It's summertime, summertime, sum...sum...summertime—almost

Ah, CatNats. While normal people are inaugurating the summer season with barbecues and pool parties, forensicians from around the country congregate in places like Albany to pretend that it’s still February and to have at each other another time or two. (Of course, for non-NYers, there’s also NatNats, but by me, that’s a fantasy event, and probably always will be.) As faithful followers of my Twitter feed know, I was in the Pfffter universe for the event. My goal was to learn a little about this particular foreign country, to see what I could suss in terms of lore for future Sailors. It was an interesting adventure.

It may have been unfortunate that the topic, whether society has an obligation to ensure health care for its citizens, is so LDish at its core. While one does not present a framework for evaluating a PF round as one does an LD round, the framework was inherent. You had no choice but to prove a societal obligation (think criterion) for some mushy unspoken value (like morality). Or vice versa. The issue was that either there’s an obligation or there isn’t. I was hoping to find out what, exactly, one needs to do to win in PF, but with a topic like this, there was no question about it. You had to prove/disprove that obligation. Everything else was just so much distraction.

Watching one round after an other did impress a number of tactical/strategic issues on me, and I’ll work them into my PF instruction going forward. Nothing earthshaking. I did realize that, to judge this sucker, you need two colors. Maybe this is because I haven’t yet found the perfect way to flow it (with LD, I’ve never subscribed to bringing multiple colored pens, which I’ve always felt was just too Wedro for my tastes—he’s an old vet Sailor who used to travel with a titanium suitcase filled with pens in every known color, plus empirical evidence proving every intangible concept that defied empirical evidence). So I was glad for the red and the black, and availed myself accordingly. Of course, at CatNats, flowing a round (even in Policy) is an unusual, nearly unheard-of practice. I was with two other judges in all the prelims, and saw few people who bothered to note much of anything, and only the tiniest handful so tied to paper as I was. They could be right and I could be wrong, but as members of the VCA know well, I often suggest that others could be right and I could be wrong, but I really never mean it.

I also noticed that this was the hand-shakingest group since the last meeting of the Norman Vincent Peale society, and I wasn’t having any of it. I no doubt came across as a total jackass, and I couldn’t care less about swine flu (which I’m sure was the impression given); I simply do not want to press the soggy flesh of four flaccid teenagers after every flight, leaving me with a soggy mitt that cannot be washed until I get home Sunday night (have you ever tried to wash your hands in the boys room of a girl’s prep school?).

Anyhow, I will relay here my actual instructional suggestions, but a couple of things off the top. As I said yesterday, the winning team blew me away (I judged them in semis). The problem with arguing social contract—which was the default material for the resolution, needless to say—in front of an LD coach who teaches social contract year after year, and who has read all the books, is that you can’t get away with nuthin’, no-how. Of course, I maintain the flying pigs position that it is the opponents’ job to blow idiocy out of the water and not the judge’s, but when the opponents do know as much as me about the subject, and do that blowing out of the water, my work here is done. I can simply sign the ballot and go home. That winning team weren’t the only ones, though, who knew their stuff. I ran into a few other pairs who were on top of the issue. One team, I found out later, had won some major events around the country, which didn’t surprise me because they had a way with evidence that would do any debater proud. (“Here’s the facts and here’s how they prove what I’m saying.” Yep.) Another team simply knew how to work the analysis to explain away what can only be called an outrageously abusive position from their opponents’ equating society with basketball teams. (Can you say “nonsense”?) Analytics are tough, though, in this activity, and I wonder how many judges buy logic, especially when they’re not ostensibly paying that much attention. Hard to say.

Most of the rest of the teams were fairly weak, the usual assortment of people who somehow get to CatNats and shouldn’t have. Key throughout all of it was, in a word, knowing what you were talking about. This is number one on the Sailors’ thirteen top ten list for LD, and it ends up number one for PF, if you ask me. PF is not some casual activity you do because you’re too lazy for “real” debate. PF, done well, is hard, and requires serious commitment and a lot of work. Those who think otherwise haven’t been challenged by those students who do that work and have that commitment.

Anyhow, I’m glad I did this. It was a good experience. I learned a lot from it.