative type suffering over other forms of suffering. You may be able to produce the more shocking story, but your ground may cause more net suffering if there was a standard weighing debate. I think that this second problem would apply, in some form, to any standard that could be used.
Posted from: 216.223.203.62
March 7th, 2006 07:44
Petey:
you do not double turn yourself by indicting a narrative and the framework for a narrative. I am not saying run a counter narrative, but rather to say “your justifications for using a narrative framework are flawed for xyz reasons. Also, narrative proper is not a compelling story.”
Victory Briefs(Bietz?):
Although weighing competing narratives is not easy in the sense of a traditional weighing calculus via impacts etc, there is no reason that the narratives, in the subjective nature of narrative itself, cannot be weighed in terms of how convincing they are, how believable their stories are, how emotive they are, etc.
Posted from: 68.175.99.147
March 7th, 2006 07:47
But given that a narrative may (often does?) focus on one person’s story, and it doesn’t provide a clear weighing calculus (at least that I’ve seen, though I admittedly haven’t seen a ton of narratives), and they often explicitly ask you to vote off of emotional appeal, how do you evaluate these examples?
Petey, I also don’t understand how really a comparison to both debaters impacting to a common standard wins. I feel like making appeals back to a “traditional” debate framework undermines the whole exercise, if they idea of a narrative is to reform how we make arguments because the standard debate procedure is flawed or silencing. (Or maybe that’s not always the point. But, if it’s not, what is the point?)
How do you determine the better story if you have two competing stories? I would assume it would not be based on how more widespread the issues raised in the narrative are, as I thought one of the key points of a narrative (at least in legal commentary circles) to unearth the voice of the oppressed or the least represented?
I think Jacob’s response is totally valid, but then, it’s also a rationale (I think) for why debaters wouldn’t be able to complain about an entirely subjective decision by a judge regarding the evaluation of the narrative itself. (Which is fine, I’m just stressing it.)
Those are a lot of parentheses.
Posted from: 128.135.112.141
March 7th, 2006 07:55
Since the narrative claims to engage the resolution, the form of comparison most easily suggesting itself would be relevance. An aesthetic standard could also be used, which would take the form that jaclev outlined. Finally, if the negative reads another narrative and sits down without comparing them, the fault isn’t the affirmative’s to start the round with that form of argument. The negative’s burden of rejoinder is deferred to the 2N, when she can respond to the comparisons articulated in the 1AR.
Posted from: 38.117.182.130
March 7th, 2006 08:00
I think a narrative structure that says 1) storytelling is good, 2) here’s a story, and 3) my story wins, is going to have problems, and the same theory debate will happen every time about how one would compare narratives or whatever.
I think the use of a narrative as a way to disprove an *academic* but unrealistic viewpoint can be quite effective. For example, the use or a narrative in response to arguments regarding autonomy and free-will and rational man and the like as a way of showing that the choices one faces in life don’t resemble the model of rationality that such theories express can be quite effective. Likewise, the use of a narrative to highlight the actual political, social or economic realities facing the “individuals” that debate can abstract away too easily can be effective.
I have always wondered why proponents of narratives want to first have an argument about changing the nature of the activity so that it somehow evaluates competing narratives, and then telling the story, rather than simply incorporating narratives or stories into the argumentative structure as one method of proof or particular claims…
Posted from: 38.117.182.130
March 7th, 2006 08:19
Also, at some level (however one is using narratives), doesn’t there have to be a debate about the lessons we should take from the story, and doesn’t the debate have to be open to both sides. The affirmative uses a narrative . . . then shouldn’t the affirmative say what they think that story tells us, and then at least allow the negative to say, no, I think this is the real lesson of the story . . . instead of swapping narratives, couldn’t the debaters swap interpretations about the implications one can draw from the story…
I understand I am continually violating the norm against double posts.
Posted from: 216.165.43.243
March 7th, 2006 09:08
Bryce – as far as offering competing interpretations of the same narrative, see 2 in my original post above.
Posted from: 38.117.182.130
March 7th, 2006 10:03
ezahler – right, but it is not just constrained by that dynamic, right?
Posted from: 128.135.96.70
March 7th, 2006 10:44
Because I am enchanted by the prospect of being perfectly apropos, the following story will answer everyone’s questions. (you could say it’s a grand narrative. haha)
At Yale this year I judged a round between an asian male from Hunter and a black male from Stuyvesant. I *think* the hunter debater’s code was something like ZS but I’m really not sure. If anyone knows who I’m referring to, they should definitely identify these debaters.
