Will Malson NEG: “Love” Page 1 of 3

NEG: “Love”

CX: (IMPORTANT IF YOU’RE GOING TO RUN VAGUENESS)

1. Can love only come from a free market?
2. How exactly does it come from a free market?
3. Is it a commodity, to be bought and sold?
4. Is it a commodity at all?

What is love? I don’t mean ‘what does the dictionary say love is’. I mean what is love. What does love
require before it can exist? Can it come through competition or cooperation? Through the course of this
speech I’ll be going over two things: first, how love is upheld by cooperation, not competition, and
second, how the affirmative’s case is, as a whole, a vague interpretation of the resolution: this leads me
to negate the resolution and stand Resolved: that cooperation is superior to competition as a means of
achieving excellence.

Let’s start with love – I’ll be presenting three contentions to show you how love is not upheld by
competition, but by cooperation. Let’s start with love as a whole:

CONTENTION 1: WHAT MUST LOVE HAVE IN ORDER TO EXIST?

In order to exist, in order for two parties to love each other or themselves, they have to set aside
differences: in that respect, we can safely say that love requires setting aside differences in order to
achieve a common goal, or for merely the sake of love. The feeling that defines kinship and
unity is love. Love is an underlying bond that creates a mindset of cooperation and
team work. Love comes from severing, within ourselves, and attempting to sever in others, any
predispositions that would hinder compatibility. If you cannot do that, you cannot love – if you focus on
differences alone, love cannot exist.

CONTENTION 2: COMPETITION PREVENTS LOVE.

Does competition promote setting aside differences, individually or within a group? Absolutely not:
quite the opposite in fact. Competition promotes standing out of the group and creating differences with
the body or the group as a whole. Competition does not uphold love anymore than cooperation upholds
conflict: whereas, if competition exists, then there can be no true setting aside of differences: there can
be no love.

CONTENTION 3: COOPERATION UPHOLDS LOVE.

If love requires setting aside differences, and competition causes those differences, what then promotes
love? Cooperation. By cooperating, we uphold love. In order to set aside differences, we must
cooperate: it is, in fact, an inherent trait of cooperation to promote love. The reason that
cooperation is superior is because it is more in line with the underlying feeling of
love. For the sake of love, cooperation is superior to competition.
Will Malson NEG: “Love” Page 2 of 3

Now we’ll continue on to vagueness.

Look at the case as a whole: how exactly does love come from a free market? Is it a commodity, to be
bought and sold? But that would trivialize love. The affirmative speaker hasn’t given us a clear reason
why love can only come from a free market, and how love is a commodity, or isn’t! It’s just plain vague.
Let’s examine why vagueness is bad in my observations:

OBSERVATION 1: VAGUENESS IS BAD FOR FAIRNESS.

Two points:
1. Vagueness hurts clash. Vagueness is unfair because I can’t effectively engage his position if I don’t
know what it is until his later speeches.
2. Vagueness is a moving target. Vagueness is unfair because he can just kick out of all my responses
by narrowing his advocacy down to something that my arguments don’t apply to anymore.

OBSERVATION 2: FAIRNESS IS A VOTING ISSUE.

Three reasons:
1. Fairness levels the playing field. A fair playing field is necessary to judge the round in terms of
which side did the better debating, and voting on theory is necessary because forcing me into a
theoretical discussion hinders my ability to engage any other arguments.
2. Fairness checks abuse. Fairness is a necessary check against abuse, otherwise debaters would always
have an incentive to utilize unfair arguments as no-risk issues.
3. Fairness is key to education. Fairness is more important than substance or any theoretical standards
because if debaters can’t fairly engage is substantive discussion they won’t have any incentive to debate,
meaning that we can’t access the benefits of education or any other standards.

OBSERVATION 3: VAGUENESS IS BAD FOR EDUCATION.

1. Instead of focusing on the issue, we're forced to focus on the technicalities in order to understand the
issue. This means less education overall in the round.

OBSERVATION 4: EDUCATION IS A VOTING ISSUE.

Three reasons:
1. It’s why we’re here. We’re here to debate in order to become better communicators and to learn
about the topic. If there’s no educational value, then we’re all spending a ton of money for nothing
except the opportunity to debate, which can easily be done for free at any public school.
2. Education permeates. Education is a voter because it contains actual out-of-round implications;
substantive discussion of the topic is valuable only insofar as it garners a link to education.
3. Most important. Education is more important than text or any other standards because if debate isn’t
educational then debaters would quit if they weren’t doing anything productive.
Will Malson NEG: “Love” Page 3 of 3

OBSERVATION 5: ERR NEG ON THEORY.

Four reasons:
1. Speech order. Aff gets to speak first and last; I’m caught in the middle.
2. Number of speeches. Aff gets three speeches; I only get two – they can refute everything I say,
always, I’m caught cramming everything into two time periods.
3. Prep. They have infinite prep time before the round, meaning I have to prep for all possible cases.
4. They present first. They speak first and thus get to present any case and value they want; I’m forced
to debate them on their turf. That’s a home-field advantage that needs to be checked back; you should
err neg on theory to make up for this.

OBSERVATION 6: REJECT AFFIRMATIVE.

Three reasons:
1. Sends a message. Rejecting the opposing team sends a swift and effective message that vagueness
will not be tolerated. Rather than beating around the bush, it lays down the law: that vagueness is a bad
procedure and should not be used.
2. Prevents future abuse. Sending a message that vagueness is bad can prevent future abuse. Once
debaters realize they’ll lose rounds if they keep things vague, they’ll clarify more.
3. Promotes fairness. Voting on theory makes the debate fairer to both sides – and remember – fairness
is a voting issue.