in all honesty, i’m pretty sure jason has nothing of value to contribute and that he really should get out of the activity because his actions only serve to undermine the educational and competitive experiences of many debaters.

Having said that, I think it’s a problem when Jason declares that some people should “get out of the activity”, just as much as it is when those people tell Jason to get out of the activity… I think each side has something valuable to contribute, and the two approaches should be viewed as complementary to the educational value of debate, rather than opposed to it.

Hope that made at least a bit of sense…

btw, Prashant did you ever beat the mario game you had going at NSD?

(1) Shess’ post made me fall out of my chair. Thanks for the link.

(2) In life, we will always encounter people who will not change. They believe what they believe and that’s that.

Be angry all you want, but a curmudgeon will not alter his views simply because you ask him to do so.

(3) If you love something, embrace it. If you enjoy debate, then make it a point to learn about how to be a better competitor, mentor, coach, or judge.

Michelin Massey

More seriously, I agree with Mr. Berryhill on a lot of the substance of what he’s saying. Let me add here that shortly after my last post here, Mr. Baldwin emailed me to offer me the chance to perhaps get some more specific advice from him that I might find useful. I replied to him, but have yet to hear back – he’s a really busy guy, after all. I mention this publicly to say that irritating as his public language might be, approaching Mr. Baldwin might not be an impossibility – he really didn’t have to seek me out like that, and I appreciate that he did. I don’t know that he’ll like radically change the way I see debate or some such, but I’m willing to consider what he has to say with an unjaundiced eye…Hopefully, such gestures are signs that the “old guard” isn’t very set in its conviction that younger coaches have no place in this activity. If that interpretation is correct, I think it’s a step we’d all welcome.

~Ankur

As I said earlier, too often there has been a history of older coaches (only some of them mind you, because there are many I have and still learn TONS from in and outside of debate) of being as arrogant and exclusive as some of the “younger crowd.” Jason’s posts and articles warrant this argument pretty well.

That said, what’s needed is that we give up this desire to monopolize the answer to the question, “Who has the right to dictate how debate should happen/ what ideas are worth listening to?”

In terms of the LDEP, I personally found some of the rhetoric of the charter to be highly inappropriate… it’s tossing of words like “educational” don’t sound like an honest desire to be inclusive of a diversity of points of view—instead, it seems to sound like a desire to reestablish a hierarchy of older/experienced coach > younger college coach, where policies like “no first year outs in elims!” are the result and where younger coaches automatically assume their points of view are subservient to “the winningnest.” If the old cliche of “you catch more flies with honey than you do with butter” is correct, then the rhetorical strategy of the ldep or similar groups needs massive revision.

Similar things like orienteing the judging panels at TOC like finals in a particular bias (or to adapt in a particular way) are similarly unstrategic for the goal of creating a bridge between the older and younger camps of coaches/judges. (for purposes of argument here, I am being agnostic about if this is a good practice or not in and of itself)

A lot of younger coaches correctly reads this kind of behavior as cause for suspicion, when justifications like ageism are given. Right or wrong, this is NOT the strategy that will promote increased respect.

I saw this myself when I coached in a local California league while at Stanford. The older coaches there said to some of the MSJ students that I was not “a real coach” because I hadn’t done the activity for 10 years; and to a non-debate teacher who helped me when I was trying to create a program at a school that never did debate before, that I was “the anti-christ” of the league. (I wish I was kidding). Such ridiculous behavior made my own students refuse to debate state or national quals, and in the case of one team I tried to start up–to stop the activity altogether.

I saw in that local league a lot of the hierarchy, backstabbing, and cutthroat power games from older coaches that we bemoan on the VBD from the “progressives.” Therefore, I am quite sympathetic to a lot of the claims being made here by the younger coaches (i.e. Ernie, Weeks, et al.) Ageism and power games by older coaches can be quite repressive and destructive to education and students’ willingness to continue in this activity, and I saw its effects first hand in my stint at a West coast debate coach.

To this extent, Greg is right on the money to point out the hypocrisy in the article above.

The solution then, is one that strikes at the core of our psychology in this activity—that we have to give up a desire to dominate the discourse in LD, but instead to listen to, vote for and respect (even if we don’t agree) points of view that we do not share.

I personally know the danger of this kind of approach–being called a “reverse rep out/underdog” judge or someone who will “just vote on anything” (yes these are direct quotes) by the older coaches, and “reactionary” or “unpredictable” by the younger coaches. It doesn’t bother me anymore–but I use these examples to point out how uncomfortable debaters (overall) are with giving up
a monopoly over debate discourse.

Debaters love binaries–but I’ve found not only in my own teaching, but also in coaching and judging that there are things to learn from all camps–where lessons can be learned to make super successful competitors both inside and outside of rounds. To that extent, I don’t understand the people who keep crying that speed is ALWAYS bad, or that with more “progressive” (whatever the heck that means) debate, students will not be able to write good papers or communicate in different environments. I can assure you, of the many papers I’ve graded this year in philosophy classes there has been a quantum leap of a difference between *fast* debaters and nondebaters in quality of argument, word economy, etc. (even when grading name-blind)

At the same time, I don’t understand those people who refuse to borrow from the better parts of the “old guard” in debate like crystallization, debate structure and the ability to be oratorical in round when necessary.

Moving forward means doing what we all fear most–giving up our preconceptions about how things should be done, and instead borrowing the best from those who view debate differently than we do. Mutual respect—it is probably the most scary, radical and shocking response… but yet most necessary answer to Babb’s inquiry.

A word of caution, though: priveleging younger coaches does run the risk of shutting out words of wisdom from more experienced coaches. Older coaches may not have the same technical expertise to offer (though many of them unquestionably DO), but this shouldn’t be a reason to ignore their input. I think the level of technical specialization shared by competitors and recent competitors is crucial. But advice from those less familiar with those specialized trends often gets shut out because it’s too “out of touch”. To the extent understanding of communication and argumentation often transcends the presently en vogue discourse, I worry some that important contributions by older coaches are being shut out. Only a naive self-satisfaction with the status quo of circuit debate would view this trend as welcome.

I do not disagree that Baldwin has reacted to some trends without the judiciousness he would expect from others. But, we should not lose sight of the kernel of truth to be found in his reaction, however knee-jerk it may be. Rather than replicate Baldwin’s ostensible intolerance, what are we to do looking forward? How can we promote a community in which the work of young coaches is valued without excluding the invaluable contributions of those who’ve seen the activity change over time? The vantage points that experience affords teachers are absolutely essential in my view. And yet, many experienced teachers appear to be uninterested in the conversations young coaches are having… I wonder if they aren’t somewhat deterred by the perception that debate has changed without them, evolved beyond any recognition.

How do younger coaches build a bridge to those in the LDEP? How do we encourage a dialogue that is truly inclusive?

also, based on recent personal experience, i can say that coaching kids who are often unresponsive to normal teachers and learning environments works better when someone closer to their age is involved.

You’re completely right. That was definitely a wrong word for me to use, I’m sorry about that.

I still think that citing details like “Yep, thats right, the 1-5 took down the tournament champ” could hurt a person, but, you’re right, you didn’t attack that person directly, Thanks for that.

