Generic K Answers

2AC- Generic K Frontline
1. Framework- The aff has to defend a topical plan and the neg has to defend a textually and functionally
competitive cp. Voting issue because
A. Ground- Changing the framework for the debate eliminates the 1AC since it was based in policy framework focused
governmental action. There are an infinite number of new frameworks which makes it impossible for the 2AC to predict
and generate offense.
B. Roleplaying gooddemocracy and peace

RAWLS 1999
(John Rawls, professor at Harvard, The Law of Peoples, p. 56-57)
How is the ideal of public reason realized by citizens who are not government officials? In a representative govemment, citizens vote for representatives-chief
executives, legislators, and the likenot for particular laws (except at a state or local level where they may vote directly on referenda questions, which are not usually
fundamental questions). To answer this question, we say that, ideally, citizens are to think of themselves as if they were legislators and ask
themselves what statutes, supported by what reasons satisfying the criterion of reciprocity, they would think it most reasonable to enact. When
firm and widespread, the disposition of citizens to view themselves as ideal legislators and to repudiate government officials and candidates for public
office who violate public reason, forms part of the political and social basis of liberal democracy and is vital for its enduring strength and
vigor. Thus in domestic society citizens fulfill their duty of civility and support the idea of public reason, while doing what they can to hold government officials to it.
This duty, like other political rights and duties, is an intrinsically moral duty. I emphasize that it is not a legal duty, for in that case it would be incompatible with
freedom of speech. Similarly, the ideal of the public reason of free and equal peoples is realized, or satisfied, whenever chief executives and legislators, and other
government officials, as well as candidates for public office, act from and follow the principles of the Law of Peoples and explain to other peoples their reasons for
pursuing or revising a people's foreign policy and affairs of state that involve other societies. As for private citizens, we say, as before, that ideally citizens are to think
of themselves as if they were executives and legislators and ask themselves what foreign policy supported by what considerations they would think it most reasonable to
advance. Once again, when firm and widespread, the disposition of citizens to view themselves as ideal executives and legislators, and to repudiate government officials
and candidates for public office who violate the public reason of free and equal peoples, is part of the political and social basis of peace and
understanding among peoples.
2. Realism inevitable- the anarchic system of international politics ensures that States will always be vying
for power, regardless of their visible intentions
Slater 09 (Hannah Louise, reviewing John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, November 25 2009, http://www.shvoong.com/law-andpolitics/politics/1949577-tragedy-great-power-politics/)
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics by John Mearsheimer, outlines his theory of Offensive Realism. It describes what motivates the international system and offers
historical explanations as well as future predictions.
The book begins with the central tenet of Offensive Realist theory: the international system is anarchic and this causes states to fear each other and
compete for power. A states ultimate aim is become a hegemon because this is most secure. Thus states are constantly trapped in security
competition, seeking to increase their share of world power. Mearsheimer argues that power is based on military capabilities a state possesses and the
strongest power is the state with the strongest army as only land power can win a major war alone. Latent power based upon population and wealth, which create large
armies- is significant but not as important as actual power. Hesitance about using nuclear weapons means land power remains the key measure of power, while this
hesitance means nuclear arsenals increase stability between great powers. Offensive Realism says configurations of power emerge across regions, affecting fear levels
between states. Fear levels determine the intensity of security competition and likelihood of war . Bipolarity causes least fear and is most stable,
unbalanced multipolarity causes most fear, thus is the least stable configuration; and multipolarity sits in between. Mearsheimer posits that large bodies of water
profoundly limit the power-projection capabilities of land forces, reducing fear and also explaining why there is no global hegemon. Offensive Realism says war is
inevitable and the author argues that China and the US are destined to be adversaries as growing Chinese economic might translates into military might.
Mearsheimer adds Offensive Realism to a long tradition of Realist theory, bringing some of his own ideas and combining others. He agrees with Waltzs
Defensive/Structural Realism that international anarchy causes states to engage in security competition. However he diverges from Waltz there saying, like
Morgenthaus Human Nature/Classic Realism, states will maximise their power constantly, striving ultimately for hegemony. He adds ideas such as
the stopping power of water and he has striven to ensure his is a workable theory for explaining the past and predicting the future, making his book a significant
contribution to the canon of International Relations theory. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics challenges the Liberal paradigm to a certain extent, but Mearsheimer
does this by using abundant examples to prove his points, rather than through dissecting Liberal theory. Instead he focuses more on critiquing Defensive Realism and
does this throughout the book. With regard to Liberalism, Mearsheimer says that cooperation between states does exist, but only to promote a states
selfish interests, not for the sake of world peace. Security competition remains essential in todays world which, despite international institutions,
remains anarchic. Indeed, such institutions are simply another arena for furthering national interests, he argues. So while Mearsheimers book does
refute Liberal ideas, it is not a detailed critique instead concentrating on making the case for Offensive Realism. A fascinating and in-depth addition to Realist thought,
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics is a good attempt to reveal what really causes war and conflict in the international system.
1
Property of Jessie Chen, the CEO of Asian Debate League All Copy Rights Reserved
3. Turn- Realism prevents war.

Realism is empirically proven to be successful and is the best way to avert war
Guzzini '98 Stefano Guzzini, Senior Researcher, research units on Danish and European foreign policy and on
Defence and security, 1998, Realism in
International Relations and International Political Economy: The Continuing Story of A Death Foretold, 30-31
The historical context of Munich and appeasement gave realism, as opposed to the idealist approaches
prevailing in the inter-war period, an enormous appeal. Carr and Morgenthau contributed to undermining the basic principles of what was
dubbed idealism (Carrs Utopianism). Morgenthau was crucial in securing the ascendancy of realism in the newly founded academic specialization of International
Relations. Carr used realist scepticism to criticize a great power of his day, his native Britain. He debunked the apparently universal harmony of interests as a status quo
power ideology. Yet Carrs scepticism produces a restless circle of criticism which is, as he acknowledged, self-contradicting. Moreover, Carrs scepticism is neither
able to define his exact mix of realism and idealism, nor to positively propose a coherent policy. Morgenthau, in his attempt to teach the diplomatic lessons of the past,
was torn between his earlier criticism (1946) of idealists who confounded politics with science, and his own attempt to replace idealism by a claim to the scientific
superiority of realism (1948, 1960). The result is a theory which must find conceptual bridges starting from the eternal laws of human nature, via the state as a unitary
actor, to a necessary balance of power theory. It is much more complex and contradictory than usually acknowledged. To take just one example, Kenneth Waltz (1959)
proposed a famous distinction between three images for understanding the causes of war. The first image is based on human nature, the second on the nature of the
political regime, and the third on the specific characteristics of the international realm (anarchy). Waltz plainly placed Morgenthau within the first category. Yet,
although Morgenthau derived power, and hence the essential characteristics of all politics including war, from human nature, he could also qualify for the other two
images. He argued that the typical war of the gruesome twentieth century was a result of the democratization, and hence nationalization of international politics. This
was how he called the shift to mass societies whose rulers have to respond to large constituencies. This is a form of a second image explanation. And finally, although it
is true that politics is about the struggle for power based on human nature, the specificity of the international realm, what he called multiplicity, explains why the
warlike struggle for power, while tamed at the domestic level, is endemic to the international level. How can Carr and Morgenthau, so different in style and content, and
whose approaches are filled with so many internal tensions, become major reference points for one school of thought? Obviously they were perceived mainly through
what they had in common, the critique of idealism and the priority given to power and politics. Hence, this chapter should also serve as a warning: as much as idealism
was often idealized to allow a realist critique, realism has often been demonized by its adversaries and misused by reactionary friends. The binary opposition of realism
realist world-view wants

to be pragmatic, not cynical. Its main purpose is the avoidance of great war through the management and limitation of
conflicts by a working balance of power supplemented by normative arrangements . Nevertheless, for realists, the struggle for
power will always arise. Conflicts cannot be abolished. For realists, foreign policy often brings choices that nobody wants to make.
Diplomats might at times have to gamble, but not because they like doing it. On the stage of world politics where brute forces can clash unfettered, diplomats
enter a theatre of tragedy. This is the fate of the statesman, who, in the writings of Morgenthau, but also Kennan and Kissinger,
appears as a romanticized heroic figure. Often misunderstood also by self-proclaimed realists, realist policy is not the external
projection of a military or even reactionary ideology; it is the constant adjustment to a bitter reality. For realists,
and idealism more often serves to provide observers and practitioners with an identity than it does to provide analytical clarity . The
Realpolitik is not a choice that can be avoided, it is a necessity which responsible actors have to moderate.
4. Permutation- Do the plan and all non-exclusive parts of the alternative.

