ATTACKING THE AFFIRMATIVE CASE
One of the defining characteristics of debate is clash. Specific disagreement is what judges look for in deciding who did the better job of debating. The center of that clash experience is the negative team's analysis and refutation of the first affirmative speech -- the affirmative case. This section is a little longer than the others because we are going to cover some other important concepts, like how to attack evidence and how to make challenges.
PART ONE: GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
A. GOALS OF ATTACKING THE AFFIRMATIVE CASE
1. ATTACK THEIR HARMS - Eliminate affirmative impact scenarios
The affirmative will try and establish specific scenarios, stories, or logical conclusions to reinforce their general claim about the resolution. Usually some sort of social problem or area of controversy will be discussed. The affirmative will attempt to show that their conclusions would be preferable. A scenario can be thought of as a complete story of this sort. A scenario would specify a series of events involving actors which results in some sort of outcome. An incomplete scenario would be far preferable for the negative than allowing the affirmative to win a complete scenario. The negative must commit itself to allowing no complete affirmative scenarios to be sustained in the debate. Preferably, affirmative scenarios should be eliminated by negative arguments, but since that is rarely the case in a good debate the negative commitment should be to challenging and limiting all affirmative scenarios.
2. USE CASE TURNS - Plant argumentative time bombs
A turn is an argument that captures what the other team is saying and"turns the tables"on them. Just like the turns for disadvantages, you can turn the link in a case (YOUR PLAN MAKES THE PROBLEM WORSE) or you can turn the impact in a case (THAT ISN'T A HARM, IT IS ACTUALLY A BENEFIT). These not only take out their advantage, but also create a new reason to vote negative.
The time bomb analogy may prove useful in understanding this concept. When not defused by the affirmative these arguments then tend to explode in rebuttals. In rebuttals (let us say first negative rebuttal as an example) a negative speaker might multiple point each affirmative answer, read additional evidence, and then develop an explanation as to how this position does serious, perhaps even fatal, damage to the affirmative.
3. KNOCK OUT A STOCK ISSUE - They need them all to win
Since the affirmative must win several issues in tandem (significance, inherency, solvency) a wise strategy for the negative would be to target the weakest of these necessary components and concentrate the attack there. If one link in this argumentative chain is broken the negative may have a reasonable claim that the affirmative case cannot stand without this one component which has been devastated.
4. BOG THEM DOWN - Participate in a beneficial time exchange
Dutch historian Pieter Geyl once remarked that"It takes less time to commit an error than to demonstrate one."While the negative should not utilize obviously erroneous arguments, this quotation does demonstrate a reality of argumentation which the negative should utilize. Time during a speech can be thought of as temporal capital, and it needs to be used wisely. Often the negative attacks on the affirmative case can take far longer for the affirmative to answer than it takes for the negative to make. Several related subjects within this chapter are relevant here. For example, the more specific the negative attack, the more difficult it is for the affirmative to answer it. Challenges also take longer for an affirmative to meet than for a negative to make. Time spent on the affirmative case means time the affirmative cannot spend on answering other issues introduced by the negative.
B. ORGANIZATIONAL GUIDELINES IN ATTACKING THE CASE
Sound organizational habits and principles enhance any debate presentation, but organization is even more important for the negative team when attacking the affirmative case. Instead of presenting an argument within her own organizational structure, the negative debater attacking the case has to specifically apply her arguments to the structure of the affirmative case.
1. Number your arguments on each major case section
Many debaters are tempted to go down each argument used by the affirmative in the case structure and analyze it separately. While in a perfect world with unlimited speech time this would be preferable to show specific clash, in a limited amount of time this is impossible. However, the sense of specific clash needs to be retained for the judge.
The compromise which seems to work effectively is for the negative speaker to identify a component of the affirmative case (let us say, contention one, subpoint B) and against that component (which may have several pieces of evidence as well as B-1 and B-2 subpoints) launch a number of arguments, numbered consecutively. For example, a negative speaker might say,"Please turn to their I-B subpoint, 'Unemployment has harmful consequences,' where we will argue....1. ARG.....2. ARG.....3. ARG......"
