In which we look at the Sept-Oct resolutions

I think the fact that reparations wasn’t chosen in LD is pretty interesting. From what I hear, issues of race are front and center in rounds these days, at least around here, regardless of whether the resolutions have any direct connection to racial issues. It seemed to make sense to me, therefore, that people would jump in and want to argue a race-related issue directly, especially when it is one as rich as reparations. But, I was told early last season, this was one topic that the membership would never agree to; it was too controversial, or maybe more to the point, the speaker felt that the membership was inherently too racist and simply wanted nothing to do with it. I would have thought that was simple paranoia a couple of years ago. Today? What the hell do I know?

Folks will get to argue it in PF, on the other hand. If you look at the voting numbers, it won over the alternative by only a couple of points in the team vote, while earning an easy win in the student vote. And this despite the alternative being one of those non-arguable, dreadful topics that PF loves to put forward, where you sort of think you know what they were supposed to be talking about, but they lost it somewhere between the topic meeting and the cocktail lounge, and now you can only guess what it might be about, and hope that your opponents are making the same guess. Anyhow, it doesn’t strike me as the world’s greatest PF topic, because it’s not so much about facts and statistics, although there are certainly plenty of facts and statistics about the lack of parity among the races. It’s more about cultural history and the morality of actions taken in the past that directly affect the present, but taken by actors no longer present themselves. In other words, it’s a thoughtful, deep and sort of profound situation. PF, as a general rule, is none of those things. Given the nature of a PF round, the research won’t be terribly thoughtful, deep or profound, I would imagine, although it will at least venture into such territory in its search for cards for the rounds. I’m not saying that the literal rounds of LD would have been much better, but the research would have been. Maybe.

My original take on the actual LD topic, back when I heard it, was mistaken. I hadn’t thought it through to realize what it was actually about. A big aspect is sexual health and decision-making, a subject that has important impacts in the lives of adolescents, regardless of their own personal histories (not that personal histories won’t, I regret to say, probably be dragged out fairly often). It is not what one does that matters, but what one can, could and should do. Society as a whole troubles over this subject, and there is not a lot of clarity of opinion. Even the legal findings remain controversial. So I think that it should work out well, if people really argue it. I will say this. Back in the day when there were lots of parent judges, debaters making a claim to own their own bodies would have had to overcome a lot of innate if perhaps subconscious prejudice. Arguing this in front of college judges and the like? Almost the opposite innate if perhaps subconscious prejudice, but probably way more easily overcome into the realm of neutral decisions.