Write to FREEDOM: A letter from Jason Baldwin.

stephen

I’m not saying funding is only dependent on accesiblity, but I know as a coach that I like to be able to show what we do to administrators. I could never show them a policy round and LD is moving toward the same territory. Funding varies a lot from district to district and school to school, and it is getting harder (at least in Washington) to find all the time.

I certainly don’t disagree with Rebar that the main reason people debate is because it’s fun. That is certainly why I debated. And, as I have said before, when I was a student I probably would have been much more on the other side of this argument. I just think it’s important for those of you who frequent this site to keep in mind that not everyone likes the same kind of debate that you do and that some practices that you might find fun might actuall discourage others from getting involved.

Let’s get back to the policy debate issue. Someone asked if it might be decling because it’s expensive? Certainly that is one of the reasons. I would put forth cost, difficulty, lack of coaches and stylistic conflicts as four key reasons why it is decling. The thing is, all of these things are related.

For instance, a fast style means that students must do more research, make more copies and carry more tubs around. This along with critical argumentation also makes debate camp almost a neccesity for those wanting to compete at the open level even locally, let alone nationally. So, style is one of the drivers of cost. Coach shortages can also increase costs because a lack of coaches means less programs; this means teams that are left MUST travel to get any competition at all. This is happening right now in Washington. Now, maybe cost independent of these issues has killed some policy programs, but I don’t think it’s really hard to isolate any of these factors.

What I don’t want to see is the same thing happen to LD that has happened to policy. The lack of a need for a partner and the shorter times times in LD will protect against some of these creeping costs. But, camp is becoming more and more of a prerequesite to success and I’m starting to see coaches give up out of frustration with the new trends.

To be honest, I’m not really interested in debating about what paradigm is best. I personally like debates that are heavy on substance, don’t lose sight of the big picture and keep a resolutional focus. Does that mean everyone else is wrong on face? I wouldn’t make that claim. But I do think those of you who are younger (and I feel weird saying that as an old man of 32) might lose sight of the big picture at times. I remember when Washington had enough policy/LD/IE programs to support multiple tournaments on the same weekend. I remember when PLU and Western hosted tournaments comparable in size to Whitman, Gonz and UPS. I know that is Washington specific, but I’m guessing others could tell paralell stories about their regions. The point is that debate participation is dropping off and if we truely care about the acitivty that needs to be considered in all these discussions.

I have never met Jason Baldwin; I can’t comment on his personality. Honestly, I think the discussion about him specifically is really getting in the way of what could be an important substantive discussion about some very important ideas.

I’m sorry if I wan’t able to respond to every point made in response to my above post. I’ll try to do so if needed later when I have more time.

Oh wait, Mr. Baldwin doesn’t want MJP. Miask says he contributed to TOC not having MJP. I dont know if that’s true. I do know he and a lot of his LDEP friends dislike it intensely.

I also know is that if JB is so mature and intelligent, certainly he’d realize that very few debaters 1. want him in the back of the room and 2. adapt to him to the extent that he’d prefer and 3. enjoy that kind of debate compared to the style of debate that they typically do. I struck him at every tournament for a reason. We dont see eye-to-eye on debate, and that’s okay. Id much rather have had to blow a strike on him than shoot in the dark at whatever is “persuasive” or “reasonable” to him.

Dont more educational rounds happen when both debaters and the judge are on the same page paradigmatically? Say I’m bad at critical debate, but I feel pressured to adapt to someone I think is a K hack. I’ll probably make crappier args in front of that judge than I would in front of a good stock judge. The example is a two way street, Jason. If I’m hella good at running my Digger case and your paradigm wont allow that, I might have to run a worse argument.

MJP doesnt narrow the judging pool to competitors friends or favorite judges, but it does seriously mitigate the possibility of debaters getting judges they debate poorly in front of.

So to recap, my last post said JB should give real RFDs (ie. specific arguments that were persuasive, why they were, etc.) if he’s got the audacity to call my current peers detrimental to the activity and qualified enough to judge a national championship (instead of a laundry list of other much much more open-minded and qualified judges that were on the back-up panel). He should have specified arguments he found persuasive because giving thorough RFDs is more educational than no RFDs (maybe he disagrees with this assumption and would argue that there are worse fates than no RFD). So the last post said JB is not educational with an empirical warrant. This post says JB resists policies that 1. would make him happier (probably) and 2. make debate more educational. Same claim (JB is a hypocrite who doesnt care about others’ conceptions of education), different warrant. I am not indicting “persuasion paradigms” because I think persuasion is cool.

I remember who was in that round Michael and I’m pretty sure if they saw this post they’d be pretty upset. I don’t know anything about the round in particular; I wasn’t debating in it. I I just don’t think we should be citing particular incidents that defame the debaters within them.
If you think Mr. Baldwin is a bad judge, say so, but don’t attack debaters who haven’t done anything wrong.

I think Rebar’s last post explains my position very well. I believe in adaptation, and I think a variety of paradigms in debate is healthy, but I’m not sure if the paradigm that favors traditional notions of persuasion is better. I think debate can get funding no matter what. When my administration or ASB or donors fund debate, they don’t ask to see a debate round. They ask us what we LEARN from it, what pedagogical benefit it serves. Insofar as fast, techy debate allows us to extract educational gain, funding will not be a problem.

my curiosity is pretty genuine.. are people in the community comfortable indicting anything on educational grounds, and if so.. who, what, etc?

maybe we should just round up a bunch of parents every year and throw them into judging policy rounds to balance things out. god knows those kids need some humility, especially in washington.

this thread just seems like people keep repeating the same arguments and responses to those arguments and no one listens. that’s lame.

but just to feed the fire. in so far as the basketball analogy is concerned; i have little clue what goes on rules wise during a basketball game. yes they run and dribble and shoot. but to me the rules that govern when a jump ball happens and when its a foul are as arcane as the structure of topicality is to my grandmother. the point is, every activity is somewhat exclusive, and just because some have more well known conventions than others (basketball and debate for instance) doesn’t mean that the well known ones would be any less strange to an outsider. i don’t understand baseball rules or football rules at all either. if someone wants to ref the game, don’t they have to know the rules? last time i checked, my grandmother doesn’t referee football games or coach the indianapolis colts. i can expound with more on this silly sports metaphor thing but i think we’re all missing the biggest point:

DEBATE IS FOR FUN. IT IS A GAME FOR HIGHSCHOOLERS. CONGRATULATIONS, IT MAY HELP YOU LATER IN LIFE. JUST LIKE BASEBALL IN HIGHSCHOOL, OR BASKETBALL, OR HOME EK, OR SHOP, OR FOOTBALL, OR WRESTLING, OR DRAMA CLUB, OR HONOR SOCIETY…ETC ETC ETC.

-king of the burbz

You are missing the point. No matter how fast basketball is played, it is still accessible to the audience who goes to watch it.

That is the real issue here. Look at what happened to policy debate as it moved further and further way from an activity that non specialists could watch and understand, let alone judge. The numbers have fallen off almost everywhere. I think it might dissapear in Washington within the next few years.

