Last weekend was the NDCA. You shoulda been there.
I like the idea of a tournament where the entries must meet a certain objective criteria for admission over a broad span of other tournaments. There’s nothing terribly wrong with a one-time qualifier like Districts or CFL Grands, but it is a one-time thing, and if you’re having an off day, you’re outta there. Our state organizations predicate primarily on multiple tournament wins, with some exceptions for a team or two. Certainly TOC requires a couple of good days on one’s c.v. But NDCA goes for an even broader base. If you’ve demonstrated your skill, if you’ve beaten a lot of people, you’re in, and it doesn’t matter where you beat them. This is the distinguishing characteristic from TOC, where a select number of tournaments are chosen and leveled as qualifiers in a process that is, in a word, unfathomable. I have friends on the advisory committee, and I’ve even been on it myself, and none of us can explain the hows or whys other than that advice is given and actions are taken. This is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.
We talked a lot about TOC over the weekend. I have long claimed that if TOC didn’t exist I wouldn’t invent it, but on the other hand, I can respect the idea of a circuit of debates that is self-limiting (which is why, in my mind, it’s the $ircuit). If you can afford to go, which means not only transportation and lodging and registrations but training and prepping and coaching—and a lot of other people can’t—should the fact that others cannot prevent you from doing it? This is a problem for Peter Singer. That there may be harms (philosophical and not sociological) from the existence of the $ircuit is moot. Some kids dream of winning TOC with barely the skills to put their pants on in the morning, while plenty of other kids have debate skills to burn and don’t give a goat’s whisker about the thing. As I say, moot point. (CP talks eloquently about the sociological aspects of exclusion and privilege on his blog, which you might want to read for a take on that side of the coin.) When all is said and done, if people want to have a TOC $ircuit, I say, let them. I can choose to pursue it or not with my own team. Nobody is forcing me to do anything one way or the other. Just as there are Division 1 schools and Division 3 schools in sports. So be it.
In light of this acceptance of TOC and the $ircuit, we can support at the same time NDCA, which occasionally intersects but stems from different roots and attempts a different result. There is plenty of overlap, of course, but there is also some things that are missing from TOC, especially transparency of process. Regardless of one’s opinions of the recent TOC hoo-ha, there is no question that the organization’s lack of transparency is not to its benefit. It is not an oligarchy but it looks like one. A couple of times this weekend we were trying to figure out things like whether or not to have 8 rounds, and someone would come in and report that the kids had heard that “they say” some ridiculous thing or other. The fact that we were they was mildly amusing, but the point is, people who don’t know what’s going on tend to believe that someone else in a better position does know what’s going on, and often ascribe evil means or ends to that mysterious “they.” When "they" haven’t got a clue about whether "they" are doing 7 or 8 rounds, as I say, "they" are mildly amused. But when there’s a secret committee perceived as making secret decisions, that’s another thing, and all that ascribing of evil ends occurs. Not a good thing. The more transparency you offer, the less “they” can do that will bother people, so people will be less bothered and will go off and worry something else over which they have no control.
I guess what I’m saying is what I’ve been saying for a while now, that transparency is good, especially in a community where some people are perceived as being more powerful than others, as in tab rooms. I’m in virtually all of them, but I’m not in them because I want to exercise power and hide that exercising from everyone. I’m in there because I like doing it and I do it pretty well. I’m happy to let people look over my shoulder while I'm at it (unless the tournament rules demand otherwise).
Anyhow, more on NDCA specifically tomorrow.
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