2. Attack the case in the order it is presented
One of the most common errors which negative speakers make in attacking the affirmative case is"jumping around"from point to point and not examining the affirmative case in an organized manner. Most affirmative cases take a step by step approach to presenting the team's position, and is thus appropriate for negative refutation to be in that order. Also, if the case is taken in order it is easier for the judge to follow.
However, this does not mean that things are presented in the order of importance. Many strategically wise affirmative teams may put one of the most crucial issues at the end of the first affirmative speech and wait for the negative team to neglect that particular issue before using it against them. Always look at all of the points in the affirmative case, decide what is important, and then allocate time and arguments on that basis.
3. Centralize your argumentation
Another common organizational error committed by negative speakers attacking the affirmative case is that they repeat themselves.
This error is usually of one of two types. First, the negative speaker will repeat the same basic argument with mild rhetorical changes at more than one point on the case flowsheet. This fills speech time but does not act as an effective attack and is very easy for the affirmative to respond to, as they simply answer it once (very thoroughly) and then refer all repetitions back to this set of answers. Second, the negative speaker will put different arguments about the same general topic in several different places on the flow. For example, negative arguments about how unemployment does not cause health harms are placed in two completely different places on the flowsheet. In both cases the better options would be to put all of your arguments about a certain issue ("Unemployment does not cause health harms") in one spot, and not fragment or repeat them around the flow. Say it once and put it with other arguments of its kind.
C. STRATEGIC WILLINGNESS TO CONCEDE PORTIONS OF CASE
Refutation and attack of the affirmative case should be guided by a sense of strategy, not just a reflex action of disagreeing with everything the affirmative utters. Often some of the most useful arguments for the negative team can be what the affirmative has advocated. If affirmative positions are utilized as a foundation for negative arguments, this foundation is likely to be quite strong because the affirmative team has themselves taken a position which they cannot withdraw. The negative, therefore, may wish to concede various portions of an affirmative case if that concession would promote the negative's interests strategically. Often affirmatives claim end states or actions as being"good,"and thus they advocate these ideas. These end states or actions may be used as"links"to other arguments which the negative will then launch. For example, when the affirmative claims that unemployment is harmful and should be avoided, the negative might use this as a"link"to their argument that it is employment which is more harmful that unemployment.
If concession of a position is the strategy to be chosen, other arguments against this position should not be made. For example, in the case of conceding the affirmative arguments about unemployment, the negative speaker should not also make arguments which eliminate the hoped for link to their other arguments. Statements such"There really isn't any unemployment"should not be made against a conceded position because it may serve to eliminate the link the concession hopes to gain.
TWO: SPECIFIC TECHNIQUES FOR ATTACKING THE AFFIRMATIVE CASE
These techniques should become"habits of mind"for negative speakers attacking the affirmative case and often for debaters in various other situations.
A. UTILIZE CHALLENGES
A"challenge"is an argument which indicates inadequacies in the arguments of the opponent and urges their rejection or degradation as a result. I prefer the term"challenge"to"press,"because the latter term has been used to characterize weak demands for perfection uttered by some debaters. A challenge specifically identifies logical and developmental inadequacies in argumentation and then reevaluates the argument based on these inadequacies. Failure by the affirmative to deal with these challenges and fill in these inadequacies means that the negative reevaluation of the argument stands.
The format for an effective challenge is simple and direct.
1. Specify lacking element. Something is missing or imperfect about an argument. Perhaps an argument is missing a logical step, involves an argumentative fallacy, or confuses the specific with the general. These elements can be specified and pointed out in attacking the affirmative case.