Realism can be reflective and include reforms from critical theory while maintaining security. Our
advantages are a precondition for their alternative.
Murray 97
(Alastair, Professor in the Politics Department at the University of Wales Swansea, Reconstructing Realism)
For the realist, then, if rationalist theories prove so conservative as to make their adoption problematic, critical theories prove so progressive as to make their adoption
unattractive. If the former can justifiably be criticised for seeking to make a far from ideal order work more efficiently, thus perpetuating its existence and legitimating
its errors, reflectivist theory can equally be criticised for searching for a tomorrow which may never exist, thereby endangering the
possibility of establishing any form of stable order in the here and now. Realism's distinctive contribution thus lies in its attempt to drive a path between
the two, a path which, in the process, suggests the basis on which some form of synthesis between rationalism and reflectivism might be achieved. Oriented in its
genesis towards addressing the shortcomings in an idealist transformatory project, it is centrally motivated by a concern to reconcile vision with practicality, to relate
utopia and reality. Unifying a technical and a practical stance, it combines aspects of the positivist methodology employed by problem-solving theory with the
interpretative stance adopted by critical theory, avoiding the monism of perspective which leads to the self-destructive conflict between the two. Ultimately , it can
simultaneously acknowledge the possibility of change in the structure of the international system and the need to probe the limits of the possible,
and yet also question the proximity of any international transformation, emphasize the persistence of problems after such a transformation,
and serve as a reminder of the need to grasp whatever semblance of order can be obtained in the mean time. Indeed, it is possible to say that realism is
uniquely suited to serve as such an orientation. Simultaneously to critique contemporary resolutions of the problem of political authority as unsatisfactory and yet to
support them as an attainable measure of order in an unstable world involves one in a contradiction which is difficult to accept. Yet, because it grasps the essential
ambiguity of the political, and adopts imperfectionism as its dominant motif, realism can relate these two tasks in a way which allows neither to
predominate, achieving, if not a reconciliation, then at least a viable synthesis.
Perhaps the most famous realist refrain is that all politics are power
politics. It is the all that is important here. Realism lays claim to a relevance across systems, and because it relies on a conception of human nature, rather than a
historically specific structure of world politics, it can make good on this claim. If its observations about human nature are even remotely accurate, the problems that it
addresses will transcend contingent formulations of the problem of political order. Even in a genuine cosmopolis, conflict might become technical, but it would not be
eliminated altogether. The primary manifestations of power might become more economic or institutional rather than (para)military, but, where disagreements occur and
2
power exists, the employment of the one to ensure the satisfactory resolution of the other is inevitable short of a wholesale transformation of human behaviour. Power is
ultimately of the essence of politics; it is not something which can be banished, only tamed and restrained . As a result, realism achieves a universal relevance to the
allows it to relate the reformist zeal of critical theory, without which advance would be impossible, with the problemsensible caution that, before reform is attempted, whatever measure of security is possible under contemporary conditions must first be
ensured.
problem of political action which
solver's
5. Turn- Ontological technostrategic discourse is crucial to human existence.

Campbell, Prof IR @ Newcastle; 2k; Moral Spaces; P. 56
104. Ibid., 76-79. Levinas has also argues for a politics that respects a double injunction. When asked, Is not ethical obligation to the other a purely
negative ideal, impossible to realize in our everyday being-in-the-world, which is governed by ontological drives and practices; and Is ethics practicable in human
society as we know it? Or is it merely an invitation to apolitical acquiescence? Levinass response was that of course we inhibit an ontological world
of technological mastery and political self-preservation . Indeed, without these political and technological structures of
organization we would not be able to feed mankind. This is the greatest paradox of human existence: we must use the ontological for
the sake of the other, to ensure the survival of the other we must resort to the techno-political systems of means and ends.
Kearney and Levinas, Dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas, 28.
6. Aff outweighs- Elevating Human extinction to a real possibility encourages a new social ethic to
solve conflicts and gives meaning to life.

Epstein and Zhao 9 [Richard J. Epstein and Y. Zhao, Laboratory of Computational Oncology,Department of Medicine,University of Hong Kong,
Professorial Block, Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong. The Threat That Dare Not Speak Its Name: Human Extinction. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, volume
52, number 1 (winter 2009):11625. Project Muse]
Final ends for all species are the same, but the journeys will be different. If we cannot influence the end of our species, can we influence the journey? To do soeven in
a small waywould be a crowning achievement for human evolution and give new meaning to the term civilization. Only by elevating the topic of
human extinction to the level of serious professional discourse can we begin to prepare ourselves for the challenges that lie
ahead. The difficulty of the required transition should not be underestimated. This is depicted in Table 3 as a painful multistep progression from the 20th-century
philosophical norm of Ego-Thinkdefined therein as a short-term state of mind valuing individual material self-interest above all other considerationsto Eco-Think,
in which humans come to adopt a broader Gaia-like outlook on themselves as but one part of an infinitely larger reality. Making this change must involve
communicating the non-sensationalist message to all global citizens that things are serious and we are in this
togetheror, in blunter language, that the road to extinction and its related agonies does indeed lie ahead. Consistent with this prospect, the risks of human
extinctionand the cost-benefit of attempting to reduce these riskshave been quantified in a recent sobering analysis (Matheny 2007). Once complacency
has been shaken off and a sense of collective purpose created , the battle against self-seeking anthropocentric human instincts will have only
just begun. It is often said that human beings suffer from the ability to appreciate their own mortalityan existential agony that has given rise to the great religions
but in the present age of religious decline, we must begin to bear the added burden of anticipating the demise of our species. Indeed, as argued here, there are
compelling reasons for encouraging this collective mind-shift . For in the best of all possible worlds, the realization that our
species has long-term survival criteria distinct from our short-term tribal priorities could spark a new social ethic to
upgrade what we now all too often dismiss as human nature (Tudge 1989).
7. We must evaluate consequences- value to life arguments are absolutist and undermine the effectiveness
of their alternative.
Isaac 2
(Jeffrey, political science professor Indiana University, Ends, Means, and Politics, Dissent Magazine, Spring 2002)
Power is not a dirty word or an unfortunate feature of the world. It is the core of politics. Power is the ability to effect outcomes in the world. Politics, in large part, involves contests over the
To accomplish anything in the political world, one must attend to the means that are necessary
distribution and use of power.

to bring it about. And to develop such means is to develop, and to exercise, power. To say this is not to say that power is beyond morality. It is to say that power is not reducible to morality.
As writers such as Niccolo Machiavelli, Max Weber, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Hannah Arendt have taught, an
unyielding concern with moral goodness
undercuts political responsibility. The concern may be morally laudable, reflecting a kind of personal integrity, but it suffers from three fatal flaws: (1) It fails to see
that the purity of ones intention does not ensure the achievement of what one intends. Abjuring violence or refusing to make
common cause with morally compromised parties may seem like the right thing; but if such tactics entail impotence, then it is hard to view them as serving any moral
it fails to see that in a world of real violence and injustice, moral purity
is not simply a form of powerlessness; it is often a form of complicity in injustice. This is why, from the standpoint of politicsas opposed to
good beyond the clean con- science of their supporters; (2)
religionpacifism is always a potentially immoral stand. In categorically repudiating violence, it refuses in principle to oppose certain violent injustices with any effect; and
(3)
it fails to see that politics is as much about unintended consequences as it is about intentions; it is the effects of action, rather than
3
the motives of action, that is most significant. Just as the alignment with good may engender impotence, it is often the pursuit of good that generates evil.
This is the lesson of communism in the twentieth century: it is not enough that ones goals be sincere or idealistic; it is equally important, always, to ask about the
Moral absolutism inhibits this

judgment. It alienates those who are not true believers. It promotes arrogance. And it undermines political
effectiveness.
effects of pursuing these goals and to judge these effects in pragmatic and historically contextualized ways.
8. Turn- A) Collapse of the friend/enemy distinction leads to a global psychosis where war is inevitable
due to our inability to politically define enemy.
Reinhard; 2004 (Towards a political-theology of the neighbor; http://www.cjs.ucla.edu/Mellon/Towards_Political_Theology.pdf)
If the concept of the political is defined, as Carl Schmitt does, in terms of the Enemy/Friend opposition, the world we find ourselves in today is one from which the
political may have already disappeared, or at least has muted into some strange new shape. A world not anchored by the us and them binarisms
is one subject to radical instability, both subjectively and politically, as Jacques Derrida points out in The
The effects of this destructuration would be countless: it would multiply little wars between nation-states; it
would sustain at any price so-called ethnic or genocidal struggles; it would seek to pose itself, to find repose, through opposing still identifiable
adversaries- China, Islam? Enemies without whichit would lose its political beingwithout an enemy, and therefore without friends,
where does one then find oneself, qua a self? (PF 77).
If one accepts Schmitts account of the political, the disappearance of the enemy results in something like global psychosis: since the
mirroring relationship between Us and Them provides a form of stability, albeit one based on projective identifications and repudiations, the
loss of the enemy threatens to destroy what Lacan calls the imaginary tripod that props up the psychotic with a sort of pseudo-subjectivity, until something
causes it to collapse, resulting in full-blown delusions, hallucinations, and paranoia. Hence, for Schmitt, a world without enemies is
much more dangerous than one where one is surrounded by enemies; as Derrida writes, the disappearance of the enemy opens the door for
an unheard-of violence, the evil of a malice knowing neither measure nor ground, an unleashing incommensurable in its unprecedented- therefore
monstrous- forms; a violence in the face of which what is called hostility, war, conflict, enmity, cruelty, even hatred, would regain reassuring and ultimately
that flourished as recently as the Cold War
Politics of Friendship:
appeasing contours, because they would be identifiable (PF 83).
B) That enables nuclear war.