Arguments about the education of those taking part in super fast, theoritical debate miss the big picture. There is no education for anyone if no one competes in debate. Sure, we can move everyone to PFD, but then eventually it will almost inevitably move toward speed, etc, just like every other form of competitive debate seems to. Maybe it is inevitable and we should just give up, but I hope not.

Personally, I think it’s more valuable to learn now to persaude a wide variety of audiences instead of just specialists. But, I can see the other side too. What I don’t see is how anyone can serisously argue that making debate completely inaccesible to lay audiences doesn’t hurt participation. It makes it harder to attract coaches, harder to convince school districts to fund it and harder to convince new debaters they should do it.

Pariticipation and accesibility are the real issues here.

So we should make basketball players slow down so that the sport can be accessible to people who don’t feel like practicing dribbling or running and thus lowering the barrier of entry? Your claim is simply nonsensical. If people are lazy they should do public forum or not participate in competitive debate–any competitive activity requires practice and training to be able to compete. Instead of spending two paragraphs mocking me for asking you what you mean by inclusion you should reflect on how absurd and nonsensical your argument is.

Is it even possible, in your view, for a particular approach to coaching to be countereducational? If, for example, Jason forwarded a thesis that wasn’t tied to the age of a coach, would anyone be willing to hear that thesis out? It seems like a lot of people are eager to talk about what fosters success but unwilling to talk about what fosters education (which isn’t to say success and education are unrelated).

now to re-explain why the word inclusion, as reasonable people interpret it, is important. Inclusion means including as many people as possible. By speaking in a manner that the general public and many highly intellectual individuals cannot understand (hyperfast and not eloquently), you exclude many people. Not only does this inhibit the education of those attempting to watch the debate, but it inhibits your’s by teaching you that this is an acceptable form of eloquent speech. People that are watching hyperfast talking for the first time are not able to take part in the debate because though they may be far smarter than the fast-speaker, they cannot comprehend the arguments at such breakneck speeds. Thus you EXCLUDE people from gaining the education in deabte that you claim is so valuable.

I really don’t know if it is valuable anymore considering the verbal masturbation and intellectual prostitution that passes for eloquent debate today.

A/T: Analytic/Continental
1) A.J. Ayer is a big whig when it comes to analytic philosophy. He is not that easy to read (I’m dumb :( ). I was trying to read Language, Truth, and Logic and I found it as tough as any postmoden i read because of its style and its use of abstraction. Given this, his philosophy was very influential to major schools of thought. Even if someone is hard to read it doesn’t destroy the value of the ideas. Clearer is better but a lot of things worth doing require effort.

A/T: Miask
Post the AC or email me it or im it.

miask really isn’t avoiding substantive debate, largely because whichever anon misunderstood what was being said entirely. david says:

“Agree with Miask. Seriously, “I found ___ more persuasive, so I voted for them” is the least educational excuse for an “RFD” I’ve heard in any important elim round.”

the problem, says david, is the lack of articulating a decision. some analysis as to how the arguments interplayed or why one point is more persuasive than another would have probably been desirable if one wishes the activity to be educations, says david.

so, the reason miask is “not being responsive” is because anon1 or 2, i can’t remember which, was not being responsive.

reference my above arg about all sorts of judges. i like critical stuff, some people don’t. boo hoo. the idea that there is some sort of standard of judging either way (baldwin’s way or any one else’s) is just absurd. yes, i dislike parent judges because they don’t know the debate conventions that i am used to, yes i wish i could debate every round in front of someone who reads as much deleuze and guattari as i do, but no, i’m not going to force the way i feel on anyone else. furthermore, the more i think about the things i like in debate rounds, such as critical argumentation, the more i can think of only two justifications for them or any other sort of controversial “non-persuasive” debate:

1. it’s fun! why else would we do any of these things?

2. lack of a better forum. yes, you can’t spew in the senate. exactly. where can you spew? high school and college debate. this feeds back into point number 1 as well, because we want to do things that are fun, and we can’t do those fun things elsewhere.

oh, and fast talking is fun, except when people are unintelligible (that sucks).

in conclusion, keep debate open to fun sorts of totally useless speech acts, but don’t make everyone accept it.

Peace out, A-town down.

My only objection is that saying he should peace out from the activity ignores the value of his arguments. Much unlike many totally immersed in the activity, he provides a fresh and highly contentious outsider perspective that at least forces us to constantly reevaluate debate. As an activity promoting multiple avenues of learning, constant criticism of our activity aimed at multiple parties at least forces us to consider how to make it better.

Whether or not Mr. Baldwin’s arguments are in the minority is quite obvious from the array of ad hominem attacks on his credibility in conjunction with the frequent objections to his arguments.

On that note, I will draw the the parallel between the contentious role of Samuel Huntington’s role in International Relations academia to that of Baldwin’s in debate. As a highly contentious figure whose theories have sparked thorough debate, I would never seek to dismiss him from my own personal knowledgebase.

Even if his basic theories are proven less valuable or outright false in comparison to the status quo, at least we’re rethinking the way we currently do things. It is preferable to refute ideas then reject them outright. E.g. What if the current model of debate camps, cases, rounds or whatever else Baldwin criticises truly are not conducive to what we value the highest in debate?

As a final note, telling Baldwin to f*** off isn’t necessarily bad conduct considering he’s essentially been doing that to everyone else. However, telling him to leave excludes an entirely different, albeit occasionally offensive and potentially libelous, perspective from entering the purview of our discussions.

The message should be more fine-tuned to say: F*** off Baldwin & Bring it on.

Nathan F:

Actually, this point was ambiguous because, at least for me, I’m undecided on the issue. When we discuss abortion rights, it’s not as if Pro-Choicers are obligated to cite authors for all of their arguments even through their arguments have obvious philosophical underpinnings. Should ideas be discussed without attributing ownership to those ideas, the substantive debate of arguments in rounds would substantially increase.

I’m not saying this ought to be the case for arguments substantiated by empirical claims. Empirics obviously require a source in order to substantiate the supposed facts on numerous levels.

By comparison, for example, when discussing the potential impacts on marginalized peoples by X normative decision, I question the importance of sourcing the ideas unless there is an empirical debate to be had. To that end, i acknowledge that the foundation to many argument is in some way empirical; however, that view of sourcing is self-defeating because then everything we ever say would have to be sourced.

I am not sure how I feel about this issue at the moment, but in an activity where the education comes from both research and actual discussion, I question the merit of adopting approaches to case construction that allow debaters to hide behind an appeal to authority fallacy. This fallacy is not necessarily one that is promoted by the debater, but it is seemingly deeply imbedded in the way many debaters approach arguments. For many debaters, questioning the argument of SchoolAA proves easier than navigating the language of a philosopher.

From here, the obvious objection to what I am saying is that my argument is more applicable to criticsing the use of unclear quotations then it is to an appeal to authority. However, if one observes trends in the debate community, debaters reference philosophers like pop-culture icons that ought to be integrated into cases by virtue of their popularity. Similarly, debaters facing these icons often feel intimidated. This leads to poor debate on the level of both case construction and in-round discussion.