2. Demonstrate its importance. Now that a problem has been found in a particular argument, it needs to be reevaluated based on this new characterization. The error that many debaters make is in assuming that because an affirmative argument is not perfect it should be rejected. Rather, it would be far more credible to say that the argument is not as strong or lacks relevance to the point it is trying to prove. This approach is much harder to answer than mere pleas for perfection. As well, if and when such challenges are not answered by the affirmative, then the negative can begin discussing why this inadequacy means the entire argument is logically inadequate. The important points to remember are how to reevaluate an argument based on the challenge and the extension of a challenges not responded to by the affirmative.
B. INDICT AFFIRMATIVE EVIDENCE
Evidence is the support upon which many arguments rest. It is essential for the negative team to undermine this evidentiary support by addressing major inadequacies in affirmative evidence. Here are some simple techniques which should be kept in mind.
1. Matching the evidence with the claim. Often the claim which the affirmative uses the evidence to support is much broader and stronger than the actual wording of the evidence. Negative speakers should be monitoring the actual words of affirmative evidence as closely as possible, and then launch challenges against important pieces of evidence which seem particularly vulnerable or important.
2. Strength of evidence. Probability is a continuum which begins at"absolutely will not happen"and runs to"absolutely will happen."Few ideas exist at either of these ends of the spectrum, and most fall somewhere in the middle range. The qualifiers contained within the evidence are essential to analyze and identify. Once again, the challenge serves as the appropriate mechanism for dealing with this situation.
3. Recency and its relevance. In general, we might say that recent evidence is better than less recent evidence, all else being equal. However, recency is very important in some evidence and not in other evidence depending on to what it refers. Competing evidence about the yearning humans have to be loved and respected would not be decided based on one piece being 6 months more recent. However, competing evidence about Algeria's intention to acquire nuclear weapons may be decided based on recency, especially if the situation has recently changed. Lack of recency on the part of affirmative evidence should be pointed out and criticized only if events are likely to have changed since the evidence first appeared. In this case recency can be important, but it is not an ironclad standard for refuting evidence.
4. Source qualification. The reason we use evidence in a debate is to back up our arguments with expert fact and opinion. High school and college students are not subject experts on the topics about which they debate, thus they attempt to quote subject experts to bolster their claims. Disturbingly, fewer and fewer debaters recognize this essential characteristic of evidence and read the name and the date but not the qualifications. One could hardly claim that the day on which something is said is more important than who said it, yet debaters put the date in over the qualification. Negative teams should demand source qualifications while at the same time reading qualifications for their own sources. A quick and easy standard can be established that without qualification evidence fails its argumentative role and then asking that the critic opt for qualified negative evidence over unqualified affirmative evidence in any instance where there are sources in conflict.
5. Source bias. Often those who write about important topics are fervent believers in a specific approach to the controversy. As well, some sources have direct vested interests in making certain statements ("US foreign policy is promoting peace,"says the US Secretary of State; or,"My new invention will replace the current gasoline engine,"says Wallace Minto, inventor). Everyone who has an opinion is not a biased source, and some source bias is rarely grounds for rejecting the evidence entirely, but serious source bias should be pointed out and the strength of that evidence should be reduced.
6. Source conclusion. Many scholarly sources tend to evaluate controversies thoroughly, dealing with all of the relevant issues on both sides. Often these sources get quoted as making statements to support affirmative conclusions which they did not make at the end of their own analysis. This brings the use of that evidence for affirmative conclusions into question. While the evidence is not discounted 100% (since the original author did think it was a relevant issue) its support for a conclusion the opposite of the author's should be substantially reduced.
THREE: TECHNIQUES FOR DEALING WITH STOCK ISSUES
A. CLASHING WITH AFFIRMATIVE INHERENCY
Of the stock issues inherency is the one you should attack the least. You probably are not going to prove that the status quo is perfect, and you would have to do that in order to win the debate on inherency.
Proving the affirmative has no inherency can put you in a bad situation. For example, if you prove that the affirmative's plan has already been adopted, and that it is the status quo, which you defend, how can you say that it won't work or that it will cause disadvantages? Attack inherency often causes you to contradict yourself.
