Smilin' Through

Not surprisingly, the Smilin’ J interview on WTF has drawn a lot of response, virtually all of it negative. The Vatican News did an interview with Richard Dawkins that had much the same result… I only read the first handful of the SJ comments, and for all I know meaningful dialogue has since ensued, and maybe even a few supportive voices have been found. Both would be nice. Unlikely, but nice. In any case, I’ll provide my own take.

There are some issues worth discussing. First, SJ does tidily wrap up all sorts of critical thought —theory, in ironic quotes—into a nice neat bundle and tosses it on the compost, based on its content, which he finds lacking. My own mixed feelings on this material are well known to the VCA, but I’m more inclined to vilify based on the material’s incomprehensibility than its meritriciousness. I have honestly found interesting ideas in the slag heaps of some of this impenetrable prose, which does not excuse its impenetrability but does question how meretricious it might actually be. My objection to using the material in LD has mostly been that the material is not suitable for its high school audience, and that the vast unwashed of 15-year-olds being introduced to philosophy are better served with more traditional and accessible texts. This does not burden that traditional and accessible material with the value of being more true, which is another issue altogether; it simply admits the obvious that philosophy is a difficult subject, and if we seriously wish to engage young students in it, we need to do so in such a way that it will, indeed, engage them. This is not so much teaching scales before you teach Chopin, as it is reading Seuss before you read Shakespeare. Your enjoyment and appreciation skills improve as you move “up” a theoretical ladder of difficulty. It would be an iffy proposition to start high up on that ladder, without having yet developed those enjoyment and appreciation skills; growing into those skills means enjoyment and appreciation all along the way. This is hardly innovative pedagogy.

Of course, there are those who claim that the material is not “above” the best of the LDers, and should not be banned just because it is not populist. This is arguable on a number of counts, but even accepting that there might be high schoolers to whom Derrida is no more challenging than a Dagwood cartoon, there is still the question of engaging in a discourse that cannot be fully understood: I don’t think anyone claims that ALL high schoolers are capable of deconstructing the great deconstructer, for instance. A desire to win an argument should be premised on setting groundwork where the argument can, indeed, be won. Throwing a lot of material around that only one person in the room (possibly) understands doesn’t sound like much of a strategy for anything except obfuscation, which is obviously antithetical to education, even if it does “win” the round. Winning, in this situation, would have been all that it achieved. No brain cells would have been stirred in the process.

Frankly, I do not think that, until we all have read all the philosophy, past and modern, that JS has, we can engage him directly on the issue of truth in philosophy, at least on the academic level. I am from the school (the Menickites) that believes that ultimate truth in philosophy is, in fact, science. Or is in science fact, to be more precise. I talk about that a little in Caveman, and I’ll get around to it more directly at some future date. In any case, I have no intentions of becoming an academic philosopher, or a student of academic philosophy, as in knowing all about all the great (or stinky) philosophers of all time. So I really can’t address that aspect of SJ’s interview. In other words, I agree with him on the consequences of using this material, but I cannot engage him on what he claims are the causes. Although honestly, I doubt if he disagrees with my claims, and it’s just that he wasn’t making those claims himself in the interview.

The second interesting point of the interview, which Duby took SJ to task on, is the disdain for first- and second-year judges, and those same folks as assistant coaches without portfolio. Or, I guess, college coaches in general, if you wish to read a full menu from the implication. Since I am on record as placing assistant coaches on a par with the minor demons of Milton, I would seem to agree with SJ’s opinion here, but I don’t know if I do. What I am against is coaches who hire college students to provide positions if not complete cases to automata high schoolers, and then who send those “assistant” coaches into rounds to flow the competition, all in aid of a bigger trophy at the end of the day. I am also against college students attempting to achieve high school glory a little too late, who do so by finding malleable Trilbys on their own and feeding them material borrowed from their college courses, and then showing up week after week at debate tournaments (and on WTF) to push their theories of debate on the general public, molded in the hot forge of being a second-rate high schooler always on the brink of getting a TOC bid. Now, okay, this is a little cold, and stereotypical, and not completely true, but I have historically run up against the least resolutional arguments and the most erratic judging from college kids who were almost good high school debaters and who don’t seem to fit in at college now and prefer hanging around with high school people. The words “Grow up!” come to mind here, at least for this latter group. I would also direct those words to the adult coaches pulling the strings the the former group. Unlike SJ, I don’t believe these college students should be arrested on sight and banned from the back of the room, but I do feel that they need to be perceived as what they are. A balance of judges is required in the pool, and use of that balance in a neutral albeit meaningful way. My solution at Bump, of course, was to create community rankings of the judges, putting As into bubbles and mixing As and Bs equally in the outround pools. This seemed to satisfy the mob.