This issue obviously feeds into changing the pedagogical methods of many coaches, however, even that does not fix the problem. Insofar the use of language is inherently attached to both context and cognitive agenda of the actor using language, the most substantive debate is present when it is produced from an internalized and personalized knowledgebase of the debater. This ensures maximum degrees of clarity and argument applicability of ideas.

Overall then, Yes Nathan, I am questioning the merit of our current citation practices in debate. I think all of this goes back to Baldwin’s holistic thesis of increasing the communicative clarity of the activity while enhancing the critical thinking skills of debaters in a way applicable to the real world in most situations.

Contrary to Baldwin, I am not pressing a massive “f*** you” onto the debate community as is. Instead, I love having a diverse range of judges in the debate community as noted by Rebar, Jon Cruz, and others.

However, as a 1st year out that is annoyed with Baldwin’s steadfast assertion that first year-outs are bad for the debate community, I to join in the with the collective message: f*** you Baldwin. Please refrain from whining about the inclusion of those that love the activity. Thanks.

- Josh

Mr. Baldwin won lots of shiny pieces of wood and plastic that ultimately meant nothing, that’s why.

Personally, I’d be satisfied if Mr. Baldwin refrained from making blanket generalizations about college students and their capacity to ajudicate debate rounds. It’d be pleasing to not have overt hypocrisy masquerading as an argument in the name of “education”–after all, his rationale is that we are “too immature” to be good educators. This coming from a person who takes the time to accuse others and insult them in a public forum. Until he stops doing that, why shouldn’t every college judge just give Mr. Baldwin a big collective f*** you?

I agree. I’m just responding to the vantage point of the people who say debate is a tool for creating obedient and productive citizens by saying that fast debate does not preclude people from becoming successful in the “real world.”

I’m not saying “don’t adapt.” Adaptation is fine. But I do think that it’s nonsensical to ask debaters to adapt to a persuasive style of someone who isn’t even in the room, or someone who doesn’t have a ballot. In the same way that different people in the “real world” that you people like to fetishize so much are persuaded by different things, so are judges…

Again, before you throw around terms like “inclusion” you need to tell me what they mean and why they matter. What the heck is “inclusion” anyway? Wasn’t the goal education? Or what exactly? Assuming I understand what you mean by inclusion, it’s not terribly difficult to use the internet and the TOC videos posted on VBD to be able to figure out LD, it’s not terribly complex either way.

Many successful college policy debaters go on to become very successful people in positions that involve extensive interaction with people: lawyers, lobbyists, etc… The argument that speed somehow decreases someone’s capacity for intelligent and persuasive “normal” interaction with humans seems to me to be completely absurd and not based in reality.

Those who reject speed or jargon in debate assume that in order for debate to fulfill its pedagogical goal of teaching critical thought and persuasive ability must be achieved via replicating real-world conditions within a debate round, an assumption that is empirically denied by the successes of policy debaters who did engage in the hyperfast, hypertechnical sort of debate that the “traditionalists” (if we can even call them that) indict.

Uh, do doctors use medical terminology when talking to their mothers? Do lawyers use legalese in their everyday lives? Have you even seen a doctor talk to a colleague in an operating room? It’s barely English. I don’t understand how your comment is in anyway an intelligent observation or a “gotcha!” on some contradiction in progressive debate. Just because debate has developed its own lexicon and its own mode of delivery doesn’t mean that some massive hypocrisy has been created.

person 1: you are wrong because x…
person 2: “you are insulting…”, but now let me refute your point.

why you still haven’t addressed the substance of what anon2 has shamed your debate practices and teachings with, I really don’t know. Just because you found him to be insulting, which is in fact absurd, doesn’t mean that you get to turn into a sad puppy and are exempt from being responsive. Furthermore, the amount of backlash and insults that we (people of the viewpoint of myself and anon2) receive goes far beyond the pathetic claims to an insulting tone that you claim against anon2. My advice: grow up, get out of high school debate and for god’s sake leave this discussion before anon2 makes you look even more ridiculous.

ps- that was a bit mean wasn’t it? I guess I’ve exempted you from responding yet again, since your feelings are surely hurt. ahh how you cleverly avoid substantive debate.

I believe my characterizations were generally accurate, but nonetheless please look to the larger issue. I don’t want this to disintegrate into personal attacks, but I am genuinely appalled by the progressive paradigm and by many of the attacks that were made against Mr. Baldwin on this thread. I believe all the comments I noted were illustrative of viewpoints that are very destructive to the activity of Lincoln-Douglas debate; the point is not that Weeks believes them (on which account I accept that I may have been mistaken) but that all of us could easily list of dozens of individuals who do.

If you take nothing else from my post, please take this. I genuinely wonder how one can espouse the progressive paradigm in debate and not in real life; if arguments are better done fast and on the flow, why do you bother to appeal to reasonability on VBD? And when you have discussions with other ‘progressive’ coaches and debaters, why do you talk at a normal pace and focus on narrowing the scope of discussion to a single point of conflict?

What I find difficult about certain judges (and this may apply to Mr. Baldwin, from what I hear; I’ve never been judged by him) is that they seem to take “persuasive” as enough. Mr. Baldwin’s RFD at the TOC is exactly my point. Which arguments did he find persuasive? Why? In what manner could the debaters attempt to be more persuasive in the future? I’m not arguing against what ever particular paradigm of debate he values – I agree with Rebar and Jon that it takes all types – I’m just saying it’d be more educational to provide some sort of context as to what sort of persuasion he would like.

Also, Anon made some claims about how this fast sort of debate isn’t educational. First, the ability to learn the rules of a game and play them well is crucial to any activity. Let’s run with your law example. In my mind, the difference between a broad, “reasonable person” attitude to the activity and a technical one is the difference between persuading the jury by telling them an anecdote and reading a supreme court opinion that has complicated legal reasons for doing what they did. The anecdote is reasonable, yes – but that specialized knowledge isn’t bad just because the lawyer would find it difficult to explain to their non-lawyer s.o. Moreover, I’m so not breaking into this debate here, but there is evidence to suggest that speaking fast has critical thinking benefits of its own, in terms of increasing short term memory and the like. But even if you are 100% percent right about the horrors of speed, I really, honestly believe that there is no fast debater that cannot slow down and be persuasive when the situation is right for it. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so.

I also don’t know how many more times I have to repeat that I am responding to Jason in the way that he treats other people and talks about them. If he wanted to maintain productive public discourse, he would stop insulting people and telling them to leave the activity. Some of his claims about VBI way back in the day in the Rostrum were close to libelous.

“Perhaps that’s what you were really wondering: Who shouldn’t judge debate rounds? Well, again, each tournament director has to make his or her own decisions about that. But I think it’s strange that most tournaments will allow pretty much anybody into their judge pools. If I were running a tournament, there would be some folks who would not be welcome, certainly not as hired judges, but not as school judges, either. There is a small but very real group of people (I think I could count them on the fingers of both hands), all ex-debaters, who have repeatedly and publicly shown themselves to be so arrogant, profane, and cruel that they should not be permitted to have anything to do with high school students. I don’t here mean people who disagree with me about debate theory (though most of them do); I mean people who are just nasty human beings, truly horrible role models. Many adult coaches know exactly who these people are, and it’s a mystery to me why they acquiesce in their presence at tournaments.”

