Research, continued

Research, step one.

Yesterday I whined about the lack of research that is abroad in parts of the debate world. And as I said, the nature of research is different in the different debate activities. I won’t address research issues in Policy, because I’m not in that particular business, but it is interesting to point out that, as I understand it, the origin of kritiks in Policy is tied into the inability of smaller programs to compete with the research-gathering abilities of large programs. That is, they arose as an attempt to level the playing field, as compared to their use in LD, where they arose as an attempt to disrupt the playing field. Interesting…

So we’ll stick to LD and PF. These do require different approaches, but there are some overlaps. And the first step is, for the most part, entirely identical. So we will start at the beginning, in that overlap.

Knowledge on a subject does not accrue in a vacuum. I would like to be able to come up with some clever analogy, but the obvious are the best. To build a house, you need a foundation. A foundation is solid and firm and, in fact, can support all kinds of different houses. You can build a raised ranch, a colonial, a nifty little modernist number, whatever, on the exact same foundation. But without that foundation to provide support, you take your chances that the structure will be able to hold the building up. It certainly won’t withstand a hurricane. Or to look at it another way, you can’t improvise on a musical instrument until you know how to play it in the first place. For that matter, you can’t do variations on a theme unless you know the theme. You gotta pay your dues if you wanna play the blues, Jack.

The foundation we are trying to build in PF and LD is that of general knowledge of political/social events around the world. We need to know the important things that are happening, especially those important things that revolve around human rights issues and civil rights issues, foreign policy, and law, to name the first categories that come to mind. NFL has just released topics on the US primary/election process (PF) and punishment for hate crimes (LD). Considering that the primary process has been going on for about a year now, making the 2008 election almost literally a two-year cycle, your having been paying attention throughout 2007 would definitely have been to your advantage on this topic. As for the hate crimes resolution, this is more philosophical (in the legal sense) than dependent on any particular news events, but nevertheless it is a current-events subject that does come up regularly. For the Sailors, as it turns out, we are absolutely in the midst of a recent hate crime situation involving students at our school, but other students are not particularly far from these sorts of incidents, or at least knowledge of them.

To maintain the necessary foundation of general knowledge for PF and LD, I make two recommendations. Perhaps one of the two will suffice, but I suggest that they are complementary and that it is worth doing both of them. And I don’t really know of any decent substitute for either of them.

First of all, you need to read the news. Every day. In a newspaper. And you need to read a newspaper worth reading. There are, sadly, few of these, and they don’t include local Gannett papers (which I personally enjoy and read for local news and the comics, but that is the extent of their reach), USA Today, or even a number of second-tier major metropolitan papers. They also don’t include reading newspapers online, except as an absolute last resort. The experience of getting news from a newspaper is different from getting news from a website. The medium is the message, and you absorb differently from a newspaper than you do from the internet. If nothing else, the serendipity of turning the pages of a newspaper will bring to light different information than will surfing a web site. The hyperlink experience tends to be subjectively selective while the page-turning experience is objectively determined by the publisher of the paper (although still subject to the subjective randomization of your eye catching something interesting). In any case, when I say reading the newspaper every day, I mean that literally. And I recommend the Washington Post or the New York Times. I do not say that there are not other newspapers at that level, but I can comfortably point to these. I’m willing to add others, if someone wants to recommend them to me. Forgive my parochialness, but I am where I am…