The idea of assistant coaches ruining LD seems to be a major theme of the Legion of Doom (which, SJ says, is far from rendered moot by the new NFL rules, but nonetheless seems to be as dormant as a dead bear in a blizzard), and it’s not one I really ever subscribed to. I certainly am against mutual judge preference, but that’s a different thing. SJ subscribes to this assistant coach vilification whole hog, and may in fact be its driving force. In my experience, there just aren’t that many of these people, of either of the stripes I’ve described above, to have that much of an influence except in one small corner of the $ircuit. And since lately I’ve been questioning the true influence of the $ircuit on LD, I’m not thinking it’s all that deadly. But one thing that is true is that these assistant coaches are not spending all their time and energy working with novices. There’s no glory in that, and therefore they’re not giving good educational value for their buck, whether you like them or not, because they’re only applying themselves to very specific competitive contexts. Education of debaters means educating 4 years worth of them, whether they are good, bad or indifferent in rounds. Chauffering a moneyed elite to major tournaments around the country, even in the most well-intentioned and ethical context, does not do that. So even if that’s not what SJ refers to, it is a part of the issue. But, mostly, I think he’s talking about something that just isn’t either that prevalent or that important.

Finally, there is the air of arrogance that is a little thick about the proceedings. Although no stranger to arrogance either in myself or others, I am surprised to see SJ express views that are unrelievedly so. Specifically, it is one thing not to flow rounds, and another thing altogether to claim that it is unnecessary. Those who do inevitably claim that they are more than capable of doing the math in their heads, so to speak, or like SJ that there is something intrinsically wrong with the round that precludes taking notes. I don’t buy it. Yeah, I’m smarter than the average teenager, and often I’m writing down stuff that is fairly unimportant in my assessment of win/loss, but giving off either odor in the round is offensive to the debaters, and if I accept the responsibility of judging then I am willing to accept the formula of proper behavior that accompanies that responsibility; it’s analogous to having debaters wear business suits. I am reminded of one of my more sketchy varsity debaters in his first judging gig, who called for a runner to take his ballot after the NC because, as he said to me in explanation, as far as he was concerned the round was over and the winner was clear. I did refrain from hitting him over the head with a frying pan, but only just. I would like to think that I wait to hear the whole round before making a decision, but if you’ve ever judged, you know as well as I do that there are cases where that is not necessary. But you owe it to the debaters to act as if that is the case. They’re doing a job of work up there, and as long as they’re seriously working at it, I need to at least appear to be seriously working at it on my end, even if my mind is already made up, although I will keep my mind open till the end, because you never know. It’s a matter of simple respect, like their wearing business clothes. I do my best to listen to everything, and heed everything, regardless of its content; I am here to judge that content, but I need to know what it is—all of it—first. I want the debaters to believe that happened, for their own self-respect, if nothing else. In those situations where last year’s TOC winner hits a novice who’s never won a round in a random pairing, that novice deserves a respectful round from both his opponent and from me, even though all three of us might know the result of that round the minute we read the schematic. For many debaters, the judge’s looking busy is important. A judge who doesn’t flow doesn’t look busy. Which means that the judge is not doing what the debater thinks is important. In this case, I think that thing—taking complete notes—is worth the debater thinking it’s important, and therefore worth the judge doing it. Even when he doesn’t really have to, because he’s smart enough to retain all the germane material in his head. It just goes with the territory.

Mostly, of course, I agree with SJ on LD, which is why I was for a short while the Legion’s poster boy. What he’s asking for is that people argue resolutions in rounds, looking for and supporting the truth of their side. This leads to constructive dialogue and great education. This is major. Where we disagree is in some of the smaller side business. But that side business, once it’s printed up, must be considered. For all practical purposes, SJ has now created the longest judge paradigm on record (unless you count this blog). So be it. If I were a debater, I would want him to be adjudicating the round. I just wish he were a little less…serious. It must come from not reading any pomo. Maybe we should all chip in and get him some Derrida for Valentine’s Day. That and some chocolate. That should do the trick.