Also I think we get more education through going fast/extending dropped arguments/flow oriented because we have to research more meaning we learn more about a topic then if we just wrote to cases and went to tournaments. Also flowing in itself is a valuable skill in life, all flowing is just fancy notetaking but it can be taken simultaneously while a person is speaking meaning that we as debaters can take very good notes during presentations for business, lectures at college, and class in high school even. In my classes at school the teacher usually needs to repeat something 3-4 different times for people to write it down while I already have it down after the first time s/he said it. This is espiecially valuable because not everybody will always be able to repeat complex information in the business world so having the notes is always good.

Also you can learn to speak persuasively AND speak fast and flow and do national circuit debate. The two are not mutually exclusive, For example Ari Parker got to octas of the TOC junior year got 4 or 5 bids senior year and was still able despite all that speed and flowing to win the Illinois state tournament which is a tournament that values persuasive speaking. Not to mention all success that national circuit schools like GBN and NT have on the local circuit in Illinois despite all our debaters being mostly flow oriented. (I would say other regions of the country but I don’t know them well enough)

Finally what do you mean that we are turning inwards? That can sooooooooo many different things.

i have a brilliant idea: mandatory reading list of approved texts/methods for high school LD debate; the punishment for deviation will be explusion from the activity.

but serriously folks, hasn’t anyone thought that maybe the current system ain’t half bad? some judges dig persuasion, some vote on the flow, and some just want to talk about how bad the state is. dealing w/ all the kinds makes us better debaters and speakers b/c we gots to be both smart and persuasive and crazy and fast and monstrous. everyone is happy, JB gets to do his thing (which isn’t all that bad), Miask gets to do his thing (which isn’t all that bad either), Mikey Mang gets to do his thing (see a pattern?), and big dawg Nate-F gets to do his thing (rad!). you don’t have to agree on this shit, that’s why there are “paradigms” that “vary” from “judge” to “judge” totalizing ideas of the right harm us all.

DBL PST 4 LIE_PHHHH

The next thing you ought to be ashamed of is the offensive and ridiculous way in which you have asserted your arguments.

Weeks:
“Agree with Miask. Seriously, “I found ___ more persuasive, so I voted for them” is the least educational excuse for an
“RFD” I’ve heard in any important elim round.”

I fail to understand how a judge voting for claims they agree with and ignoring ones they don’t is uneducational. I would
hope (though sadly this may not be the case for some) that every judge does this to some degree; otherwise rounds become
not a contest of persuasion which rewards reasonable argumentation, but a contest of who can develop the most ridiculous
argument that no one understands, but will become a crystal clear impact to nuclear war when it is dropped. What you really
mean is that a judge who evaluates rounds by deciding which arguments were more persuasive is a bad judge, that instead
judges should judge rounds on ‘the flow’. I only hope you take this paradigm to its natural extension. If you know a lawyer,
why don’t you have him spread the jury out and tell them that they are bad people if they ignore your arguments that
convicting your client leads to extinction, because they went clean dropped. Since persuasion is unimportant in
argumentation, why don’t we just start making extensions on VBD discussions and decide them that way? I’m sorry, but I
seriously doubt you would be able to repeat the claim you just made with a straight face to any intelligent person outside
of debate, and if you can, I find that extrordinarily scary.

to follow up on roytman’s call for specifics…

Aks:

You are espousing the same ‘violent assertion’ of a judging paradigm that you want us to reject. You find a judge who
decides to adjudicate a round based on which debater better persuaded them to be violently asserting their paradigm, but
a judge that blindly accepts the notion that they know nothing and have nothing but a piece of paper to adjudicate the
round to be an impartial adjudicator. Every judge’s beliefs preclude some types of argumentation. What if I wanted to
argue that speed and the flow are bad in front of a flow judge? The notion that speed and the flow are bad measures of a
debate round appeals to a person’s inherent reasonability, which these judges have predetermined has no place in a debate
round. Ah, the irony. Seriously, would it not be hypocritical to judge a round on any criteria except on the ones a judge
believes to be important? Mr. Baldwin is not being disrespectful; he probably feels that you are being just as disrespectful to
him by not even attempting to persuade him.

We in the debate community need to step back for a second. When we graduate, some of us will look back on debate as a fun
game they played in high school. These debaters will be equipped with several unique skills; the ability to speak extremely
quickly, the ability to understand (or often the false belief that they understand) continental philosophy, and the ability
to understand what goes on in this ‘game’ which is increasingly turning inwards. Others will looks back on debate as an
activity where they learned to speak persuasively, develop a meaningful perspective on the question posed by the resolution,
and develop reasonable arguments which appeal to a wide audience. They will be able to apply their work in debate to real
life situations, whereas I seriously doubt that debaters learning the most trendy agruments for Nihlism or why language
dosen’t exist will find any meaningful real-life application for their ‘knowledge’. I choose the second option, and have
already beeen able to apply my experiences in debate to my real life – I have had my political and moral viewpoints
challenged by articles I read and by cases I heard; I have had meaningful discussions related to debate topics with people
outside of the debate comminuty, and when I graduate, I will be able to look back on high school debate as an activity
that shaped me into a persuasive thinker and advocate.

Mangus:

Apply your comments to your own post and follow-up and I think you have made an excellent point.

Greg Miaskiewicz:

What scares me is that I think that you’re serious. High school debate has become an activity that is increasingly turning
inwards, losing more and more of its relevance to the real world. Mr. Baldwin has spent more effort than many of you deserve
trying to persuade you to step back and look at the direction in which debate is going. The quality of many of the posts
here has confirmed that debaters have become so screwed up that many are incapable of making reasonable arguments. You’re
getting the logical extension of the ‘progressive’ paradigm, and I hope you’re happy. I would like to repeat my suggestion
that we extend the progressive paradigm to forum discussions; since persuasion isn’t important, let’s decide these
discussions based on who can make more arguments and more extensions. Why don’t posters who disagree employ that strategy
of claiming that language dosen’t exist, and since that means we can’t accept your post, we should presume to theirs? In
our next discussion of philosophy, why don’t we argue that philosophy dosen’t exist, or if it does the question is vague
so we can’t accept it. We could then argue that even if you don’t buy that, a particular form of discourse used in a post
means we should reject the argument; remember, we’re people before we’re debaters, and we have an obligation to reject
forms of discursive domination. Seriously, the point is that none of us would EVER accept the progressive paradigm outside
of the context of a debate round, yet somehow in the context of ld we are willing to argue that it is a good thing. Mr. Baldwin
is simply extending the reasoning he uses in normal life (you would think someone shrieking at 500 wpm on the street was
a freak) to ld debate. For that, he is being mocked by the ld community.