Laclau; 2005 (Ernesto; CR: New Centennial Review; 5:1; On Real and Absolute Enemies)
A central point of Schmitts argument is that the hostility of the partisan war recognized a series of limitations . These came, on the one hand,
from the presence of what he calls the interested third, the friend that makes possible the connection between the regular and the irregular. This is a political
limitation, e.g., the recognition, in the Spanish case, of that political character of the struggle of the Empencinado by the regular army and by England. In the same
way, the telluric character of the partisans war gives the struggle a mainly defensive character. But the absolutization of the political nature of the opposition
friend/enemy leads to an equally necessary absolutization of the conflict. Clausewitz had already spoken of absolute war but had never put into the question the
turns the real enemy into an

absolute one. The Party becomes the incarnation of an absolute hostility. In the same way, the development of nuclear arms in the present age
opens the possibility of a type of conflict that declares the whole adversarial camp a criminal one, which has to be entirely
eliminated. The limits to the criminalization of the adversary that had been achieved in the jus publicum europeum have been
succeeded by a total war that transforms the real enemy into an absolute one.
regularity of an existing State. With Lenin, however, the civil war struggle of a party of a party of professional revolutionaries
9. Their alternative is incapable of making material change in the world they leave the victims of
violence helpless and leave power where it is in the world
Booth 2005 (Ken, Professor of International Politics at the University of WalesAberystwyth, Critical Security Studies and
World Politics, p. 270-71, footnote on 277)

Postmodern/poststructural
engagement with the subject of security in international relations has been characterized by some of the
general problems of the genre, notably obscurantism, relativism, and faux radicalism.26 What has particularly troubled critics of the postmodern sensibility has
been the latter's underlying conception of politics.27 Terry Eagleton, for one, has praised the "rich body of work" by postmodern writers in some areas but at the same
time has contested the genre's "cultural relativism and moral conventionalism, its scepticism, pragmatism and localism, its distaste for ideas of solidarity and disciplined
organization, [and] its lack of any adequate theory of political agency."28 Eagleton made these comments as part of a general critique of the postmodern sensibility, but
I would argue that specific writing on security in international relations from postmodern and poststructuralist perspectives has generally done nothing to ease such
writers, studying
particular political contexts, such as postapartheid South Africa, have shown similar worries; they have questioned the lack of concrete or
concerns. Eagleton's fundamental worry was how postmodernism would "shape up" to the test of fascism as a serious political challenge. Other
4
specific resources that such theories can add to the repertoire of reconstruction strategies.29 Richard A. Wilson, an
anthropologist interested in human rights, has generalized exactly the same concern, namely, that the postmodernist rejection of metanarratives and
universal solidarities does not deliver a helpful politics to people in trouble. As he puts it, "Rights without a metanarrative
are like a car without seat-belts; on hitting the first moral bump with ontological implications, the passenger's
safety is jeopardised."30 The struggle within South Africa to bring down the institutionalized racism of apartheid benefited greatly from the growing strength
of universal human rights values (which delegitimized racism and legitimized equality) and their advocacy by groups in different countries and cultures showing their
political solidarity in material and other ways. Anxiety about the politics of postmodernism and poststructuralism is provoked, in part, by the negative conceptualization
of security projected by their exponents. The
poststructuralist approach seems to assume that security cannot be common or positive-sum
but must
always be zero-sum, with somebody's security always being at the cost of the insecurity of others. At the same time, security itself is questioned as
writers that the search for security is necessarily conservative and will result in
negative consequences for somebody. They tend also to celebrate insecurity, which I regard as a middle-class affront to the truly
insecure.31
a desirable goal for societies because of the assumption of poststructuralist
Cut to footnote on page 277

31. Examples
of the approach are Dillon, The Politics of Security; and Der Derian, The Value of Security, in Lipschutz (ed.), On Security.
In the shadow of such views, it is not surprising that the postmodern/poststructuralist genre is sometimes seen as having affinities with realism. Political realists
and poststructuralists seem to share a fatalistic view that humans are doomed to insecurity; regard the search for
emancipation as both futile and dangerous; believe in a notion of the human condition; and relativize norms. Both leave power where it is in the
world: deconstruction and deterrence are equally static theories.
5
1AR Generic K Ext- Framework

Alt fails and policy frameworks better even if fiats not real.
Bryant 12
(Levi Bryant is currently a Professor of Philosophy at Collin College. In addition to working as a professor, Bryant has also served as a Lacanian psychoanalyst. He
received his Ph.D. from Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, where he originally studied 'disclosedness' with the Heidegger scholar Thomas Sheehan. Bryant later
changed his dissertation topic to the transcendental empiricism of Gilles Deleuze, Critique of the Academic Left,
http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/underpants-gnomes-a-critique-of-the-academic-left/)
Unfortunately, the academic left falls prey to its own form of abstraction. Its good at carrying out critiques that denounce various social formations, yet very poor at proposing any sort of realistic constructions of alternatives. This because it thinks abstractly in its own
way, ignoring how networks, assemblages, structures, or regimes of attraction would have to be remade to create a workable alternative. Here Im reminded by the underpants gnomes depicted in South Park: The underpants gnomes have a plan for achieving profit
Our plan seems to be as follows :

Phase 1: Ultra- Radical Critique Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Revolution and complete social transformation! Our problem is that we seem perpetually stuck at phase 1
without ever explaining what is to be done at phase 2. Often the critiques articulated at phase 1 are right , but there are nonetheless all sorts of problems with those critiques nonetheless. In order to reach phase 3, we have
to produce new collectives. In order for new collectives to be produced, people need to be able to hear and understand the critiques developed at phase 1. Yet this is where everything begins to fall apart. Even though these critiques are
that goes like this: Phase 1: Collect Underpants Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit! They even have a catchy song to go with their work: Well this is sadly how it often is with the academic left.
often right, we express them in ways that only an academic with a PhD in critical theory and post-structural theory can understand. How exactly is Adorno to produce an effect in the world if only PhDs in the humanities can understand him? Who are these things for?
We seem to always ignore these things and then look down our noses with disdain at the Naomi Kleins and David Graebers of the world. To make matters worse, we publish our work in expensive academic journals that only universities can afford, with presses that
dont have a wide distribution, and give our talks at expensive hotels at academic conferences attended only by other academics. Again, who are these things for? Is it an accident that so many activists look away from these things with contempt, thinking their more
about an academic industry and tenure, than producing change in the world? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, it doesnt make a sound! Seriously dudes and dudettes, what are you doing? But finally, and worst of all, us Marxists and anarchists all
too often act like assholes. We denounce others, we condemn them, we berate them for not engaging with the questions we want to engage with, and we vilify them when they dont embrace every bit of the doxa that we endorse. We are every bit as off-putting and
unpleasant as the fundamentalist minister or the priest of the inquisition (have people yet understood that Deleuze and Guattaris Anti-Oedipus was a critique of the French communist party system and the Stalinist party system, and the horrific passions that arise out of
This type of revolutionary is the greatest friend of the reactionary and capitalist because they do more to drive
people in to the embrace of reigning ideology than to undermine reigning ideology. These are the people that keep Rush Limbaugh in business. Well done! But this isnt where our most serious shortcomings lie. Our
most serious shortcomings are to be found at phase 2. We almost never make concrete proposals for how things ought to be restructured, for what new
parties and identifications in general?).
material infrastructures and semiotic fields need to be produced, and when we do, our critique-intoxicated cynics and skeptics immediately jump in with an analysis of all the ways in which these things contain dirty secrets, ugly motives, and are doomed to fail.
How , I wonder, are we to do anything at all when we have no concrete proposals? We live on a planet of 6 billion people. These 6 billion people are dependent on a certain network of production and distribution to meet the needs of their consumption. That
network of production and distribution does involve the extraction of resources, the production of food, the maintenance of paths of transit and communication, the disposal of waste, the building of shelters, the distribution of medicines, etc., etc., etc. What are your
proposals? How will you meet these problems? How will you navigate the existing mediations or semiotic and material features of infrastructure? Marx and Lenin had proposals. Do you? Have you even explored the cartography of the problem? Today we are so
intellectually bankrupt on these points that we even have theorists speaking of events and acts and talking about a return to the old socialist party systems, ignoring the horror they generated, their failures, and not even proposing ways of avoiding the repetition of these
horrors in a new system of organization. Who among our critical theorists is thinking seriously about how to build a distribution and production system that is responsive to the needs of global consumption, avoiding the problems of planned economy, ie., who is doing
this in a way that gets notice in our circles? Who is addressing the problems of micro-fascism that arise with party systems (theres a reason that it was the Negri & Hardt contingent, not the Badiou contingent that has been the heart of the occupy movement). At least the
ecologists are thinking about these things in these terms because, well, they think ecologically. Sadly we need something more, a melding of the ecologists, the Marxists, and the anarchists. Were not getting it yet though, as far as I can tell. Indeed, folks seem attracted
to yet another critical paradigm, Laruelle. I would love, just for a moment, to hear a radical environmentalist talk about his ideal high school that would be academically sound. How would he provide for the energy needs of that school? How would he meet building
codes in an environmentally sound way? How would she provide food for the students? Wh a t would be her plan for waste disposal? And most importantly, how would she navigate the school board, the state legislature, the federal government, and all the families of
What is your plan? What is your alternative? I think there are alternatives. I saw one that approached an alternative in Rotterdam. If you want to make a truly revolutionary
contribution, this is where you should start. Why should anyone even bother listening to you if you arent proposing real plans? But we havent even gotten to that point. Instead were like underpants gnomes, saying
these students?
revolution is the answer! without addressing any of the infrastructural questions of just how revolution is to be produced, what alternatives it would offer, and how we would concretely go about building those alternatives. Masturbation. Underpants gnome
deserves to be a category in critical theory; a sort of synonym for self-congratulatory masturbation.
We need less critique not because critique isnt important or necessary it is but because we know the critiques , we know the
What we need today , more
problems . Were intoxicated with critique because its easy and safe. We best every opponent with critique. We occupy a position of moral superiority with critique. But do we really do anything with critique?
than ever,
is composition or carpentry. Everyone knows something is wrong. Everyone knows this system is destructive and stacked against them. Even the Tea Party knows something is wrong with the economic system, despite having the
wrong economic theory. None of us, however, are proposing alternatives . Instead we prefer to shout and denounce. Good luck with that.
Policy details are key abstract rhetoric devices ensure failure