So, the aff from stuyvesant gets up, says he’s going to present a story instead of using a standard case structure, and proceeds to read from The Sound and The Fury. (The debater explained after the round that he didnt have an aff case becuase he was notified of the competition at last minute.) Instead of criticizing him for ignoring the traditional model of debate, the neg from Hunter (who had read the book) launched into a serious CX, asking how the story affirmed. Aff explained that certain characters represented the situation of noncitizens, etc. Then, the NC reads a selection from the great gatsby, interprets it to explain that all societies require baseline acceptance of difference, and spends about five minutes explaining how the characters in the AC story could be interpreted the opposite way. ie a character’s silence could be the result of exclusion from democratic deliberation and not a signal of an unwillingness to pariticapte in the political community (in this case it was a family)
What followed was one of the best debate rounds I’ve ever seen, both debaters had brilliant insight and were adept at explaining the story even to me, who hadnt read the book. They both demonstrated their knowledge of the topic by identifying its major themes and conflicts among the characters and situations of the story. I ended up voting for the Hunter debater because his analysis was more in-depth and he refuted the opponent’s interpretation by providing plausible alternatives.
Posted from: 216.165.95.5
March 7th, 2006 11:12
Bryce – no, but when we discuss, as we often do in LD, what is right and what is wrong, a narrative’s most common way of encapsulating that conflict is hero/villain. No matter what the conflict is in the story at hand, 2 is meant to say that one can defeat the narrative by disputing its assumptions and its lessons, as Petey’s story seems to illustrate.
Posted from: 207.80.127.250
March 7th, 2006 11:20
A story to explain a potential problem with running narratives (though one which can be easily corrected).
Not having had a lot of experience with narratives, the biggest problem I ran into when I was running a narrative-esque argument were misonceptions about the position by both the judge and the opponent. This was particularly unfortunate because I never bothered clarifying my position in the AC or in the 1AR, kicked the case and turned the NC. One of the judges viewed this strategy as offensive, and intervened against me (which he thought was justified because I was using a narrative which calls for intervention). I lost the round due entirely to my own ineptitude because I hand’t clearly explained that my case wasn’t calling for an emotional reaction, but was rather just a very conditional advocacy with big impacts off of stories. This happened because I was using what I viewed to be a narrative (as in a story) but that didn’t fit the traditional conception of “narratives” that the judge had.
Narrative theory seems (to me at least) to be very wide and diverse with many different kinds of arguments stemming from it (e.g. a call for emotion, a kind of synecdoche, a very conditional case, a response to silence, or even just an example). From my own experience it seem very important to explicitly label what kind of narrative you are running. Otherwise you may have a bad experience with an otherwise interesting position.
This story also (in my mind) illustrates a potential reaction that a debater may encounter when running narrative-esque arguments. I was just using the narrative to try something new, not really as something which would enable me to break out of the dominant method of thinking or strategizing. As such, I viewed the narrative with less seriousness and care than my judge (and this was quite probably wrong of me). But, as a cautionary tale, the narrative form can be a particularly powerful tool that might just cause unwanted emotional reactions.
Posted from: 38.117.182.130
March 7th, 2006 11:35
ezahler: I wonder if narratives that used hero/villian structure would not just be invited a deconstruction of that structure…lit crit is full of material chomping at the bit to turn the typical hero/villian structure on its head.
Posted from: 71.160.56.34
March 7th, 2006 11:51
I would think even the more post-modern narrrative whereby characters are neither good nor evil, only more or less sympathetic, might offer more realistic, albeit more difficult to make categorical “good” and “evil” judgments upon only work to make “the narrative” a more problematic form of argumentation in world where the judge is forced to conclude “winner” or “loser.”
Posted from: 38.117.182.130
March 7th, 2006 12:08
I am so outdated. I always understood narrative structures as useful because they told the story of someone whose story was somehow underrepresented or ignored within the discussion (typically, but not exclusively, individuals from groups which were marginalized or differentiated in someway from the dominant culture and whose perspective did not otherwise translate into the rarified academic debate) (the fact that they were delivered by rich kids from private schools was supposed to be a fact we just ignored) (or not). Is Petey’s story atypical of narratives, or do people really tell stories from the western canon, complete with heros and villans? I would think such uses would be begging for post-modern critiques (Bietz: while a more nuanced narrative might make it more problematic for the debater offering the narrative to make the almost impossible link to “therefore I win”, the critique of the traditional good and evil in the narrative doesn’t have that responsibility – it only needs to say we should reject the narrative influencing our thinking in some way…)
Posted from: 71.160.56.34
March 7th, 2006 12:25
Bryce, correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t storytelling (and its critics) have a rich history as a valid form of argumentation in the law? In researching CLS i often came across storytelling.
Posted from: 38.117.182.130
March 7th, 2006 12:33
I thought that at least some of the influences on policy debate’s use of the narrative (which I am more familiar with than LD) came directly from the law – Delgado and others, fitting well with the tradition of CLS and critical race theorists – legal academia seems particularly guilty of abstracting individuals and having a discussion that ignores the realities that the law imposes on individuals…I think the narrative is supposed to remind us of something important when discussing the law (think of how different people in different communities view the police . . . how else to understand this difference than to hear the stories of individuals whose perspectives of police differ from yours).