Here’s my message in short. If you want to continue advancing the viewpoint that the progressive paradigm has any
educational, communicative, or other value, then extend this viewpoint to the rest of your life. If not, realize
that everything you espouse is a contradiction, that you don’t even buy the arguments you are advancing, and that
all that you have worked for in ld debate is essentially meaningless. And wow, you guys have some nerve to pounce on
Mr. Baldwin for pointing it out.

although we haven’t actually looked at specific texts, i think we have had quite an educational discussion on analytic vs continental philosophy. i believe it would be quite feasible to look at specific texts of authors that jason baldwin is criticising and have an educational discussion of the merits of jb’s views.

More to the point, I think you are constructing a completely different discussion. If it were truly to discuss whether or not intellectual standards are good, there would not be pages and pages of the intellectual history of analytic and continental philosophy. It seems very clear that the discussion which is really being had is whether or not philosophy has certain doctrinal traditions which are anathema to postmodernism. In terms of that argument, my argument is that a preference of philosophy departments towards the analytical does not demonstrate a widespread belief that postmodernism is useless. This is significant, because if this claim is true, yours and Mr. Baldwin’s claim towards a kind of majority consensus is entirely irrelevant. If postmodernism is a “hodgepodge of disciplines”, then it seems fairly obvious that we should look to how those other disciplines view the subject as well. Then I would point to the far greater acceptance of postmodernism in law, sociology, and other such departments in various instantiations.

I think that brings me to a broader point, which is that something must account for this greater tendency to embrace postmodernism. At a glance, concepts like “genealogy” and “ethnography” do seem more suited to a doctrine like sociology. I would very loosely hypothesize that the tendency of postmodernists to focus on the experiences of particular groups (cultural studies?) finds a synthesis with sociological thinking. Mr. Baldwin is pretty aware of this when he tells students they might be more likely to find these thinkers in sociology departments.

On the issue of intellectual rigor and honesty. For a defender of analytic philosophy, it’s interesting that these terms are only implicitly defined and often equivocated in your writing. I would ask what defines intellectual rigor? If it is using certain forms of data as opposed to others, then it seems we can’t answer this question without answering the question of what discipline postmodernism is suited for. If it means the length of time spent explaining concepts and considering them before writing, then the claim seems self-evidently absurd. On honesty specifically, this is a claim I wished I had focused on in my original post and will now. To say that postmodernists can’t write very well is one thing. But to say that postmodernists are deliberately skewing facts and positions for political reasons is a serious charge and I’m sure you as well as anyone would know that there needs to be far more evidence than you have given for that.

My initial claim was responsive to Mr. Baldwin’s because it argued that despite a blending of theory and practice, we should not interpret postmodernists as lazy liars. There are entirely non-malicious reasons why postmodernists choose to speak about politics the way that they do. A non-postmodern example might be Marx’s Communist Manifesto, which is a text that at least has some relevance to political science departments, but clearly was written to create change. You say that my argument fails because it does not prove that Rawls and Nozick lied for the sake of politics. But my claim entirely was that there is no clear connection between having political motivations and lying for their sake. In other words, my claim is not that both camps skew the facts, it’s that neither do, and that more significantly, if all you have proven is a political connection, it is not evidence for the larger claim you and Mr. Baldwin are making.

So my position is currently twofold. First, the idea that postmodernism is a blending of disciplines is entirely relevant because there is a clear distinction between the standards and practices of different disciplines. Second, that nothing which has been previously said has done a sufficient job in proving that postmodernists are academically dishonest.

Either way, I don’t know Mr. Baldwin, but these interviews with him make me not want to associate with him.

Jake: I think that you are right that Jason’s comments are even more powerful and accurate when applied to those who claim to speak for Heidegger and Derrida than they are when applied to those thinkers themselves.

Josh: I think you are right that debaters have a tendency these days to name-drop rather than argue sometimes, and maybe this would get better if people relied less on quotations, I’m not sure. But when debaters take ideas from someone they should obviously attribute those ideas to that thinker by name, even if they don’t quote from him/her. I don’t imagine that you were saying anything otherwise, but your post did leave this point ambiguous and so I thought it worth clarifying.

John: Your defense of postmodernism is only successful if we assume that the intellectual standards that we apply to various disciplines should be radically different. I’m not sure that I would characterize the discussion thus far as one about what counts as “true philosophy,” but I think that the point of the discussion has been to establish what intellectual standards are characteristic of sound thinking in general. To plead that postmodernism is some hodgepodge of disciplines doesn’t seem to do anything to address this argument. Also, I don’t think that you are giving a very accurate reconstruction of Jason’s comments about the political motivations of postmodernists. His claim was that it seems that postmodernists are willing to sacrifice intellectual rigor and perhaps even honesty for the sake of political ends. You might think that claim is going way too far or is self-evidently false, but at any rate that is his claim. Saying that Rawls or Nozick themselves had political convictions obviously does not then establish any sort of equivalence between postmodernism and analytic philosophy or dispute Jason’s claim in any way, because it does not show that they would have been willing to sacrifice intellectual rigor or honesty to further their political convictions. And for my part I see no reason to believe that they would have: each is more than forthright about admitting the weaknesses in their own views, which is not an acknowledgment you would expect from someone whose primary aim is to propagate his views rather than do good philosophy.

Greg: You have certainly gotten the message across that you don’t like Jason, and obviously it is not my aim here to convince you that you should. I was hoping to have a substantive discussion about the merits of Jason’s views, and thus far I cannot see how you have contributed to realizing that goal in any way. If that is not your aim, then so be it I guess. And as I made clear in my last post my point certainly was not to suggest that we should all bow down to Jason and take his word for whatever he says about philosophy because he knows more than all of us. I just think that the amount of time he’s spent learning philosophy means that when he speaks about philosophy he shouldn’t be dismissed and disrespected by those who know practically nothing about the subject. While I wouldn’t group you in with those who know practically nothing, I also wouldn’t exempt you from the requirement to show some respect. Jason may state his views forcefully, and it may even sometimes be clear who is he criticizing in the community. But he’s never resorted to calling someone an a**hole, which is more than can be said for you. I can see how his provocative claims fall well within the ambit of the vibrant discourse that I thought people wanted to see more of on this forum, but name-calling I have a harder time seeing as productive. Lastly, you say that Jason just repeats himself without actually justifying his views, while you never once address my argument that no one has ever specified what more you could have reasonably expected him to do here. So you are the one who is saying the same thing over and over again without addressing opposing arguments, which you are undoubtedly correct is definitely annoying.

Rebar: ???

Time for me to go do some more statist philosophy.

Why exactly does anyone have an obligation to flow your debate round? It is the perogative of every judge to decide how they want to take in a round.

My handwriting is pratically illegible at times, but I have a very good memory. Unless I flow on my laptop, the odds that I actually look at my flow after a round are very low. Why flow then? I guess I probably have normally done it to reassure debaters whom I know want me to “flow,” and I know that ’s what I wanted when I debated.

That said, there is no magic objective “flow;” everyone hears the round through their own lens and that affects how they view the round. If some judges think they evaluate better by listening more and writing less, that is their perrogative.

My response is merely on par with JB’s attitude. Maybe I should take the higher road, but I get great pleasure from knowing that Jason may read it and get angry. I didn’t mean to turn this into a dick-waving contest about qualifications–I just wanted to point out that Jason may be a little presumptuous in his attitude, especially given how long he’s taken to finish his PhD. I’m technically as qualified as he is in terms of formal degrees that we have earned.