Galles 9 (Gary M, Professor of economics @ Pepperdine University, The Orange Grove: Obama health plan; we need
details, March 3, 2009, http://www.ocregister.com/articles/details-25757-proposals-obama.html)//ghs-VA
The problem with such vagueness is that any informed public policy decision has to be based on specific
proposals . Absent concrete details, which is where the devil lurks, no one--including those proposing a "reform"-can judge how it would fare or falter in the real world. So when the President wants approval for a proposal which offers too few details
for evaluation, we must ask why. Like private sector salesmen, politicians strive to present their wares as attractively as possible. Unlike them, however , a
politician's product line consists of claimed consequences of proposals not yet enacted. Further, politicians are
unconstrained by truth in advertising laws, which would require that claims be more than misleading half-truths; they have fewer competitors keeping them honest; and
they face "customers"--voters-- far more ignorant about the merchandise involved than those spending their own money. These differences from the private sector
explain why politicians' "sales pitches" for their proposals are so vague. However, if
vague proposals are the best politicians can offer,

they are inadequate. If rhetoric is unmatched by specifics , there is no reason to believe a policy change
will be an improvement, because no reliable way exists to determine whether it will actually accomplish
what is promised. Only the details will determine the actual incentives facing the decision-makers
involved, which is the only way to forecast the results, including the myriad of unintended consequences from unnoticed aspects. We
must remember that, however laudable, goals and promises and claims of cost-effectiveness that are inconsistent with the incentives created will go unmet. It may be
6
that President Obama knows too little of his "solution" to provide specific plans. If so, he knows too little to deliver on his promises. Achieving intended goals then
necessarily depends on blind faith that Obama and a panoply of bureaucrats, legislators, overseers and commissions will somehow adequately grasp the entire situation,
know precisely what to do about it, and do it right (and that the result will not be too painful, however serious the problem)--a prospect that, due to the painful lessons of
history, attracts few real believers. Alternatively, President Obama may know the details of what he intends, but is not providing them to the public. But if it is
necessary to conceal a plan's details to put the best possible public face on it, those details must be adverse. If they made a more persuasive sales pitch, a politician
would not hide actual details. They would be trumpeted at every opportunity, proving to a skeptical public he really had the answers, since concealing rather than
revealing pays only when better informed citizens would be more inclined to reject a plan. Claiming adherence to elevated principles, but keeping detailed proposals
from sight, also has a strategic advantage. It defuses critics. Absent
details, any criticism can be parried by saying "that was not

in our proposal" or "we have no plans to do that" or other rhetorical devices. It also allows a candidate to incorporate
alternatives proposed as part of his evolving reform, as if it was his idea all along. The new administration has already put vague proposals on prominent display.
However, adequate analysis cannot rest upon such flimsy foundations. That requires the nuts and bolts so glaringly absent. In the private
sector, people don't spend their own money on such vague promises of unseen products. It is foolhardy to act any differently when political salesmen withhold specifics,
because political
incentives guarantee that people would object to what is kept hidden. So while vagueness
may be good political strategy, it virtually ensures bad policy , if Americans' welfare is the criterion.
Alternative frameworks are potentially limitless
Mearsheimer 95 (John, Professor of Political Science U Chicago, International Security, Winter)
Nevertheless, critical theorists readily acknowledge that realism has been the dominant interpretation of international politics for almost seven hundred years. Realism
is a name for a discourse of power and rule in modern global life. Still, critical theory allows for change, and there is no reason, according to the theory anyway, why a
communitarian discourse of peace and harmony cannot supplant the realist discourse of security competition and war. In fact, change is always possible with
critical theory because it allows for an unlimited number of discourses, and it makes no judgment about the merit or staying power of
any particular one. Also, critical theory makes no judgment about whether human beings are hard-wired to be good or bad, but instead treats people as infinitely
changeable.
Fairness doesnt just matter in the abstract its key to a balanced dialogue and developing research,
critical thinking, and decisionmaking skills
Galloway, 7 Professor, Communication Studies, Samford University (Ryan, Dinner and Conversation at the
Argumentative Table: Reconceptualizing Debate as an Argumentative Dialogue, Contemporary Argumentation
and Debate, Vol. 28, 5-7, http://www.cedadebate.org/files/2007CAD.pdf)//SY
Debate as a dialogue sets an argumentative table, where all parties receive a relatively fair opportunity to voice
their position. Anything that fails to allow participants to have their position articulated denies one side of the
argumentative table a fair hearing. The affirmative side is set by the topic and fairness requirements. While affirmative teams have recently resisted affirming the
topic, in fact, the topic selection process is rigorous, taking the relative ground of each topic as its central point of
departure. Setting the affirmative reciprocally sets the negative. The negative crafts approaches to the topic consistent with affirmative
demands. The negative crafts disadvantages, counter-plans, and critical arguments premised on the arguments that the topic allows for the affirmative team. According
to fairness norms, each side sits at a relatively balanced argumentative table. When
one side takes more than its share, competitive equity

suffers. However, it also undermines the respect due to the other involved in the dialogue. When one side
excludes the other, it fundamentally denies the personhood of the other participant (Ehninger, 1970, p. 110). A pedagogy of
debate as dialogue takes this respect as a fundamental component. A desire to be fair is a fundamental condition of a dialogue that
takes the form of a demand for equality of voice. Far from being a banal request for links to a disadvantage,
fairness is a demand for respect, a demand to be heard, a demand that a voice backed by literally months upon months
of preparation, research, and critical thinking not be silenced. Affirmative cases that suspend basic fairness
norms operate to exclude particular negative strategies. Unprepared, one side comes to the argumentative table
unable to meaningfully participate in a dialogue. They are unable to understand what went on and are left to the whims of time and power
(Farrell, 1985, p. 114). Hugh Duncan furthers this line of reasoning: Opponents not only tolerate but honor and respect each other because in doing so they enhance
their own chances of thinking better and reaching sound decisions. Opposition
is necessary because it sharpens thought in action. We

assume that argument, discussion, and talk, among free an informed people who subordinate themselves to rules of discussion, are the best ways to
decisions of any kind, because it is only through such discussion that we reach agreement which binds us to a common
causeIf we are to be equalrelationships among equals must find expression in many formal and informal institutions (Duncan, 1993, p. 196-197).
Debate compensates for the exigencies of the world by offering a framework that maintains equality for the sake
of the conversation (Farrell, 1985, p. 114). For example, an affirmative case on the 2007-2008 college topic might defend neither state nor international action
7
in the Middle East, and yet claim to be germane to the topic in some way. The
case essentially denies the arguments that state action is

oppressive or that actions in the international arena are philosophically or pragmatically suspect. Instead of allowing for
the dialogue to be modified by the interchange of the affirmative case and the negative response, the affirmative subverts any meaningful role to
the negative team, preventing them from offering effective counter-word and undermining the value of a meaningful exchange of
speech acts. Germaneness and other substitutes for topical action do not accrue the dialogical benefits of
topical advocacy.
Without predictable ground, debate becomes meaningless and produces a political strategy wedded to violence
Shively 00 (Ruth Lessl, Assistant Prof Political Science Texas A&M U., Partisan Politics and Political Theory, p. 182)
The point may seem trite, as surely the ambiguists would agree that basic terms must be shared before they can be resisted and problematized. In fact, they
are often very candid about this seeming paradox in their approach: the paradoxical or "parasitic" need of the subversive for an order to subvert. But admitting the
paradox is not helpful if, as usually happens here, its implications are ignored; or if the only implication drawn is that order or harmony is an unhappy fixture of human
life. For what the paradox should tell us is that some kinds of harmonies or orders are, in fact, good for resistance ; and some ought to be fully
supported. As such, it should counsel against the kind of careless rhetoric that lumps all orders or harmonies together as arbitrary and
inhumane. Clearly some basic accord about the terms of contest is a necessary ground for all further contest. It may be that if the ambiguists
wish to remain full-fledged ambiguists, they cannot admit to these implications, for to open the door to some agreements or reasons as good and some orders as helpful
or necessary, is to open the door to some sort of rationalism. Perhaps they might just continue to insist that this initial condition is ironic, but that the irony should not
stand in the way of the real business of subversion. Yet difficulties remain. For agreement is not simply the initial condition, but the continuing
ground, for contest. If we are to successfully communicate our disagreements, we cannot simply agree on basic terms and then proceed to
debate without attention to further agreements. For debate and contest are forms of dialogue: that is, they are activities premised on the building of
progressive agreements. Imagine, for instance, that two people are having an argument about the issue of gun control. As noted earlier, in any argument, certain
initial agreements will be needed just to begin the discussion. At the very least, the two discussants must agree on basic terms: for example, they must have some
shared sense of what gun control is about; what is at issue in arguing about it; what facts are being contested, and so on. They must also agreeand they do so
simply by entering into debatethat they will not use violence or threats in making their cases and that they are willing to listen to, and to
be persuaded by, good arguments. Such agreements are simply implicit in the act of argumentation.
Basic limits are necessary to effective resistance -- they govern deliberative democracy and are essential to prevent violence
and tyranny
Shively 00 (Ruth Lessl, Assistant Prof Political Science Texas A&M U., Partisan Politics and Political Theory, p. 184)
The point here is that in
arguingand the point holds equally for other forms of contestwe assume that it is possible to educate or
persuade one another. We assume that it is possible to come to more mutual understandings of an issue and that the
participants in an argument are open to this possibility. Otherwise, there is no point to the exercise; we are simply talking at or past
one another. At this point, the ambiguists might respond that, even if there are such rules of argument, they do not
apply to the more subversive or radical activities they have in mind. Subversion is, after all, about questioning and undermining such
seemingly necessary or universal rules of behavior. But, again, the response to the ambiguist must be that the
practice of questioning and undermining rules, like all other social practices, needs a certain order. The
subversive needs rules to protect subversion. And when we look more closely at the rules protective of
subversion, we find that they are roughly the rules of argument discussed above. In fact, the rules of argument are
roughly the rules of democracy or civility: the delineation of boundaries necessary to protect speech and action
from violence, manipulation and other forms of tyranny. Earlier we asked how the ambiguists distinguish legitimate political behaviors,
like contest or resistance, from illegitimate behaviors, like cruelty and subjugation. We find a more complete answer here. The former are legitimate because they have
civil or rational persuasion as their end. That is, legitimate
forms of contest and resistance seek to inform or convince others by