Instead, use their inherency arguments to build other important arguments you can use in other parts of the debate. Here are some examples:
B. CLASHING WITH AFFIRMATIVE IMPACT CLAIMS
Here are some simple concepts negative speakers might wish to consider in evaluating and analyzing impact claims.
1. Specification of a scenario
A scenario is a specification of a series of events which results in an outcome. Specification is critical here, in that a scenario would not just say"a war will start"but that a war between X and Y will start if A happens, and that war will result in B. In traditional argumentation parlance, this is known as demonstration. A general claim ("unprotected nuclear weapons will be misused") needs to be demonstrated through a scenario ("unprotected nuclear weapons will be obtained and used in anger during coming ethnic conflicts in the former Soviet Union, causing millions of deaths").
The negative should require specification and demonstration of a scenario from the affirmative when they make impact claims. This will allow lines of causation and influence to be more directly examined as well as exposing weak concepts which make up the general one. The negative should demand scenarios and when analyze them when they are presented.
2. Cross application of scenarios
Scenarios should be closely examined to see if they can be summed or must be considered in isolation. If the two affirmative scenarios are war in the Middle East and environmental damage in Brazil, these two could probably be summed together in that they can take place at the same time. However, if the two affirmative scenarios are war between Israel and Russia and war between Israel and Iraq they might not be summed together because one might imagine that Israel would only take on one of these opponents at a time in the first place or that the outcome of both wars at once might be different than their outcome separately.
It is essential for the negative team to identify mutually exclusive or mutually influencing scenarios to prevent the affirmative from summing these events and then claiming the impact of their combined importance.
a. Value or qualitative claims
Qualitative claims are usually thought of as those which are not readily susceptible to numerical evaluation. Freedom, equality, justice, all of these are important concepts, but they can rarely be evaluated in numerical terms (such as 11% more justice or 25% more equality). Of course, these claims do have their numerical dimensions, which is the beginning of our list of techniques.
1. The number of people impacted. Indicate that this qualitative impact occurs in a small number of cases. When freedom is compromised in an individual case, it is unfortunate. However, this qualitative concept has its numerical dimension, since it would be far worse if millions of people had their freedom compromised. While the rhetoric that"If one of us is not free, none of us are free"is inspiring and poetic, it does not necessarily carry much weight with many critics.
2. The amount the value is infringed. Indicate that qualitative claims must not escalate beyond the specific dimensions described by the affirmative. Another numerical dimension of qualitative impacts may be the extent to which each qualitative deprivation takes place. For example, the affirmative may claim that high school students are not allowed to write what they want in their school newspapers and that this is a violation of the first amendment. As they describe their position, they will usually talk about how important first amendment rights are and how they must be preserved. The negative team must make sure that the discussion of this incident does not elevate itself to an affirmative claim that the entire weight of the first amendment should be given to this argument, since it is really only a few high school students who have lost their freedom of the press rights in the forum of the high school newspaper. Do not let the affirmative claim the whole value when it is only partially compromised.
3. Not a preferred value. Indicate that those who are experiencing qualitative losses do not mind it. Freedom, justice, privacy, and other rights are only as valuable as individuals make them. If people value privacy, then its loss might be serious. However, if they do not value privacy, its loss would be hardly noticed. If individuals did not seem to mind experiencing the affirmative qualitative impact or did not protest against it, then they can hardly be said to have been victimized given their own priorities for their lives. Negative speakers should attempt to force affirmative teams into proving this or demonstrate that these qualitative elements are not important to those who are experiencing the deprivation.
4. Trades off with other values. Indicate that by affirming one value another is compromised. Many values which we hold dear trade off with other values which we also hold dear. Some values can be said to be"mutually eroding,"in that achievement of or movement towards one may reduce achievement of or movement toward another. Liberty and security, privacy and community, equality and justice, these are just a few of the values which can be seen as mutually eroding in some situations.