Mr. Baldwin-

This year you judged me on three occasions, and on two of these occasions you served as part of a pannel (octas of Bronx and during the RR). The other members of the pannels were former debaters that were courteous enough to flow the entire rounds. You, however, chose to “take notes” on the constructives and write nothing thereafter.

Had you been a parent judge, I would have accepted your way of following the round as part of the game and done my best to adapt to the pannel. However, knowing your background (and that you are capable of flowing the rounds as well as or better than the other judges), I was extremely frusturated that you proactively chose to put my opponents and I in a more difficult position than necessary.

I think those incidents were prime examples of the “violent assertion” of one’s paradigm because they showed a level of disrespect for the debaters and a lack of consideration for the situation.

Having somewhat redefined the initially vague term, I hope you’ll offer a second response to the question.

That said, I certainly appreciated your post-round commentary and your willingness to discuss a position with me at length. I think your input in the activity’s development is valuable, and you’ve been nothing but friendly towards me so I’m sorry if this comes off harshly.

Matt Aks

“The gist of this grouping seems to convey its author’s aversion to the various spinoff movements that continental philosophers have produced and not to the work of the philosophers themselves.”

I really don’t think his argument is reducible to merely the “spinoff movements” of postmodernism. For example, the arguments regarding unclear writing, interpreting terms apart from their normal definitions, and the lack of verifiability are clearly applicable to Foucault, Derrida, etc. and not merely the movements they have spawned.

For the rest of your post, I would say two things. First, I think a lot of your post is entirely too vague. I would be interested to hear who makes these “stale, liberal arguments” and who these American practitioners who spout “avaricious nonsense” are. I agree that they exist, but that not everybody in the fields you sweepingly indict fit this model. Second, there is the implicit assumption that authors who cite prior authors, but are not entirely faithful to their work, deserve censure. I see no reason why authors can’t build on some concepts, deny others, etc, nor why this phenomenon is limited to the cultural studies you have a problem with. Aquinas relied heavily on Aristotle’s approach to reason, but obviously said things that Aristotle would dispute.

However, you’re completely right that there are problems of interpretation in debate and academia. I think there might have actually been a reasonable chance of synthesis between Mr. Baldwin’s position and the positions of most “progressives” in the community on this point if the way debaters run postmodernism wasn’t often dishonest and inaccurate (and not just a way for the in-crowd to validate their own intellectualism).

More broadly, I think we’ve done this discussion a disservice by limiting it to precise definitions of what “true philosophy” is. It’s kind of ironic on the part of the defenders of postmodernism to limit it to a philosophy discussion, since one of the central beliefs of many postmodernists has always been the blending of typically disparate disciplines such as philosophy. For example, Linda Hutcheon writes in “Theorizing the Postmodern”:

“If elitist culture has indeed been fragmented into specialist disciplines, as many have argued, then hybrid novels like these work both to address and to subvert that fragmentation through their pluralizing recourse to the discourses of history, sociology, theology, political science, economics, philosophy, semiotics, literature, literary criticism, and so on.”

This also accounts for the tendency for postmodernism to blend traditional distinctions between philosophy and literature, and why so many comparative literature departments focus on postmodern thinkers. In other words, I completely agree with Mr. Baldwin that postmodernism should not be taken as serious philosophy. Postmodernism doesn’t take ITSELF as serious philosophy. But does that mean it is completely valueless for debate? No. Does anyone really believe that the only field of interest to debate is philosophy, and not political theory, sociology, etc? No. A lot of analytic philosophy is utterly irrelevant to debate: philosophy of mathematics, the mind, religion and others.

I also think this hints on some other topics Mr. Baldwin has brought up, namely, the tendency of postmodernists to become deeply involved in political movements. Exactly. Postmodernism rejects traditional distinctions between theory and practice just as much as it rejects traditional distinctions of discipline. But to imply that this means that postmodernism is wholly untrustworthy in matters of interpreting the world we live in, and ethics, is foolish. Jon Cruz asked something particularly insightful above: “Aren’t all philosophers politically motivated? Especially philosophers like, say, John Locke, John Rawls, and Robert Nozick?” People don’t always write for academic approval and the lofty goal of “finding truth”, they are often deeply politically motivated and use texts to spread messages and encourage activism.

In conclusion, I don’t think it’s a big loss if postmodernism does not deserve the shiny title of “serious philosophy”. Interpreted clearly and relevantly, it has the likelihood to enrich debate rounds and the community as a whole.

While this discussion of the difference between analytical or Continental philosophy is something that I am not qualified to speak of, it is that exact lack of qualification that I think hints at what Jason’s real point is. And I quote:

“Although I would advise students in search of strong arguments to avoid authors I regard as weak thinkers, one must appraise each argument on its own merits. I am less concerned that some LD students are making bad arguments (that’s part of the game) than I am that many other students are giving them a free pass.”

Jason, like many judges, may have their biases towards a set of thinkers or even a given school of thought. However, as at least evident from a somewhat seemingly inconclusive distinction on the differences between analytic and Continental philosophy, philosophy in debate (for at least some rounds) is more easily welcomed when not attached to a name. Also thoughg, evident through JB’s willingness to take time explaining himself to a bunch of high-schoolers, he is interested in the ideas presented and the presenters themselves, more so than hearing a philosopher’s words from a book he’s already read.

While I acknowledge this claim is very much against the status-quo, there is much to be said for an un-labeled, un-cited discussion of important philosophical ideas rather than an unclear application of those philosophers through unclear quotations.

Using philosopher quotations in-case removes a debater from having the obligation to explain their argument. Such labeling feeds into the problem of single unclear extensions determining the outcome of a round. In such instances, while the education that comes from strategic debating is still there (though the actual value of that strategic education may be in question) the educational value of the debate unquestionably goes down.

In removing the absolute obligation of a debater to explain their argument, debaters lose the value of a) learning to communicate complex ideas b) obtaining a fuller more comprehensive and internalized knowledgebase to be carried out longer than the 2 and a half month timespan that a topic is active. I’m not saying including quotes is inherently bad and ought not be done; instead, the general application of ideas without being attached to a name is more acceptable across a wider array of judges and also teaches debaters how such philosophy operates in the real world.

When debaters start blindly accepting the quotations of a philosopher as evidence, then justifications, assumptions, and ethical systems that ought to be questioned go untouched. If this premise is not obvious enough, simply consider how many rounds you (judges, coaches, or debaters) have taken part in where the normative conflicts are unclear because philosophical ideas were explained mostly through quotes. This, if nothing else, does great detriment to the educational value of the activity.

While I do not claim the educational value to be paramount to strategic value or whatever else, I hope I made at least a basic case for what it means to ADAPT to a wider array of judges that may have certain philosophical preferences while perhaps increasing the educational value of debate by ensuring debaters are forced to reflect on ideas they present.

