Ch-ch-ch-ch-change-ezz

In more immediate news, next week is NDCA, which I’ll be doing with Kaz and Bietz. It looks interesting. We’re going to be doing e-ballots, and the Warm Room, for one thing, or, I guess, two things, both of which are new to me. Followers of TVFT know well that the idea of e-ballots intrigues all of us. We’ll see how it works out.

Last week at State, we had a strong but small field of VLD: 21. Still, we used MJP. In my various ramblings I have more and more come to believe that MJP is preferable to any other system, and this was a good test of how it would work on a small field. The answer? It worked fine. Almost all the rounds got 1-1s. If not, at least all the rounds on the bubble got them, and one or two other folk got the best we could do. If you can do it with this small a number, anything bigger has to work too. Part of it is that we get more proficient at it with each tournament. The only theoretical factor mitigating against MJP at this point, then, since we know it works in the tab room, is the idea that the judging of all rounds should be entirely random. I guess someone could defend that approach to the activity, but their arguments would have to be both that somehow MJP is bad and that occasionally judges who are totally inept (and there are way too many of these) should be deciding competitive success. My original fear of MJP was that it was allowing students to pick their own judges and that this somehow would benefit them unfairly, but that is silly because both students are picking, making the choice fair between them. That students might gravitate to a certain kind of judge and away from other kinds of judges can be portrayed as a bad thing, but only if you believe that the activity must remain static. Also, as I say, if one prefers randomness one has to accept judges who are, as I say, inept. I don’t make this up. There are some schools that send judges who are thoroughly unprepared, and in some cases linguistically incapable (they really can’t follow the English language). Curiously, in many cases the coaches protesting against MJP are the ones providing these unusable judges (who, in practice, end up in novice rounds since the rules of engagement don’t allow me to cut off their heads). Curiouser still, the students from these schools have no compunctions about using MJP themselves. Consistency is not a ruling factor, in other words.

But absent bad judges—and there are many schools who, while providing “lay” judges, do a good job of training them, and there are plenty of parent judges who I personally would rank as a 1 because they are both smart and experienced, so I do not revile the breed as a group (it spawned me, after all), any more than I believe that all former $ircuit debaters are automatically good—the question can probably be debated, is MJP a good thing, since it allows participants in the activity to, however indirectly, determine the direction of the activity. I think that the benefit of time helps us answer this question. A number of years ago, LD was going to hell in a handbasket because of then fashionable pomo “philosophy” and critical theory. This material, most of it cultural studies analysis at best (and incoherent nonsense at worst) offered little or no ethical framework for application to LD discussions, and threatened to derail any meaningful discourse. Now this material has mostly gone away except for the parts that have withstood the heat of the forge: some 20th Century philosophy is useful, including some critical theory. Is every resolution tainted due to race/feminism/LGBT issues? No. Are there valid uses of Foucault or (shudder) Nietzsche? Sure. LD was not derailed when this material was de rigeur. Everyone did a lot of new reading, we all learned a lot, and we moved on. Is theory the death of LD now? I don’t think so. We will learn better how to handle goofy positions that in the past we had no tools for, but every round won’t be a theory debate. Is everyone going too fast? Only if their adjudicators can’t follow them. The good debaters continue to adjust their speed for totally lay audiences (e.g., at the Newark RR final, where two of the fastest debaters around never got out of first gear), but why should they have to pretend that some judges can’t handle it? Judge adaptation, my old number one rule for success, is still up there in my book.

So, over the years, LD can be seen as going here, going there, going somewhere else. MJP can, conceivably, move it along quicker. Is it a dialectic of improvement? Not necessarily. Some of the changes are merely stylistic. Some are bad and they go away. Some are good and they stay. And probably some are bad and they stay and some are good and they go away. But this is a natural evolution, one way or the other. And let’s face it: doesn’t totally random judging also act as a determinant, albeit a negative one? If the pool is lightly experienced and not necessarily adroit with the technical or strategic background of the activity, don’t we end up missing out on a lot of benefits? Don’t we miss out on the use of new and interesting ideas (even those which may not prove out) if we force the students to always rechurn the same old ideas? If judges are trained that only certain philosophies are acceptable, isn’t that bad for education? I wonder if science teachers, sure of their fields the day they start teaching, don’t allow any new scientific ideas to enter their classrooms in the ensuing years? Do English teachers believe a book published today cannot have value? Do social studies classes not include ideas from people in today’s political arena?

Oh, well. I can appreciate conservatism. But I do suggest that it be clearly explained, and that it needs to keep up with the realities. Conservative coaches who proselytize against change simply for the sake of preventing change are doing a disservice to all of us. Proselytizing against change because of perceived harms, on the other hand, is fine. But then we must examine those harms, and the risks entailed, and make our decisions accordingly. Over time, I have found myself more and more on the side of the non-conservatives. What can I say? Live and learn. Or at least try.