Dear Steve,

Some agreement and some disagreement from me. This is as it should be 
between valued debate colleagues.

I have been engaging in this discussion offline with Harish for quite 
some time. He has not chosen to listen to me. I am not sure you would 
like my arguments either. I am a little troubled by your inference that 
if we are not talking about it we don't care. I may be arrogant and 
stupid, but I do care. But Council has acted and will not meet until 
December and will not change the system for this year and is largely 
avoiding the issue. This is what I expect of a debate organization, 
which is why I oppose them.

CENTRAL POINT: I think that the new changes will create more diversity, 
not less. We will see more institutions attending because people down 
the line will not be shut out by those grabbing 2-3 team slots higher 
up. All universities can come. I do not understand how this feeds the 
monster you are describing?

You may like this, but I think there are problems as well, such as more 
"WUDC tourism" by those not that interested in the competition itself, 
and the fact that many excellent second and third teams will not be there.

BUT, about that problem you are describing....

My visiting scholars from China and Slovenia seem to be able to 
understand the debates pretty well. The final round at WUDC is about as 
good as it gets in any organized debate format I am familiar with at the 
final round level.

A stand alone oratory is not a debate. The speaking style is different. 
You seem to think it should be the same.

I salute your idea to go to tournaments that work for you and your 
students. That is clearly the answer. That is what we do.

WUDC the tournament is not and should not be the be-all and end-all of 
what we do, I agree strongly with you on that. The real heart, for me, 
is what takes place at our debate practices each week and how the least 
able of us grows and develops. I will always be a Rawlsian in that 
regard. But, every debater needs to have something to aspire to, 
something to aim at, and in terms of excellence (in a style that they 
find on their own) WUDC the tournament can be that. I do not find my 
debaters watching WUDC outrounds and copying them. Our debaters sound 
very different, at least to me.  I do not see your debaters adapting to 
the WUDC norm, and I like them because they do have their own voice. In 
this regard, you seem to be doing a good job, people on your team that I 
have judged this year are different and are finding their own voice.

Keep at it is my advice. Do what you think is best.

Remember what Doctor #1 said: "Go forward in all your beliefs, and in so 
doing prove that I am not mistaken in mine."