I mean this with no disrespect to Nathan, who is a very cool guy from what I’ve heard, but I think it is a proof in that Miask has shown to have competency in this field and thus is able to contribute to it constructively. Just like you said (“The vast majority of you who have been critical of him have nowhere near his level of expertise in philosophy”) JB has studied philosophy more than I have and thus knows more than me. He definitely does know more than me about Hume (he has a paper on Hume on jstor that is pretty interesting). You suggested qualification implicitly by saying that we didn’t have the level of expertise which admittedly I do not have. Miask is just saying that he does have the qualifications to challenge JB’s claims.

More to the point, even if certain philosophers are difficult I think that reading them can be rewarding and their thought can be made more accessible. Theres no reason why it cant be.

Wittgenstein is an obvious counter-example to much of what I say above, but I think he’s much to far from being a paradigm of analytic philosophy to be useful in that regard. He tends to be seen as an analytic philosopher because he worked in an analytic department on what have traditionally been seen as analytic problems, but his approach to those problems (e.g. the “Don’t think but look” injunction) has a distinctly continental flavor. At the very least, he straddles the line to a certain extent.

Second, I agree with Nathan that there isn’t much more Jason could have done to answer the question posed to him in a reasonable amount of space. He says “Continental philosophy has such-and-such traits,” with the obvious tacit claim being that analytic philosophy does not (or does to a significantly lesser extent). That’s a succinct and clear explanation of his position. To substantiate that position at all substantively would require him to cite large passages from representatives text on both sides of the dichotomy, covering a reasonably wide topical and chronological range, and taking a couple thousand words at the very least. The only thing that he could have done beyond what he did is to reference some sources that contain that sort of extended argument, but people almost certainly would have jumped on him for doing that too (as avoiding the question).

As for the substance of your post, it was a fine example of how intelligent discussion on this topic could proceed. I won’t pretend to have the wherewithal to address all of it, but let me throw a few thoughts out there. I’m with Christian in being a little suspicious that in defending Continentals from the smears of Analytics, you yourself resort to constructing a conspiracy theory that Analytics are obsessed with erecting boundaries and fencing off the Other that seems just as paranoid as the view of Continentals that you attribute to Analytics. You are of course right that Continental philosophy is a broad category encompassing a diverse range of views, and I assume that’s partly why Jason spoke in terms of Postmodernism not Continentental. And you are also of course right that any intelligent examination of Continental philosophy would have to take each thinker on his or her own and give that person a fair hearing. But I don’t see how that prevents us from making certain general inferences about overarching divisions among philosophers regarding substance and especially style. While I can conveive of a Republican candidate whose policies I might support, that doesn’t block the inductive inference from years of experience that it is characteristic of Republicans to favor policies that I do not support. Jason was outlining a broad take on Continental philosophy while all the while admitting that each thinker deserves a separate hearing and that he can’t support his broad take without detailed textual work. That seems fair to me.

My own view on the Continental/Analytic split is this. There are philosophers labeled as Continental that I find interesting, such as Sartre or Foucault. There are also those I find maddening, such as Heidegger or Derrida. I don’t doubt that agonizing and careful reconstructions of Heidegger or Derrida could produce views worth examining, but if in fact you are right that what we get from all of the technical machinery and jargon that makes Heidegger so impenetrable are views that others have stated and defended with greater clarity and rigor, then what’s the point? Life is short, and I don’t have the time to scrutinize every thinker’s corpus before deciding whether they are worth devoting attention to in the first place. So judgments often have to be made on the basis of impressions of intelligibility and worth. As you point out, there are famously difficult thinkers who are very much incorporated into the analytic tradition, such as Hegel and Nietsche and Wittgenstein. And obviously philosophy is not meant to be easy, and requires a certain amount of patience and interpretive charity. As an aside I am not sure I concur with your selection of Wittgenstein as a paragon of the analytic tradition, since as I’m sure you know there are analytic thinkers who get frustrated by Wittgenstein and there are departments where he is certainly not regarded with the level of respect that he commands at say Pitt or Harvard. Russell seems a more logical choice to me, but that’s obviously not a point worth fighting over. Anyway, my basic point is just that in my experience with Continental philosophy (or especially with Postmodernism) I think that the analytic tradition is right to regard this work with some skepticism. That skeptical attitude is a defeasible presumption, though, as is proven by the many examples you cite of dialogue between the traditions. Based on this way of looking at things I think that analytic philosophers come off as far more reasonable in their treatment of Continental philosophy than you give them credit for. The conclusions reached by different analytic and continental philosophers may be similar, but that doesn’t change the broad difference in style that seems indisputable and that to me favors the analytic tradition. Martha Nussbaum’s famous review of Judith Butler in The New Republic probably says most of this better than I can, but alas I’ve already written all of this so there you go.

Lastly I should say congratulations on your success in the application process. Where did you get into, where else did you apply, and where are you thinking about going?

Greg: It’s this accusation that Jason is somehow difficult to understand that might baffle me most. I disagree with him on some of these issues and it is certainly reasonable to insist that there is more to be said on some of these topics than he said in his brief responses to the questions, but he is without exaggeration one of the best writers I’ve ever read. To allege that he is vacuous and pretentious is a claim that I won’t even pretend to take seriously.

Congratulations on your accomplishments in life, though I will admit that the basis for your seeming belief that the fact that there is a 90% chance you’ll get an MA at a department founded by Tarski 75 some odd years ago serves as proof of your ability to understand logical argumentation or is relevant to this discussion in any way eludes me. Other than that all I can see in your two posts are a series of ad hominems against Jason and professions of your own greatness, which I’ll let stand without rebuttal as a testament to your contribution to this discussion.

Essentially, I see that because you work on Continental thinkers you are understandably upset by Jason’s claims, but does that really warrant all of your insults? And has anyone yet once explained what more they could have expected Jason to do in this forum to substantiate his claims?

I question how Mr. Baldwin finds it reasonable to talk about how first year outs may malign the educational value of debate when he refused to even come close to an explanation of his decision in the finals of TOC.

At least most of the first year outs will reference specific arguments and things that happened in the round that influenced your RFD.

I think you read much more into my post than what I was actually claiming. I don’t claim that there’s a fine, clearly drawn line between analytic and continental philosophy, let alone analytic and continental philosophers. The generalizations I’m making are certainly imperfect. I make no claim to anything resembling expertise on with respect to continental philosophy, so I’m sure anything I say about it will be open to counter-examples.

I’m not sure what you mean by “radically skeptical,” but I don’t think I’m attributing that feature to continental philosophy either. My point isn’t that continental philosophy rejects anything resembling absolute and unqualified truth claim (though many continental philosophers seem to at least come close) but that the general trend in continental philosophy is to couch these claims not in terms of universal axioms but in terms of particular empirical assertions about human psychology (e.g. pscyhoanalysis) or society.

You seem to claim that the only distinction between analytic and continental philosophers is that continental philosophers are people whom self-identified analytic philosophers label that way and consequently dislike. But it seems pretty implausible that there aren’t any consistent methodological or substantive differences–surely more people would have noticed by now and dropped the labels if that were the case. So, if the differences I’m describing aren’t at least part of that package of distinctions, what is (I mean that honestly–if you have a different way to conceptualize the distinction, I’d certainly be open to accepting it over my own)?