In which we start talking about PF, but don't

When I wrote that piece recently on the history of LD, James Kellams commented: I can confirm LD is still pretty traditional in the NSDA districts in which we compete...or at least the evolution is occurring at a much slower pace. But, don't be surprised when PF Debate takes the same path to specialization and exclusionary tactics. I learned a long time ago, for students and many competitive coaches it is not about education, it is all about winning and its associated "glory.” Kellams writes the invaluable Everyday Debate blog,  If you have any interest at all in actually debating the resolutions, it’s highly recommended. If you prefer the EILDR approach, he’s probably not your man.

There has always been a major distinction between local and $ircuit debate. Once upon a time that distinction hung on that supercilious first character I’ve loaded the word with: some teams had a lot of money, and a travel circuit of moneyed teams developed where those teams could spend that money. Others have described the circuit (no supercilious character) somewhat differently, as the place where high-level teams could debate other high-level teams. They got to be high-level teams by having a lot of resources (including going to debate camps). In the natural course of events, their style of debating did indeed become different from the styles of teams with lesser resources, for reasons too complicated to go into at the moment. Sometimes non-circuit teams might emulate styles and practices from the $ircuit, and sometimes not. The $ircuit did, of necessity, start to regard its styles and practices as better. You can hardly put your team on a plane every weekend or spend a couple of thousand bucks for a week or two of summer camp if it wasn’t better. The reality of its “betterness” is debatable, but the reality of premium products being set aside from and costing more than non-premium products is a cultural/economic reality. If we assign a high value to something, however arbitrary, and enough people agree that the thing has a high value, it has a high value. You need walk no further than from the nearest diner to the nearest Starbucks, buying a cup of coffee in each, for an object lesson in this.

So the justification of $ircuit debate is the $ircuit’s self-justification as better debate. There are any number of people that will tell you that debate at the TOC is better than debate at NSDA, or that debate at bid tournaments is better than debate at non-bid tournaments, or whatever variations on this theme you want to entertain. We all know, of course, that this judgment is subjective, entirely based on who is defining what is good/better/best in debate. (If you don’t know this at an “of course” level, you need to catch up on the major thinkers of the 20th century.) For that matter, at a purely LD level, we can throw different values up as what we are attempting to achieve. If we’re attempting to educate the most people and bring the greatest number into the forensics tent, present-day $ircuit styles fail completely. If our value is getting the most number of elite trophies, well, that’s what $ircuit is all about in the first place. If we value the most education, again I think $ircuit fails. If one believes that arguing a lot of different contentions teaches one about a lot of different things, whereas arguing the EILDR teaches one a lot about one thing, then it’s simply a matter of valuing either foxes or hedgehogs.

Because I live in a region dominated by $ircuit LD teams, my vision is not necessarily all that clear. I see what’s in front me. Kellams, in Ohio, sees what’s in front of him. Honestly, I like the LD he sees better than the LD I see. But what I really wanted to talk about here was PF.

Tomorrow.