How about everyone gets three strikes, all judges publish a paradigm and no mjp. Oh wait we cant do that because that would force students to gasp!!! A-D-A-P-T
And if i have to slow down and make reasonable arguments all that money i spend on camp is wasted.
Well, I’ve already addressed paradigms. Read a few some day, preferably when you are suffering from insomnia…
But this comment falls into the realm of really not understanding debate. Does the writer really believe that there is a circuit world where debaters don’t adapt? First of all, how many debaters only argue at elite national events in front of elite national judges? Even if such a creature does exist, why would anyone assume that circuit judges are identical, in the same paragraph where it is assumed that paradigms are a good thing? At the level of argumentation about pre-emptive thises and off-case thatas, circuit judges are not all in complete agreement. If you can stay awake, read those paradigms. I don’t suggest that people stop writing paradigms if they want to, nor that debaters ignore them. Quite the contrary. I’m just saying that to get the great MJP unwashed into the fold, let’s simplify on a tournament-by-tournament basis. But the point here is that all debaters pretty much find themselves regularly in situations where they either adapt or lose, and smart debaters adapt. Circuit debaters do slow down and concentrate on resolutional rather than technical arguments. I see it all the time. In the average tournament, only a handful of the judges are really anyone’s 1s, which means you’re going to put in people who are not your style in the 1s and, of course, the 2s, and you’re going to get them. If a tournament has 70 debaters, it might have 20 judges. I mean, really, you’re going to have to adapt to someone sooner or later, MJP or no MJP, strikes or no strikes. MJP means that, especially on the bubbles, you’ll have your most preferred judges for both sides. It does not mean a circuit judge, it means agreement. If one debater is circuit and the other trad, it’s hello adaptation in front of a 2 or a 3! And when circuit debaters do a round robin, where a sizeable portion of the field is alums or coaches or even members of the school board? Well, my friend, they do A-D-A-P-T, and the good ones do it well.
There are ways of solving issues, and ways of demonizing those on the other side of the issue. Don’t fall into the trap of the demonizers. That’s what most people who don’t believe in MJP do, but by demonizing it (essentially by claiming that it is the death of LD by the promotion of homicidal judges) and ignoring it, they are doing way more to harm the activity than the people who are simply using the tool at hand. If all the nutjobs take up using iPhones, if you claim that iPhones are for nutjobs and refuse to use one, sooner or later that will be true. Understand logic before making your claims. My argument, which I’ve been making at great length, is that everyone using MJP is a better safeguard against a uniform (and highly technical, camp-driven) direction of LD than not. MJP is about 2 years old around here in LD; all the problems people are claiming about LD are way older.
I will grant that camps mostly promote highly technical, fast styles, however. Camps promote what wins; they make their money on their reputations, and their reputations on the successes of their graduates. If something else starts winning…
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