Tuna


On 4/30/13 12:48 PM, Stephen Llano wrote:
>
> Colleagues and Friends,
>
> I have been sitting on writing this for a long time, but today my 
> feeling of disappointment has driven me to ask a few questions to 
> those of you on this list.
>
> Since the posting about the changes to WUDC registration were shared 
> here, there have only been two responses, and neither of them more 
> than just technical questions about the nature of the registration 
> system changes.
>
> Where is the critical discussion about what these changes mean for our 
> students?
>
> From my vantage point, as someone who has gone from thrilled with WUDC 
> to someone who no longer wants to be a participant in it, these 
> changes make me want to be an active opponent to WUDC.
>
> When I first became involved in WUDC in 2007 I thought its greatest 
> strength was in the diversity of views as to what a good argument 
> could be. I thought it to be an amazing experience for my students and 
> myself to encounter such a variety of different styles and approaches 
> to rhetoric, argumentation, and persuasion. My recent reticence in 
> future participation was not because of quality, but more because of 
> safety and financial concerns.
>
> Now it appears that WUDC wants to throw away quality in favor of a 
> faux-quality: A positive feedback loop of people who speak the "right 
> way" perpetuating a very particular kind of speech being rewarded with 
> more participants who also speak in that "right way."
>
> This feedback loop will be accentuated by the fact that judges will 
> also be increased from those institutions that demonstrate they can 
> speak in the appropriate code to reach elimination rounds. WUDC 
> council has made it very clear that they are not interested in a broad 
> range of ways of speaking and arguing, but a very narrow band view of 
> this. Their annual tournament will serve as the gatekeeper for who 
> gets to participate in this competition.
>
> It amazes me that on an email list that includes those who saw the 
> decline of NDT and NPDA from broad based organizations to those that 
> try to eliminate diversity of discourse in the same way, people have 
> remained silent.  Not even one word of critical questioning or 
> examination has been posted about these changes.  Questions need to be 
> discussed, such as: What is the difference between this change and 
> mutually preferred judging in NDT/CEDA? Why should WUDC have a system 
> of participation that reminds us more of the NPTE than our own USU 
> nationals?
>
> But the American debate educators have remained silent.  The wisdom of 
> so many years of participation in different formats and the eventual 
> abandoning of those formats in favor of BP and WUDC have not inspired 
> any of you to write one single line of questioning in response to 
> Michael's emails. This is the root of my disappointment.
>
> Years ago, I asked the question to many British debaters: What is the 
> value of having a professional coach or debate director? What is the 
> value added of such a figure? Most debaters in the world don't have 
> one, and they do quite well competitively. Most did not have a 
> response, and weren't sure.  I thought it was a very pressing 
> question. The only response I could think of that made any sense was 
> the injection of the pedagogical dimension to debating. If there is 
> something Americans can bring to the party, it would be that key 
> element - to help people recognize that every move they make in the 
> debate universe is a pedagogical one. There are serious implications 
> to every adjudication and every comment that is ignored or rewarded in 
> every debate. We are constantly teaching, and reinforcing, lessons 
> provided by and through language. This hopefully has some spillover 
> effect into their daily lives when they encounter other people. The 
> result would (hopefully) be kindness, patience, understanding - all 
> concepts brought about by a healthy sense of uncertainty of the self. 
> Debate provides this uncertainty all too often, which is the source of 
> it's value for Universities.
>
> The narrow band reward-those-who-are-rewarded-already registration 
> system is pedagogically bankrupt if we are really still interested in 
> this whole "reasonable person" judging philosophy, which I already 
> question as a principle for a lot of reasons based on a lot of my own 
> judging experiences. WUDC seems to now feel very comfortable totally 
> abandoning this principle in favor of one where those who have proved 
> expertise in persuading the imaginary reasonable person now get more 
> opportunities to do the same, in front of those who also believe they 
> know what the imaginary reasonable person wants. We are talking to one 
> another imagining that we are appealing and representing a broader 
> based intellectual community.
>
> We are teaching ourselves and one another how to appeal in a vanguard 
> discourse to those who love this vanguard discourse, not "reasonable 
> people." It seems a shame that I have to struggle to find a WUDC video 
> on the internet that I can show to public speaking students or 
> beginning debate students that they can even begin to understand. Our 
> speeches are becoming appeals to a particular elite, and this decision 
> from WUDC further refines who can be in that elite. As discourse 
> training for and by elites, we are far away from encouraging an 
> attitude among participants that would be much other than cynical 
> disgust for the rhetorical and argumentative strategies of those 
> outside the elite; a worldview that encourages seeing the discourse of 
> the non-elite as automatically flawed, bad, and not worthy of 
> engagement. Debate teaches us to be good arguers - the best, right? 
>  Actually, debate like this just teaches us to be good debaters, full 
> stop.
>
> It really depends on how you say it: Instead of WORLD Universities 
> Debating Championship, the emphasis now seems to be on World 
> Universities Debating CHAMPIONSHIP. Another question arises: How can 
> someone be world champion in debating for reasonable people when the 
> participants are hand selected based on their institution's success at 
> previous competitions? Where is the door for those who are new, who 
> are reasonable, and want to argue and judge?
>
> When I first started participating in the WUDC universe, I was assured 
> this style of debating would not fall into the pits of the previous US 
> formats. I was assured by many of you reading this that "the world 
> will check" the US inclination to become highly technical, highly 
> cloistered, and highly specific in style. Nobody who has said that to 
> me has responded with any critical questions to this decision.  This 
> would amaze me if it weren't so disappointing.  Who is going to check 
> the world when they make decisions like this one?  Here we go again. 
> This is the first step into creating another inaccessible and limited 
> debating format.
>
> Where are the debate educators now? Or have you given up the project 
> of showing students how hard it is to reach the mind of another in 
> favor of earning more trophies and accolades? Perhaps you feel like 
> the decision is fine because your teams will not be impacted by the 
> registration procedure. The temptation is pretty strong to say, "We 
> can win under this rubric." But nobody has asked the question, "Who 
> loses?"
>
> This doesn't effect me, as I said before. I'm out of the WUDC game, 
> but not out of BP and debate and the wonderful powers they provide in 
> teaching people amazing things. WUDC wants to limit themselves to an 
> elite.  We here in the US have seen what this does to debate 
> participation. But not to worry.  Just because there is a yacht club 
> it doesn't mean that boating is going away.  WUDC doesn't realize that 
> competitors to their monopoly will quickly arise with the rise of 
> Chinese debating and North American debating as more American schools 
> join the BP ranks.  Alternatives to WUDC will arise, including what 
> I'm doing - taking my students to other tournaments.
>
> Who should a world champion appeal to? Others in the elite club? 
> Society in general? University communities? Reasonable people? their 
> peers and colleagues? Scholars of argumentation?
>
> Or perhaps the idea of world champion is best left as a ruse to get 
> people talking to one another and thinking about how difficult that 
> talking - and understanding that talking - is for human beings.
>
> Your friend and colleague,
> Steve
> -- 
> _____
> Stephen Llano, Ph.D.
> Director of Debate and Assistant Professor, Department of Rhetoric, 
> Communication & Theater
> St. John’s University
> Queens, NY
> 718-990-5606(voice) 718-990-2435 (fax)
> callto://stevellano -- Skype Me!
>
> "Knit the brows, and a strategem comes to mind." - Lo Kuan-chung, 
> Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
>
> "Poetry is a rival government always in opposition to its cruder 
> replicas." - William Carlos Williams