Now, on a more basic level (and away from academia), any good trial lawyer knows that it is all about story-telling!
Posted from: 68.196.115.198
March 7th, 2006 12:40
petey: if if the kid from hunter was HunterZS it was Zayn something (sry i forgot his last name). he’s a cool kiddo.
fo sho.
Posted from: 207.172.73.154
March 7th, 2006 12:57
zayn siddique would be the hunter boy. he is indeed a cool kiddo, and an excellent debater. (destroyed me in the 5-1 round round 7 at yale)
Posted from: 68.226.225.187
March 7th, 2006 15:01
I’ve seen them be very effective with mommy judges
Posted from: 69.118.215.68
March 7th, 2006 15:41
The person in the round Petey is talking about was Hunter WL (William Lee).
Posted from: 69.228.210.92
March 7th, 2006 15:47
i think pictures are better
Posted from: 66.209.65.163
March 7th, 2006 16:36
pictures are hella better…i can guarentee that
narratives are fun but not a good tool if u wanna win…almost like pictures
Posted from: 128.135.173.63
March 7th, 2006 19:21
the round was between Hunter WL (William Lee) and Stuyvesant WM (Waciuma Maina)
Posted from: 138.16.19.146
March 8th, 2006 10:40
a few random thoughts:
narrative theory does have a lot of basis in cls/crt; i’m generally inclined to think of narratives the way Bryce does — as an alternatively acceptable mode of discourse embraced to make things a bit more egalitarian/a unique extension of marginalized voice
i think this is one of the reasons that narratives in rounds which have “debate-justifications” aren’t neccesarily internally contradictory; they attempt to convince those who listen to a certain form of discourse that alternate modes are acceptable through both forms; its hard for me to convince an only english-speaking audience that spanish is a rich language and that we ought to embrace bilinguilism if i either a)get up and speak only spanish b/c then the message will be lost or b)refuse to incorporate spanish because people may be at a loss as to what bilinguilism ought to look like
moreover; most narrative theory doesn’t argue for the exclusion of subjugation of traditional discourse; its a call for opening channels up, not closing them off
on the idea of talking about competing stories etc; i find it kind of interesting that a lot of the theorists we feel so compelled to slave ourselves too spend a good deal of time examining the literary; they don’t call it Lit-crit for nothing — if anything, narrative seems to provide the community with a couple of new sources for argumentation; there’s narrative for its own appeal, and now we also have narrative as subject of literary criticism (oh my!)
finally, i find myself less and less convinced of the strict boundary we erect between the realm of “argumentative” um…argumentation and persuasion/emotional appeal; the point of debate is to get someone to think your right (theoretically, at least); people are convinced/moved by a number of different things at different times — sometimes reading an insightful article will change your life; sometimes its “that scene” in your favorite movie (or…slideshow); sometimes you just have to EXPERIENCE something or see it with your own eyes to be convinced — either way, the point is that truth is revealed to us through a number of different media — as many as possible of which should be available to debaters
does this “require” intervention? heck naw — intervention is when judges introduce something into the round that niether of the debaters did, and makes there decision based off that; if a judge is convinced by a narrative, and image, or a whatever s/he’s making the decision based on what the debaters have put forth; obviously there’s some qualifications — otherwise we’d have ballots signed in the AC; i’ll let you all figure out what those qualifications should be b/c i dont really have the energy right now
point is, the way we approach and discuss emotional appeal vs. strict argumentation pretty much priveleges the ivory tower, and it really assumes the ABSOLUTE adequacy of a particular form of language (and, for that matter, language in general) to capture truth/insight etc. when sometimes there are things that can only be “said” through pictures, through the poetic, through music etc.
[/rant]
Posted from: 24.47.222.112
March 10th, 2006 21:32
“does this “require” intervention? heck naw — intervention is when judges introduce something into the round that niether of the debaters did, and makes there decision based off that; if a judge is convinced by a narrative, and image, or a whatever s/he’s making the decision based on what the debaters have put forth;”
I don’t really know about narratives at all, but, assuming the “convincing” aspect isn’t something weighed (ie: You should be convinced by this because of x), I think the decision on whether to buy the narrative is interventionist. (Again – this is just an assumption, I could be completely wrong)
As in, if the judges have to decide whether the narrative is convincing or not (and the debater doesn’t tell them how to evaluate that “convincingness,” I guess you could call it), then they DO have to introduce something into the round and decide off of that, which is interventionist.
Posted from: 140.247.73.223
March 11th, 2006 07:17
Question, then – if “intervention” simply means that the judges introduce extra-round information, what’s wrong with considering persuasion (not necessarily in the oratorical sense; maybe the factual appeal of the case) when deciding?
I have a problem seeing the difference here (at least as narratives relate to accusations of intervention).