5. Cultural bias. Indicate that affirmative values are not very important because they are too culturally embedded. The controversy over whether values are universal or relative need not be fully explored here for us to realize that some value claims are very much based in a specific cultural context. These values, of course, would be less important than values which were more broadly recognized and globally accepted. Denial by the affirmative that this was so might lead the negative to make a charge of ethnocentricity on the part of the affirmative. While this might not take out the affirmative impact claim by itself, it may make it easier for it to be outweighed by broader value or impact claims made by negative off case positions.
b. Factual or quantitative claims
Just as quantitative claims (those easily susceptible to numerical evaluation, such as dollars, tons of gold, numbers of human lives, etc.) have distinctly quantitative dimensions, so quantitative claims are often best analyzed in terms of their qualitative dimensions. Here are some common and simple ideas which might be useful in refuting quantitative impact claims.
1. The amount of times it happens. Obviously, an event which costs 10,000 lives is more significant than an event which costs 1,000 lives, or even 9,999 lives. Make the affirmative prove a number with evidence and then try to reduce that number. However, in no case should that number be inflated and negative speakers should be consistent in repeating a low number.
2. The amount of harm of each instance. Each instance of impact described by the affirmative should be evaluated for its seriousness. Many impact claims may be of wildly differing severity. Cancer and the common cold are both illnesses, but we would hardly say they were comparable. Something may happen to one million people, but if what happens is not very serious, it can hardly be seen as tremendously important. Once again, this tactic makes it easier for other negative arguments to outweigh affirmative claims.
3. Probability. To the extent that the affirmative is claiming some impact in the future, they must indicate the probability of that event. Bayes Theorem has traditionally been used by debaters to evaluate impact, as it states that impact is a function of probability times harm. A 50% probable event costing 10,000 lives is worth 5,000 lives, etc. Too often future scenarios are evaluated as being 100% or 0%, when the reality should be somewhere in between, especially if the negative is clashing substantively with affirmative claims. For example, the affirmative team may have slightly better evidence that China will attack Taiwan than the negative team does, but that does not mean that China will attack Taiwan, but only that there is more probability that they will than that they won't, allowing the harms of that scenario to be reduced accordingly.
4. Time frame. Traditionally, those events which are coming up sooner tend to dominate our attention. This is not simply because human beings are stupid and short sighted, although this may be the case for some individuals. Actually, events coming up sooner are given more attention because our understanding of them is much firmer than events which are more distant in time. We know less about the distant future than we do of the immediate future, thus we are better able to act in relation to it. This is traditionally called"future discounting."Thus, negative debaters should challenge affirmative scenarios for their time frame,"When will this happen and how long will it take?"This alone may not defeat any given scenario, but it may make the negative off case arguments with a shorter time frame better able to outweigh the affirmative scenarios.
5. Reversibility. Losing your wallet and losing your virginity are two different types of events. One can be reversed (you can get a new wallet, identification, money, etc.) but your virginity, once lost, cannot be regained. Traditionally, we think of events which can be reversed as less important than events which cannot. Again, this is a logical distinction, because mistakes made in terms of reversible events can be repaired while mistake made in terms of irreversible events cannot. For example, some evidence indicates that once the Amazonian rain forest is chopped down, it will not be able to grow back and repair itself, thus making it more important than some other ecological disaster which can be repaired. The negative should point out if affirmative scenarios are reversible while negative scenarios are not.
6. Moral requiredness. Some quantitative benefits or harms may be explained away by contrasting them with a notion of moral requiredness. For example, a high paying job might be foregone because it involved being an assassin. There may be no doubt that money is good, but we may be morally required to forego it. In a more serious example, a parent might be unwilling to kill their child even if it was necessary for the betterment or even survival of the entire community. The utilitarian logic would be clear, that the"needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and the one"(as Vulcan philosopher Spock has said), yet the parent would not be able to do the deed because of moral requiredness of protection of offspring. The negative may be able to justify a quantitatively unfortunate situation because of the morally required actions involved.