Read the newspaper. Every day. And there is a way to do this. You must first read every headline on page one, and if the story is of interest, read all of that story that is on page one, and if you’re still interested in that story, open the paper and finish it. The reason stories are on page one is usually because they are important. There may be a human interest story of some sort there, more entertaining than important, and frankly, I enjoy these and do often read them through, but the knowledge bread and butter we are seeking for the debate foundation is elsewhere. Secondly, you must scan all the editorial and opinion pieces, reading fully any of those which provide commentary on issues of general concern. An article suggesting an exit strategy for Iraq, for instance, or the growing presence of China in Africa, would be more important than an article (say from Maureen Dowd) on the latest Clinton gossip. That is, separate the wheat from the fun. You may like Dowd, but she’s not essential for the knowledge foundation. Read her for entertainment, not debate. Thirdly, read the stuff in the paper that you like to read. Reward yourself. If you like sports, read the sports columns; if you like movies and theater, read the reviews. Read the music columns. Indulge. You’ve been a good little soldier, and now it’s time for some R&R. Overall, your “required” newspaper experience should take no more than half an hour. You can take longer if you really want to go at it, and you can turn all the pages and just read whatever catches your fancy. I do this on days when I’m not rushed. Unfortunately, I don’t have as many of those days as I would like.

The second recommendation for building up general knowledge is to listen to the news on NPR. Let’s say a half hour to an hour a day, every day, of “Morning Edition” or “All Things Considered.” It is almost impossible to come up with a good excuse not to listen to the morning show, even if it’s just background noise. You might prefer one of those newfangled funky music groups all the kids like nowadays (and while you’re turning down that noise you can also get off my lawn), but don’t tell me you can’t find a few minutes when you can’t have in-depth news analysis on in the background. I promise you, you will absorb some of it even if you’re not listening. And occasionally, something will come up and you’ll stop what you’re doing and you’ll pay attention, and you will actually get something out of it. And if you’re a true right wingnut and believe that NPR exists entirely to convert the country to Communism, then listen to it the way a left wingnut might watch Fox news, just to get your dander up.

Between these two media, serious newspaper and serious radio, you will be on your way to building a solid foundation of knowledge of the world around you, so that you actually know what’s going on in a lot of places, and can begin connecting the dots when the time comes to debate about it. And these recommendations aren’t that big a time suck either, because I’m saying a half hour tops on the paper, and radio mostly in the background while you’re eating your morning gruel with a side of Spam. No debater, to my knowledge, has even been harmed by either of these media, except that time when Soddie hit O’C on the nose with a rolled-up Sunday want-ad section, but that had nothing to do with general knowledge, and the less said about it the better.

There is one more basic that needs to be added for the LDer. Let’s assume that the LDer, whose topics change half as often as Pfffters’, can spend a little less time on their current event studies. Let’s posit that, in addition to the above, the Pffffter will read the occasional Time or Newsweek. In contrast, in that time the LDer has a need to read up on a little basic philosophy of some sort or other. By basic I do not mean Plato-type elementary, but simply philosophical or sociological works of a general nature that provide analysis of the literal values that LDers claim to uphold in rounds. That is, the reading of what reputable guides to the subject have said about justice, or morality, or the place of law in society. Books on ethics, or ethical practices. Studies of constitutional rights issues. Whatever. I’m not saying the LDer needs a steady diet of these, but one every now and then, every couple of months, say, plus another couple over the summer, is a good idea. Some of these books will be difficult, hard or impossible to read, and most will remain unfinished. But you’ll begin to get a sense of them. You’ll get, for instance, more sense of Foucault by reading him than reading a Wiki article about him. This is true of everyone. Since you’ve already evidenced an interest in this sort of stuff by signing up to do LD in the first place, taking it to the next level is not really that much of a stretch. Instead of working on your Nietzsche blocks, read Nietzsche; if nothing else, that reading will inspire you to block him left, right, sideways and down. Tackle the Old Baudlerloo: you might enjoy him. If you do, send me a postcard from Disneyland, the postcard with the picture of the parking lot. Anyhow, you get the drift. Reading the great thinkers, whoever they are, will help you understand their great thoughts, and could even encourage you to have a few great thoughts yourself.

So, the serious LD or PF debaters’ life includes daily newspapers and in-depth radio news, and the LDer needs to also get involved with texts on ethics, philosophy and theory. All of this will provide the solid foundation on which to build when it comes time to research a specific issue, which we’ll discuss next. And the worst-case scenario is, well, you’ll be generally smarter as a result. In other words, there is no down side whatsoever.