appeal to reasons rather than by force or manipulation. The idea is implicit in democracy because democracy
implies a basic respect for self-determination: a respect for peoples rights to direct their own lives as much as
possible by their own choices, to work and carry on relationships as they see fit, to participate in community and politics according to decisions freely
made by them rather than decisions forced on them, and so on. Thus, to say that rational persuasion is the end of political action is
simply to acknowledge that, in democratic politics, this is the way we show respect for others capacities for
self-direction. In public debate, our goal is to persuade others with ideas that they recognize as true rather than by trying to
manipulate them or move them without their conscious, rational assent.
8
Debate inevitably involves exclusions and normative constraints---making sure that those
exclusions occur along reciprocal lines is necessary to foster democratic habits which solves the
case
Amanda Anderson 6, prof of English at Johns Hopkins The Way We Argue Now, 33-6
In some ways, this is understandable as utopian writing, with recognizable antecedents throughout the history of leftist thought. But what
is distinctive in
Butlers writing is the way temporal rhetoric emerges precisely at the site of uneasy normative commitment . In the
case of performative subversion, a futural rhetoric displaces the problems surrounding agency, symbolic constraint, and
poststructuralist ethics. Since symbolic constraint is constitutive of who we can become and what we can enact, 34 there is clearly no way to truly envision a
reworked symbolic. And since embracing an alternative symbolic would necessarily involve the imposition of newly
exclusionary and normalizing norms , to do more than gesture would mean lapsing into the very practices that need to be superseded. Indeed, despite
Butlers insistence in Feminist Contentions that we must always risk new foundations, she evinces a fastidious reluctance to do so herself. The forward-looking
articulation of performative politics increasingly gives way, in Bodies That Matter, to a more reflective, and now strangely belated, antiexclusionary politics. Less
sanguine about the efficacy of outright subversion, Butler more soberly attends to ways we might respond to the politically and
ontologically necessary error of identity categories. We cannot choose not to put such categories into play, but once
they are in play, we can begin to interrogate them for the exclusions they harbor and generate . Butler here is closely following
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivaks position on essentialism, a position Butler earlier sought to sublate through the more exclusive emphasis on the unremitting subversion of
identity.18 If performative subversion aimed to denaturalize identity and thus derail its pernicious effects , here, by contrast,
one realizes the processes of identity formation will perforce proceed, and one simply attempts to register and
redress those processes in a necessarily incomplete way. The production of exclusion, or a constitutive outside, is [butler quote starts] the
necessary and founding violence of any truth-regime, but we should not simply accept that fact passively: The task is to refigure this necessary
outside as a future horizon, one in which the violence of exclusion is perpetually in the process of being
overcome. But of equal importance is the preservation of the outside, the site where discourse meets its limits , where
the opacity of what is not included in a given regime of truth acts as a disruptive site of linguistic impropriety and
unrepresentability, illuminating the violent and contingent boundaries of that normative regime precisely through
the inability of that regime to represent that which might pose a fundamental threat to its continuity . . . . If there is a
violence necessary to the language of politics, then the risk of that violation might well be followed by another in which we begin, without ending, without mastering, to
ownand yet never fully to ownthe exclusions by which we proceed. (BTM, 53) [butler quote ends]Because the exclusionary process is productive of who and what
we are, even in our oppositional politics, our attempts to acknowledge and redress it are always post hoc. Here the future horizon is ever-receding 35 precisely because
our own belated making of amends will never, and should never, tame the contingency that also begets violence. But the question arises: does Butler ever propose that
we might use the evaluative criteria governing that belated critical recognition to guard against such processes of exclusion in the first place? Well, in rare moments she
does project the possibility of cultivating practices that would actually disarm exclusion (and I will be discussing one such moment presently). But she invariably
returns to the bleak insistence on the impossibility of ever achieving this. This retreat is necessitated , fundamentally, by Butlers failure to
distinguish evaluative criteria from the power-laden mechanisms of normalization . Yet the distinction does reappear,
unacknowledged, in the rhetoric of belatedness, which, like performative thresholdism, serves to underwrite her political purism. As
belated, the incomplete acts of owning ones exclusions are more seemingly reactive and can appear not to be themselves normatively implicated. We can see a
similar maneuver in Butlers discussion of universalist traditions in Feminist Contentions. Here she insists that Benhabibs universalism is perniciously grounded
in a transcendental account of language (communicative reason), and is hence not
able to examine its own exclusionary effects or situated

quality (FC, 12832). This is, to begin with, a mischaracterization. Benhabibs account of communicative reason is
historically situated (if somewhat loosely within the horizon of modernity) and aims to justify an ongoing and self-critical process of
interactive universalismnot merely through the philosophical project of articulating a theory of universal pragmatics but more significantly through the
identification and cultivation of practices that enable democratic will formation.19 Butler then introduces, in contrast to Benhabib, an exemplary practice of what she
calls misappropriating universals (Paul Gilroys The Black Atlantic is cited here). Now, it is hard not to see this as a species of dogmatism. Bad people reinscribe or
reinforce universals, good people misappropriate them. Benhabib calls for the reconstruction of Enlightenment universals, but presumably even reconstruction is
tainted. The key point, however, is that misappropriation is a specifically protected derivative process, one whose own
belatedness and honorific disobedience are guaranteed to displace the violence of its predecessor discourse . Let me
pursue here for a moment why I find this approach unsatisfactory. Simply because the activity of acknowledging exclusion or misappropriating universals
is belated or derivative does not mean that such 36 an activity is not itself as powerfully normative as the normative political philosophy to which Butler refers
with such disdain. There is a sleight of hand occurring here: Butler attempts to imply that because such activities exist at a temporal and critical remove from founding
regimes of truth, they more successfully avoid the insidious ruse of critical theory. But whos rusing who here? Because Butler finds it impossible to conceive of
normativity outside of normalization, she evades the challenging task of directly confronting her own normative assumptions.
Yet Butler in fact advocates ethical practices that are animated by the same evaluative principles as communicative
ethics: the rigorous scrutiny of all oppositional discourse for its own newly generated exclusions , and the reconfiguration of
9
debilitating identity terms such as women as sites of permanent openness and resignifiability (FC, 50). Both these central practices rely
fundamentally
on democratic principles of inclusion and open contestation. Communicative ethics does no more than to clarify
where among our primary social practices we might locate the preconditions for such activities of critique and
transformation. By justifying its own evaluative assumptions and resources it aims not to posit a realm free of power but rather to clarify our own ongoing
critiques of power. This does not mean that such critiques will not themselves require rigorous scrutiny for harboring
blindnesses and further exclusions, but neither does it mean that such critiques will necessarily be driven by
exclusionary logic. And communicative ethics is by no means a merely theoretical or philosophical project
inasmuch as it can identify particular social and institutional practices that foster democratic ends . By casting all
attempts to characterize such practices as pernicious normalizing, Butler effectively disables her own project and
leaves herself no recourse but to issue dogmatic condemnations and approvals .
The impact outweighsdeliberative debate models impart skills vital to respond to existential
threats
Christian O. Lundberg 10 Professor of Communications @ University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Tradition of
Debate in North Carolina in Navigating Opportunity: Policy Debate in the 21st Century By Allan D. Louden, p. 311
The second major problem with the critique that identifies a naivety in articulating debate and democracy is that it presumes that the primary pedagogical outcome of
debate is speech capacities. But the democratic capacities built by debate are not limited to speechas indicated earlier, debate builds capacity for
critical thinking, analysis of public claims, informed decision making, and better public judgment. If the picture of
modern political life that underwrites this critique of debate is a pessimistic view of increasingly labyrinthine and
bureaucratic administrative politics, rapid scientific and technological change outpacing the capacities of the citizenry to comprehend them, and everexpanding insular special-interest- and money-driven politics, it is a puzzling solution, at best, to argue that these conditions warrant giving up on debate. If democracy
is open to rearticulation, it is open to rearticulation precisely because as the challenges of modern political life proliferate, the citizenry's capacities can
change, which is one of the primary reasons that theorists of democracy such as Ocwey in The Public awl Its Problems place such a high premium on education
(Dewey 1988,63, 154). Debate provides an indispensible form of education in the modem articulation of democracy
because it builds precisely the skills that allow the citizenry to research and be informed about policy decisions that
impact them, to sort through and evaluate the evidence for and relative merits of arguments for and against a
policy in an increasingly information-rich environment, and to prioritize their time and political energies toward
policies that matter the most to them. The merits of debate as a tool for building democratic capacity-building take on a special significance in the context of
information literacy. John Larkin (2005, HO) argues that one of the primary failings of modern colleges and universities is that they have not changed curriculum to
match with the challenges of a new information environment. This is a problem for the course of academic study in our current context, but perhaps more important,
argues Larkin, for the future of a citizenry that will need to make evaluative choices against an increasingly complex and
multimediated information environment (ibid-). Larkin's study tested the benefits of debate participation on information-literacy skills and concluded
that in-class debate participants reported significantly higher self-efficacy ratings of their ability to navigate academic search databases and to effectively search and use
other Web resources: To analyze the self-report ratings of the instructional and control group students, we first conducted a multivariate analysis of variance on all of the
ratings, looking jointly at the effect of instmction/no instruction and debate topic . . . that it did not matter which topic students had been assigned . . . students in the
Instnictional [debate) group were significantly more confident in their ability to access information and less likely to feel that they needed help to do so----These
findings clearly indicate greater self-efficacy for online searching among students who participated in (debate).... These results constitute strong support for the
effectiveness of the project on students' self-efficacy for online searching in the academic databases. There was an unintended effect, however: After doing ... the
project, instructional group students also felt more confident than the other students in their ability to get good information from Yahoo and Google. It may be that the
library research experience increased self-efficacy for any searching, not just in academic databases. (Larkin 2005, 144) Larkin's study substantiates Thomas Worthcn
and Gaylcn Pack's (1992, 3) claim that debate in the college classroom plays a critical role in fostering the kind of problem-solving skills demanded by the increasingly
rich media and information environment of modernity. Though their essay was written in 1992 on the cusp of the eventual explosion of the Internet as a medium,
Worthcn and Pack's framing of the issue was prescient: the primary question facing today's student has changed from how to best research a topic to the crucial question
of learning how to best evaluate which arguments to cite and rely upon from an easily accessible and veritable cornucopia of materials. There are, without a doubt, a
number of important criticisms of employing debate as a model for democratic deliberation. But cumulatively, the evidence presented here warrants
strong support for expanding debate practice in the classroom as a technology for enhancing democratic
deliberative capacities. The unique combination of critical thinking skills, research and information processing
skills, oral communication skills, and capacities for listening and thoughtful, open engagement with hotly contested
issues argues for debate as a crucial component of a rich and vital democratic life . In-class debate practice both aids students in
achieving the best goals of college and university education, and serves as an unmatched practice for creating thoughtful, engaged,
open-minded and self-critical students who are open to the possibilities of meaningful political engagement and new
articulations of democratic life. Expanding this practice is crucial, if only because the more we produce citizens that can actively and
effectively engage the political process, the more likely we are to produce revisions of democratic life that are
necessary if democracy is not only to survive, but to thrive. Democracy faces a myriad of challenges, including:
10
domestic and international issues of class, gender, and racial justice; wholesale environmental destruction and the
potential for rapid climate change; emerging threats to international stability in the form of terrorism, intervention and new possibilities for great power conflict;
and increasing challenges of rapid globalization including an increasingly volatile global economic structure . More than any specific policy or
proposal, an informed and active citizenry that deliberates with greater skill and sensitivity provides one of the
best hopes for responsive and effective democratic governance, and by extension, one of the last best hopes for dealing with the existential challenges to
democracy [in an] increasingly complex world.
Role-playing as public actors shatters apathy and political alienation, which is critical to check inequality and
exploitation
Mitchell 2K
(Gordon, Director of Debate and Professor of Communication U. Pittsburgh, Simulated Public Argument As Pedagogical Play on
Worlds, Argumentation & Advocacy, Vol. 36, No. 3, Winter)
When we assume the posture of the other in dramatic performance, we tap into who we are as persons, since our interpretation of others is
deeply colored by our own senses of selfhood. By encouraging experimentation in identity construction, role-play "helps students discover
divergent viewpoints and overcome stereotypes as they examine subjects from multiple perspectives..." (Moore, p. 190). Kincheloe points to
the importance of this sort of reflexive critical awareness as an essential feature of educational practice in postmodern times. "Applying the
notion of the postmodern analysis of the self, we come to see that hyperreality invites a heteroglossia of being," Kincheloe explains; "Drawing upon a multiplicity of
voices, individuals live out a variety of possibilities, refusing to suppress particular voices. As men and women appropriate the various forms of expression, they are
empowered to uncover new dimensions of existence that were previously hidden" (1993, p. 96). This process is
particularly crucial in the public