7. Voluntary risk. Some situations involve risk, such as cigarette smoking and car travel, which are voluntary in that we choose to smoke or go on a car ride. Other situations, however, involve risk which is involuntary, such as being killed by an intruder in your home or having your water poisoned by a Defense Department weapons dump. Traditionally, this notion of risk has been cross applied to the value of personal freedom. Mill, for example, thought that as long as you damaged no one else, you should be free to damage yourself. More current thinkers have felt that while voluntary risk is different from involuntary risk, the former, while not a social good, was not nearly as serious as the latter. The negative should feel free to argue that affirmative impact scenarios involve voluntary risk. While this argument would not eliminate the affirmative scenario, it might make it easy to outweigh the affirmative with negative scenarios which involved involuntary risks.
8. Percentage of the total. One way to make something seem small is to compare it to something big. While 3% of the population effected by some malady is still an impact scenario, it does not seem nearly as important given that 97% of the population was untouched. This tactic, however, is only marginally effective and needs to be utilized in combination with others in this section.
9. Comparisons through time and space. Descriptions of impact scenarios are always statements which are based on expectations and are trapped in time and space. We do not expect a level of sanitation today, for example, which we might have expected during the Middle Ages, thus what seemed like a clean city to them might seem quite dirty to us. Comparisons can be useful in reducing the apparent magnitude of affirmative impact scenarios. For example, while things are not perfect, they may be: a. better than at any time in history; or, b. better than in any other country in the world. In both cases, negative arguments based on this concept might be characterized more as pleas for perfection than as legitimate impact scenarios.
C. ATTACK AFFIRMATIVE SOLVENCY
If the problem isn't solved, the affirmative gets no credit for simply identifying the problem. You probably won't prove that the plan will be completely useless in solving the problem, but you ought to make their solvency as small as possible. Here are some basic techniques for attacking affirmative solvency. Let's use the example of a plan which requires school uniforms because they say it will reduce school violence.
Even the best affirmative solvency evidence will not claim to solve 100% of the problem. In fact, most affirmative teams can only find evidence that indicates that"some"or"much"of the problem will be solved by the plan. Point this out and start specifying amounts -- the plan will only solve 30% of the problem, less than half of the problem, etc. Make them QUANTIFY their solvency, and if they can't suggest a high number with evidence you should suggest a low number.
The affirmative will use a specific technique to solve a problem. Acquire and use evidence that indicates that this approach is not effective. When it becomes an evidence battle you are already well ahead in the game.
Often the affirmative will find an example of where something has been done before and then say we should do it on a national level. Just because school uniforms helped academic achievement in an upper class neighborhood in Chicago doesn't mean it will work in Harlem or South Central Los Angeles, or that it will work in Las Vegas, Nevada. The place where it was tried might have been atypical, the study size was too small, the thing being measured was not very specific ("better learning environment,"what does that mean?), and it was probably carried out by researchers who picked only the best schools and the best teachers to be involved. If students volunteered to be in the program it has more chance to succeed than students who are forced into it by the affirmative plan. Any time the affirmative tries to generalize their solvency from a small example you can make these kinds of arguments.
You can also attack their evidence using guidelines in another part of this section.
Most things have no one single cause, like school violence. Uniforms only deal with one small cause of school violence (gang related clothing, supposedly), while the other causes of school violence (poverty, media, poor conflict resolution skills, violence at home, etc.) remain unchanged. Find those alternative causes and show how the plan does nothing about them.
If the affirmative inherency is that people don't like the plan or don't want the plan, then those same people will want to sabotage the plan. To create this argument first find a reason why people will want to sabotage the plan (gang members will hate the uniforms) and then find a way for them to sabotage the uniform requirement (they will adopt new and different gang markers like hairstyle, gestures, etc.). The result is that uniforms fail to really solve gang violence.
CONCLUSION DON'T LET THEM WIN THE CASE WITHOUT A DEBATE! KEEP ARGUING NO MATTER WHAT! The negative team should attack the affirmative case explicitly and immediately. This will gain them a refutational advantage as well as demonstrate to the critic the kind of clash which so many judges are looking for. Familiarity with a finite number of techniques can render the negative attack on the affirmative case far more effective.