Grumble grumble grumble

I read these LD essays on WTF, and I have no idea what they’re talking about. Of itself, this wouldn’t normally bother me, because there’s plenty of things in the world I have no idea about, but in this case, you’d think at least I’d be interested enough to want to understand them. But I’m not. I’m not putting down the writers here, because they seem to know their stuff. It’s the content. They’re writing about things that have nothing to do even remotely with what is supposedly the content of the rounds. Why even bother to have resolutions, if the core of your argument is that you ought to win because you’re aff or neg, on the basis of some rhetorical observation/analysis unrelated to content? Has LD really gone this far off the track? If this stuff is what’s really happening in rounds, I have to admit that I just don’t care.

All right. You’ll accuse me of being a dinosaur, and there is certainly some reason why the image at the top of this page is what it is. And I’m sure you can provide all kinds of analysis why this is good material for the activity. But the way I see it, the ultimate extension of your case is that LD is now no different from automobile mechanics. It’s entirely about the workings of a machine qua machine workings, and not at all about driving around from place to place. Me, I’m more of a traveler. Then again, I would posit that being knowledgeable about the various topics—targeted killing, domestic violence, etc.—is more educational than being knowledgeable about argumentation per se. These days it seems that a minimal amount of effort goes into studying the topic area specifics, and a lot of effort goes into studying how to argue the topic area generalities. The result? Meh.

Meanwhile, there is a problem on the PF side, where all we’re supposed to have is the resolution, and no overarching/underlying value proposition. April’s topic is mandatory vaccinations. The problem here is that the science has pretty much sorted itself out, and the nutters, if they haven’t gone to ground, don’t have any science to support them anymore (because, well, they never did). Which means that one has the numbers of this and that on either side, to be weighed out on a CBA, but nothing meaningful to tie it into. When this was an LD topic, you could argue the justice or morality of forcing populations to do something, and tie it into an ethical framework of some sort (and I’m using the word framework here in the normal sense of the word, not the LD sense, which is, I gather, itself no longer clearly defined). In other words, I would want to argue what is right and wrong about vaccinations deontologically, but I am prohibited from that by the nature of PF itself. I can only weigh consequences, even when those consequences are virtually identical, or non-comparable, because first, no framework, and second, the language of basic ethics is not inherent in the language of PF, as it once was in LD. Sigh.

So what does one do in all of this? Well, if all I’m able to do is weigh which side has the most flaws, modern-day LD is the clear winner/loser. It’s arcane and progressively limits itself to a smaller audience at its perceived highest levels. It may break out of this—it has changed dramatically a number of times in its history—or it may just solidify. PF, on the other hand, remains generally accessible, which as its sole virtue (if it is its sole virtue) is a damned good one. It might not be as classically sophisticated rhetorically as LD, but I’ll go back to the metaphor above: when it comes to car races, the auto mechanics are absolutely essential, but it’s the drivers who get the fans and the glory.

(Okay, it’s not the best metaphor, but members of the VCA are used to that by now.)