argument context, since a key guarantor of inequality and exploitation in contemporary society is the widespread and uncritical
acceptance by citizens of politically inert self-identities. The problems of political alienation, apathy and withdrawal have
received lavish treatment as perennial topics of scholarly analysis (see e.g. Fishkin 1997; Grossberg 1992; Hart 1998; Loeb 1994). Unfortunately,
comparatively less energy has been devoted to the development of pedagogical strategies for countering this alarming political trend. However, some
scholars have taken up the task of theorizing emancipatory and critical pedagogies, and argumentation scholars interested in expanding the learning potential of debate
would do well to note their work (see e.g. Apple 1995, 1988, 1979; Britzman 1991; Giroux 1997, 1988, 1987; Greene 1978; McLaren 1993, 1989; Simon 1992; Weis
and Fine 1993). In this area of educational scholarship, the curriculum theory of currere, a method of teaching pioneered by Pinar and Grumet (1976), speaks directly to
many of the issues already discussed in this essay. As the Latin root of the word "curriculum," currere translates roughly as the investigation of public life (see
Kincheloe 1993, p. 146). According to Pinar, "the method of currere is one way to work to liberate one from the web of political, cultural, and economic influences that
are perhaps buried from conscious view but nonetheless comprise the living web that is a person's biographic situation" (Pinar 1994, p. 108). The objectives of role-play
pedagogy resonate with the currere method. By
opening discursive spaces for students to explore their identities as public actors,
simulated public arguments provide occasions for students to survey and appraise submerged aspects of their political
identities. Since many aspects of cultural and political life work currently to reinforce political passivity, critical argumentation
pedagogies that highlight this component of students' self-identities carry significant emancipatory potential .
11
1AR Generic K Ext- Realism

Group the realism debateA. Extend Slater- States will always try to maximize their power and security so realism and war are
inevitable. Yes cooperation and multilateralism happen but only when they promote national interests.
Proves the alt doesnt solve.
B. Ext Guizinni- Realism empirically prevents war. A balance of power helps realism accomplish its goal
of preventing great power war. Turns your impact and is a disad to the alt.
C. Realism is inevitable shift away collapses into chaos.
Mearsheimer 2001 [professor of political science at University of Chicago, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, pg. 361]
The optimists' claim that security competition and war among the great powers has been burned out of the system is wrong. In fact, all of
the major states around the globe still care deeply about the balance of power and are destined to compete for power among
themselves for the foreseeable future. Consequently, realism will offer the most powerful explanations of international politics over the next century, and this
will be true even if the debates among academic and policy elites are dominated by non-realist theories. In short, the real world remains a realist world. States still
fear each other and seek to gain power at each other's expense, because international anarchy-the driving force behind greatpower
behavior-did not change with the end of the Cold War, and there are few signs that such change is likely any time soon . States remain the
principal actors in world politics and there is still no night watchman standing above them. For sure, the collapse of the Soviet Union caused a major shift in the global
distribution of power. But it did not give rise to a change in the anarchic structure of the system, and without that kind of profound change, there is no reason to expect
the great powers to behave much differently in the new century than they did in previous centuries. Indeed, considerable evidence from the 1990s indicates
that power politics has not disappeared from Europe and Northeast Asia, the regions in which there are two or more great powers, as well as possible
great powers such as Germany and Japan. There is no question, however, that the competition for power over the past decade has been low-key. Still, there is
potential for intense security competition among the great powers that might lead to a major war. Probably the best evidence of that
possibility is the fact that the United States maintains about one hundred thousand troops each in Europe and in Northeast Asia for the explicit purpose of keeping the
major states in each region at peace.
D. Evolution proves realism true- Egotism and Domination are inevitable among individuals and the
international system
Thayer 2k (Bradley, political scientist and an associate professor in Missouri State University's Department of Defense and
Strategic Studies, the MIT Press, International Security, Vol. 25, No. 2(Autumn 2000), pp. 124-151, "Bringing in Darwin:
Evolutionary Theory, Realism, and International Politics)
The second ultimate cause of egoistic and dominating behavior is given by Morgenthau: Humans behave as they do because they possess an animus dominandi.24
seek power because human nature is fundamentally egoistic and malignant. Thus conflict and war occur
because human nature is bad.25 Thomas Hobbes provided the foundation for this second, secular, pillar of realist thought: Humans are ruled by an
They
insatiable desire for power.26 This lust for power has created a state of war in which humans live in reciprocal and permanent fear of violent death, and in which peace
is always precarious. According to Morgenthau, the "desire for power ... concerns itself not with the individual's survival but with his position among his fellows once
his survival has been secured.... His lust for power would be satisfied only if the last became an object of his domination, there being nobody above or beside him, that
is, if he became like God."27 So encompassing is this desire for power that
the tendency to dominate "is an element of all human
associations, from the family through fraternal and professional associations and local political organizations, to the state."28 Two types of behavior are the
proximate causes of the realist argument: egoism and domination.29 Egoism will cause an individual to place his interests before those of others, the interests of
The desire to
dominate, realists believe, is inherent and often leads to physical aggression against those who oppose n of the primitive cell into ever larger
components, organs, and so on to create what Dawkins calls "survival machines." He explains one's objectives. State leaders are expected to mirror
this ordering by putting the interests of their state before those of others or of the world community, and by striving to
dominate other states. Realists argue that only by possessing power can individuals attack and conquer others as well as
deter and defend themselves from attack. The principal result of this process is that balances of power will form and reform cyclically, producing both periods
himself and his family before those of more distant relatives, and the interests of relatives before those of his community, state, and so on.30
of stability and intense security competition in international politics
12
E. Transition to the alternative guarantees war radical changes in existing security architecture collapse
threat perception
Yoon 03 Professor of International Relations at Seoul National University; former Foreign Minister of South Korea (Young-Kwan,
Introduction: Power Cycle Theory and the Practice of International Relations, International Political Science Review 2003; vol. 24; p. 7-8)
In history, the effort to balance power quite often tended to start too late to protect the security of some of the individual states. If the balancing process begins too late, the resulting amount of force necessary to stop an aggressor is often much larger than if the process
had been started much earlier. For example, the fate of Czechoslovakia and Poland showed how non-intervention or waiting for the automatic working through of the process turned out to be problematic. Power cycle theory could also supplement the structureoriented nature of the traditional balance of power theory by incorporating an agent-oriented explanation. This was possible through its focus on the relationship between power and the role of a state in the international system. It especially highlighted the fact that a
discrepancy between the relative power of a state and its role in the system would result in a greater possibility for systemic instability. In order to prevent this instability from developing into a war, practitioners of international relations were to become aware of the
dynamics of changing power and role, adjusting role to power. A statesperson here was not simply regarded as a prisoner of structure and therefore as an outsider to the process but as an agent capable of influencing the operation of equilibrium. Thus power cycle theory
could overcome the weakness of theoretical determinism associated with the traditional balance of power. The question is often raised whether government decision-makers could possibly know or respond to such relative power shifts in the real world. According to
Doran, when the tides of history shift against the state, the push and shove of world politics reveals these matters to the policy-maker, in that state and among its competitors, with abundant urgency. (2) The Issue of Systemic Stability Power cycle theory is built on the
conception of changing relative capabilities of a state, and as such it shares the realist assumption emphasizing the importance of power in explaining international relations. But its main focus is on the longitudinal dimension of power relations, the rise and decline of
, power cycle theory argues that

