It's all good

Followers of the Feed (yeah, I know, that’s about the square root of -1 of you) and/or followers of CP’s blog (which is probably about the square root of -1.5 of you, which I’m not sure is more or less) read his piece on the difference approaches to our activity. Not surprisingly, he and I are in fair agreement on the core issue (I think). All forensics is valuable. All levels of commitment are good (short of monomaniacal obsession on the one side and being a yearbook-photo debater on the other side). I like to see programs starting up and feeling their way around, and I’m happy that we have two inexpensive and, locally, compatible leagues in the NYCFL and the MHL. Between the two we offer almost a complete season of participation for very little money, maybe $100 a year for a whole team (by the way, we’re revising the MHL fees next year to a one-time payment to cover costs, i.e. trophies and printer cartridges and O’C’s sweater vests so it should be even cheaper), not to mention that we regularly waive fees for teams who arrive with their pants pockets hanging out, empty of even a dime for a cup of coffee (although you have to hand it to them for thinking that they can find a cup of coffee for a dime anymore). By the same token, I’m perfectly fond of the semidetached Sailor who shows up most of the time for meetings and doesn’t say much and only debates a little bit, maybe just enough to earn a membership in the NFL and for me to remember their names the next time I see them. They’re not my favorites, by any means, but I can appreciate that they have lives with something else in them other than debate, and there is no doubt in my mind that our discussions of resolutions and the like are academically beneficial even in small doses. On the other end of the spectrum, debaters who teach me a thing or two are what make this rockin’ world go round. I tend to like an intellectual challenge, and having to learn some new damned thing to understand what 17-year-olds are talking about gives me something to do in between golf games and bouts with Lego Star Wars. Those students too are getting something out of forensics, at a high level, obviously, and all of it is good. I’m similarly agnostic about specific activities, although I do have my personal favorites. I see little advantage of LD or Policy or PF or Extemp or Duo or HI or OO or OI in academic benefit, although obviously the benefits of interpreting poetry are different from the benefits of running Policy counterplans. But they’re all benefits, rewarding the actors rather equally in proportion to their dedication. Chacun a son gout, as they say in Montreal. And one gout is as good as another, if you ask me.

But it is true that this sort of pan-forensics approach is not as widespread as one would like. While I don’t necessarily expect students to feel this way, insofar as there is a certain tribalism that comes with each activity, replete with totems and taboos and talismans and tschotkes and other team paraphernalia that appeals to the high school brain, I do expect coaches to feel this way. My immediate circle certainly does (which is why they’re my immediate circle) but I know a lot who don’t. I know of coaches who believe that casual participation in forensics is worthless, or who believe that only their activity is worthwhile. For a 17-year-old LDer to be true to LD and to drink the LD Kool-Aid is one thing, but with a 40-year-old, you’ve got to wonder. It’s like an English teacher who sees no value in science classes, or worse, an English teacher who sees no value in reading Thackeray instead of Dickens (or in this day and age of declining readership of books, Harry Potter v David Copperfield). Learning is learning, and educators should take it wherever it comes. One of the nice things about forensics is that the learning is sort of hidden, or at the very least it’s fun. Which is a good way to do it.

The only way we can overcome biases and misunderstandings and tribalisms is to keep working to overcome them. At the point where anyone in a position of authority over a league of some sort begins to believe that their league has it right, and that if the world also wants to be right it has to do things the way that league does it, we are on the road to perdition. Interestingly enough, the nature of forensics tends to breed iconoclasts. But the nature of life in general tends to breed power enclaves that self-protect (through Foucaultian definition), so the power enclaves are often in a position to resist the changes proposed by the iconoclasts. But again, the nature of forensics tends to breed people who are constantly engaged in dialogue (you can’t shut them up, actually) and, in many ways, a dialectic search for truth. Which means that even if the doors of power are locked, we’re always out there banging on them.

So I ask you this, if you’re in any position of authority over any aspect of forensics whatsoever. Are you welcoming of change? Do you listen to newcomers and outsiders? Do you act openly? Do you welcome everyone? I’m not saying you have to agree with everyone. I maintain a rather conservative stance on LD, for instance, but I have also changed my opinions over my years of working in the activity, and I am willing to engage anyone, anywhere, in open dialogue. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I weren’t. And if you aren’t, neither are you.

↑ Grab this Headline Animator