what matters most in explaining the stability of the international system or war and peace is not the type of particular
international system (Rosecrance, 1963) but the transformation from one system to another. For example, in the 1960s there was a debate on the stability of the
relative state power and role, and not on the static power distribution at a particular time. As a result, power cycle theory provides a significantly different explanation for stability and order within the international system. First of all
international system between the defenders of bipolarity such as Waltz (1964) and the defenders of multi-polarity such as Rosecrance (1966), and Deutsch and Singer (1964). After analyzing five historical occasions since the origin of the modern state system, Doran
what has been responsible for major war was not whether one type of system is more or less conducive to
war but that instead systems transformation itself led to war (Doran, 1971). A non-linear type of structural change that is massive,
unpredicted, devastating to foreign policy expectation, and destructive of security is the trigger for major war, not the nature of a
particular type of international system.
concluded that
F. Rejecting Realism is impossibleothers states wont follow

Murray, Professor Politics at the University of Wales, 1997 (Alastair Reconstructing Realism: Between Power Politics and Cosmopolitan Ethics, p. 181-2)
This highlights the central difficulty with Wendt's constructivism. It is not any form of unfounded idealism about the possibility of effecting a change in international
politics. Wendt accepts that the intersubjective character of international institutions such as self-help render them relatively hard social facts. Rather, What is
problematic is his faith that such chance, if it could be achieved, implies progress. Wendt's entire approach is governed by the belief that the problematic elements of
international politics can be transcended, that the competitive identities which create these elements can be reconditioned, and that the predatory policies which underlie
these identities can be eliminated. Everything in his account, is up for gabs: there is no core of recalcitrance to human conduct which cannot be reformed, unlearnt,
disposed of. This venerates a stance that so privileges the possibility of a systemic transformation that it simply puts aside the difficulties which it recognises to be
inherent in its achievement. Thus, even though Wendt acknowledges that the intersubjective basis of the self-help system makes its reform difficult, this does not
dissuade him. He simply demands that states adopt a strategy of 'altercasting', a strategy which 'tries to induce alter to take on a new identity (and thereby enlist alter in
ego's effort to change itself) by treating alter as if it already had that identity'. Wendt's position effectively culminates in a demand that the state
undertake nothing less than a giant leap of faith. The fact that its opponent might not take its overtures seriously. might not
be interested in reformulating its own construction of the world. or might simply see such an opening as a weakness to be
exploited. are completely discounted. The prospect of achieving a systemic transformation simply outweighs any adverse
consequences which might arise from the effort to achieve it . Wendt ultimately appears, in the final analysis, to have overdosed on 'Gorbimania'.
G. Alt doesnt solve elites will always make calculations based on power
John Mearsheimer, Professor at University of Chicago, 2001 (The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, Page 25)
Because Americans dislike realpolitik, public discourse about foreign policy in the United States is usually couched in the language of liberalism. Hence the
pronouncements of the policy elites are heavily flavored with optimism and moralism. American academics are especially good at promoting liberal
thinking in the marketplace of ideas. Behind closed doors, however, the elites who make national security policy speak the language of
power, not that of principle, and the United States acts in the international system according to the dictates of realist logic. In essence, a
discernable gap separates public rhetoric from the actual conduct of American foreign policy.
H. Realism ensures survival.

John Mearsheimer, Professor at University of Chicago, 2001 (The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, Page 11-12)
offensive realism is mainly a descriptive theory. It explains how great powers have behaved in the past and how
is also a prescriptive theory. States should behave according to the dictates of offensive
realism, because it outlines the best way to survive in a dangerous world. One might ask, if the theory describes how great powers act, why is it necessary
It should be apparent from this discussion that
they are likely to behave in the future. But it
to stipulate how they should act? The imposing constraints of the system should leave great powers with little choice but to act as the theory predicts. Although there is
much truth in this description of great powers as prisoners trapped in an iron cage, the fact remains that they sometimesalthough not oftenact in contradiction to the
theory. These are the anomalous cases discussed above. As we shall see, such foolish behavior invariably has negative consequences . In short, if
they want to survive, great powers should always act like good offensive realists .
13
1AR Generic K Ext- Perm

Perm solves problems with realism- aka. the residual link.
Barkin 3PhD from Columbia, Associate Professor of Political Science [J. Samuel Barkin, Sep., 2003 Realist Constructivism,
International Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 325, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3186573, Accessed: 7/30/2011]
To claim that constructivism is an IR paradigm in the way that realism or liberalism are is misleading, and the tendency to do so in textbooks is rarely mirrored in the
scholarly literature. In the latter, constructivism is usually identified as an ontology, epistemology, or methodology. As such, it is usually defined as being distinct from
either materialism or rationalism. Recent state-of-the-field exercises (Katzenstein, Keohane, and Krasner 1998; Ruggie 1998), in fact, identified the rationalismconstructivism controversy as the central debate in contemporary IR theory. Constructivists who claim their methodology is incompatible with
realism focus on the association between realism and both materialism and rationalism. Realists who claim their paradigm is incompatible with
constructivism focus for the most part not on the methodology per se but on a perceived tendency for constructivists to be idealists or utopians. Neither
argument, however, holds up to careful scrutiny. Claims by constructivists that realist theory is incompatible with
intersubjective epistemologies and methodologies are based on either caricatures or very narrow understandings of
realism. And realist critics of constructivism are similarly guilty of inferring from the worldviews of some (perhaps many) practicing constructivists that the
methodology is inherently biased toward liberalism. An examination of constructivist epistemology and classical realist theory suggests
that they are, in fact, compatible; not, of course, that good constructivism is necessarily realist, but that constructivist
research is as compatible with a realist worldview as with any other. The purpose of this essay is to conduct such an examination. The first
step in doing so is to define terms and to clear up some of the terminological confusion surrounding the discourse connecting constructivism and realism. The second
step is to make the argument that a realist constructivism (or, for that matter, a constructivist realism) is epistemologically, methodologically, and paradigmatically
viable. The final step is to discuss what a realist constructivism might look like, and where it fits in the study of international relations more broadly. Having such
an approach could, among other things, fulfill several useful functions. One function is to clear up a number of debates in
the field in which the protagonists speak past, rather than to, each other. Another function is to clarify the relationship
between, on the one hand, the study of power and the study of ideals in international relations and, on the other, the study
of the social construction of international politics. A final function is to act as a bridge between mainstream approaches to
international relations and critical and postmodern approaches that view both constructivism and realism as problematic,
albeit for different reasons.
We must confront threats key to prevent ceding the political does not preclude the transformative
potential of securitization
Franke 9 (Associate Prof of Comparative lit at Vanderbilt William Poetry and Apocalypse Page 92-93)
Apocalypse prima facie refuses and makes an end of dialogue: it thunders down invincibly from above. But for this
very reason the greatest test of our dialogical capacity is whether we can dialogue with the corresponding attitude
or must resort to exclusionary maneuvers and force. What is called for here is a capacity on the part of dialogue not to defend itself but to let itself
happen in interaction with an attitude that is apparently intolerant of dialogue. Letting this possibility be, coming into contact with it, with the threat
of dialogue itself, may seem to be courting disaster for dialogue. It is indeed a letting down of defenses. Can dialogue survive
such a surrendering of itself in utter vulnerability to the enemy of dialogue? Or perhaps we should ask, can it rise up again, after this self-surrender, in new power for
bringing together a scattered, defeated humanity to share in an open but commonly sought and unanimously beckoned Logos of mutual comprehension and
communication? May this, after all, be the true and authentic end of dialogue provoked by apocalypse? For what it is worth, my
apocalyptic counsel is that we
must attempt an openness to dialogue even in this absolute vulnerability and risk. The world
is certainly not a safe place, and it will surely continue not to be such, short of something apocalyptic. Needed , ever
again, is something on the order of an apocalypse, not just a new attitude or a new anything that we can ourselves simply produce.
Philosophy itself, thought through to its own end, can hardly resist concluding that only a god can save us (Nur noch ein Gott kann
uns retten). But can not our attitude make a difference- perhaps make possible the advent of apocalypse beyond all our powers, even those of our own imaginations? I
will wager an answer to this question only in the operative mood. May we bring a voice speaking up for mutual
understanding onto the horizon of discourse in our time, a time marked by the terrifying sign of apocalyptic
discourse. May we do this not by judging apocalyptic discourse, but by accepting that our condition as humans is as
much to be judged as to judge and that all our relatively justified judgments are such to the extend that they offer themselves to be judged rather than standing on their
own ground as absolute. In other words, may our discussions remain open to apocalypse, open to what we cannot represent or prescribe but can
nevertheless undergo in a process of transformation that can be shared with others and that may be genuinely dialogue.
14
The permutation solves a combination of macro and micropolitics is best

Best and Kellner in 02
(Steven Best, prof phil @ UT el paso and Douglas Kellner, prof phil @ UCLA
Postmodern Politics and the Battle for the Future http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/Illumina
%20Folder/kell28.htm)
Yet we would insist that it
is not a question of micro vs macropolitics, as if it were an either/or proposition, but rather both dimensions
are important for the struggles of the present and future.[15] Likewise, we would argue that we need to combine the most
affirmative and negative perspectives, embodying Marcuse's declaration that critical social theory should be both more negative and utopian in
reference to the status quo.[16] There are certainly many things to be depressed about is in the negative and cynical postmodernism of a
Baudrillard, yet without a positive political vision merely citing the negative might lead to apathy and depression that
only benefits the existing order. For a dialectical politics, however, positive vision of what could be is articulated in conjunction with critical analysis of
what is in a multioptic perspective that focuses on the forces of domination as well as possibilities of emancipation While postmodern politics and
theory tend to polarize into either the extremely negative or excessively affirmative, key forms of postmodern literature have a more
dialectical vision. Indeed, some of the more interesting forms of postmodern critique today are found in fictional genres such as cyberpunk and magical realism.
Cyberpunk, a subgenre within science fiction, brings science fiction down to earth, focusing not on the intergalactic battles in the distant future, but the social problems
facing people on earth in the present.[17] Cyberpunk writers such as Bruce Sterling and William Gibson offer an unflinching look at a grim social reality characterized
by transnational capitalist domination, Social Darwinist cultural settings, radical environmental ruination, and the implosion of the body and technology, such that
humans become more and more machine like and machines increasingly become like human beings. Yet cyberpunk novels foreground this nightmare world in order to
warn us that it is an immanent possibility for the near future, in order to awaken readers to a critical reflection on technology and social control, and to offer hope for
alternative uses of technology and modes of social life. Similarly, magical realism examines the wreckage of centuries of European colonialism, but also maintains a
positive outlook, one that embraces the strength and creativity of the human spirit, social solidarity, and spiritual and political transcendence. Like cyberpunk novels,
magical realism incorporate various aesthetic forms and conventions in an eclectic mixture that fuses postmodernism with social critique and models of resistance.
But it is also a mistake, we believe, to ground one's politics in either modern or postmodern theory alone . Against onesided positions, we
advocate a version of reconstructive postmodernism that we call a politics of alliance and solidarity
that builds on both modern and postmodern traditions. Unlike Laclau and Mouffe who believe that postmodern theory basically provides a basis
for a new politics, and who tend to reject the Enlightenment per se, we believe that the Enlightenment continues to provide resources for
political struggle today and are skeptical whether postmodern theory alone can provide sufficient assets for an emancipatory new politics. Yet the
Enlightenment has its blindspots and dark sides (such as its relentless pursuit of the domination of nature, and naive belief in "progress," so we
believe that aspects of the postmodern critique of Enlightenment are valid and force us to rethink and reconstruct Enlightenment philosophy for the present age. And
while we agree with Habermas that a reconstruction of the Enlightenment and modernity are in order, unlike Habermas we believe that
postmodern theory has important contributions to make to this project )
15
1AR Generic K Ext- Materialism/Technostrategic Discourse Good

Changing representational practices wont alter policylooking to structures and politics is more vital
Tuathail, 96 (Gearoid, Department of Georgraphy at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Political Geography, 15(6-7), p. 664,
science direct)
While theoretical debates at academic conferences are important to academics, the discourse and concerns of foreign-policy
decision- makers are quite different, so different that they constitute a distinctive problem- solving, theory-averse, policy-making
subculture. There is a danger that academics assume that the discourses they engage are more significant in the practice of foreign
policy and the exercise of power than they really are. This is not, however, to minimize the obvious importance of academia as a general institutional structure
among many that sustain certain epistemic communities in particular states. In general, I do not disagree with Dalbys fourth point about politics and discourse except
to note that his statement-Precisely because reality could be represented in particular ways political decisions could be taken, troops and material moved and war
fought-evades the important question of agency that I noted in my review essay. The
assumption that it is representations that make action

Political, military and economic structures, institutions, discursive networks and eadership are all crucial in
possible is inadequate by itself.

explaining social action and should be theorized together
with representational practices. Both here and earlier, Dalbys reasoning inclines towards a form
of idealism. In response to Dalbys fifth point (with its three subpoints), it is worth noting, first, that his book is about the CPD, not the Reagan administration. He
analyzes certain CPD discourses, root the geographical reasoning practices of the Reagan administration nor its public-policy reasoning on national security. Dalbys
book is narrowly textual; the general contextuality of the Reagan administration is not dealt with. Second, let me simply note that I find that the distinction between
critical theorists and poststructuralists is a little too rigidly and heroically drawn by Dalby and others. Third, Dalbys interpretation of the reconceptualization of
national security in Moscow as heavily influenced by dissident peace researchers in Europe is highly idealist, an interpretation that ignores the structural and
ideological crises facing the Soviet elite at that time. Gorbachevs reforms and his new security discourse were also strongly self- interested, an ultimately futile
attempt to save the Communist Party and a discredited regime of power from disintegration. The issues raised by Simon Dalby in his comment are important ones for
all those interested in the practice of critical geopolitics. While I agree with Dalby that questions of discourse are extremely important ones for political geographers to
engage, there
is a danger of fetishizing this concern with discourse so that we neglect the institutional and the
sociological, the materialist and the cultural, the political and the geographical contexts within which particular discursive
strategies become significant. Critical geopolitics, in other words, should not be a prisoner of the sweeping ahistorical cant that sometimes accompanies
poststructuralism nor convenient reading strategies like the identity politics narrative; it needs to always be open to the patterned mess that is human history.
Privileging representations locks in violence --- policy analysis is the best way to challenge power
Taft-Kaufman, 95 (Prof of Speech CMU, Southern Communication Journal, 60:3, Spring)
The postmodern passwords of "polyvocality," "Otherness," and "difference," unsupported by substantial analysis of the concrete contexts of subjects, creates a
solipsistic quagmire. The political sympathies of the new cultural critics, with their ostensible concern for the lack of power experienced by
marginalized people, aligns
them with the political left. Yet, despite their adversarial posture and talk of opposition, their discourses on
them from and ignore the conditions that have produced leftist politics--conflict, racism, poverty, and
intertextuality and inter-referentiality isolate
injustice. In short, as Clarke (1991) asserts, postmodern emphasis on new subjects conceals the old subjects, those who have limited access to good jobs, food,
housing, health care, and transportation, as well as to the media that depict them. Merod (1987) decries this situation as one which leaves no vision, will, or commitment
to activism. He notes that academic lip service to the oppositional is underscored by the absence of focused collective or politically active intellectual communities.
Provoked by the academic manifestations of this problem Di Leonardo (1990) echoes Merod and laments: Has there ever been a historical era characterized by as little
radical analysis or activism and as much radical-chic writing as ours? Maundering on about Otherness: phallocentrism or Eurocentric tropes has
become a lazy academic substitute for actual engagement with the detailed histories and contemporary realities of Western racial minorities, white
women, or any Third World population. (p. 530) Clarke's assessment of the postmodern elevation of language to the "sine qua non" of critical discussion is an even
stronger indictment against the trend. Clarke examines Lyotard's (1984) The Postmodern Condition in which Lyotard maintains that virtually all social relations are
linguistic, and, therefore, it is through the coercion that threatens speech that we enter the "realm of terror" and society falls apart. To this assertion, Clarke replies: I can
think of few more striking indicators of the political and intellectual impoverishment of a view of society that can only recognize the discursive. If the worst terror we
can envisage is the threat not to be allowed to speak, we are appallingly ignorant of terror in its elaborate contemporary forms. It may be the intellectual's conception of
terror (what else do we do but speak?), but its projection onto the rest of the world would be calamitous....(pp. 2-27) The realm of the discursive is derived from the
requisites for human life, which are in the physical world, rather than in a world of ideas or symbols.(4) Nutrition, shelter, and protection are basic human needs that
require collective activity for their fulfillment. Postmodern emphasis on the discursive without an accompanying analysis of how the discursive emerges
from material circumstances hides the complex task of envisioning and working towards concrete social goals (Merod, 1987).
Although the material conditions that create the situation of marginality escape the purview of the postmodernist, the situation and its consequences are not overlooked
by scholars from marginalized groups. Robinson (1990) for example, argues that "the justice that working people deserve is economic, not just textual" (p. 571). Lopez
16
(1992) states that "the starting point for organizing the program content of education or political action must be the present existential, concrete situation" (p. 299). West
(1988) asserts that borrowing French post-structuralist discourses about "Otherness" blinds us to realities of American difference going on in front of us (p. 170). Unlike
postmodern "textual radicals" who Rabinow (1986) acknowledges are "fuzzy about power and the realities of socioeconomic constraints" (p. 255),
People whose
lives form the material for postmodern counter-hegemonic discourse do not share the optimism over the new recognition
of their discursive subjectivities, because such an acknowledgment does not address sufficiently their collective historical and
current struggles against racism, sexism, homophobia, and economic injustice. They do not appreciate being told they are living in a world in which there are no
most writers from marginalized groups are clear about how discourse interweaves with the concrete circumstances that create lived experience.
more real subjects. Ideas have consequences. Emphasizing the discursive self when a person is hungry and homeless represents both a cultural and humane failure. The
need to look beyond texts to the perception and attainment of concrete social goals keeps writers from marginalized groups ever-mindful of the specifics of how power
works through political agendas, institutions, agencies, and the budgets that fuel them.
17
1AR Generic K Ext- Util/Consequentialism

Double bind either no human lives are equally valuable, which forces them to prove why the lives they
save are worth it, or all human life is equally valuable, which necessitates utilitarianism.
Harsanyi, prof. of economics at UC Berkeley, 1982 (John, Utilitarianism and Beyond, p. 26-7)
it is sometimes alleged that justice has to be at odds with utility. But if we ask how we are to
be just between the competing interests of different people, it seems hard to give any other answer than it is by giving equal weight,
impartially to the interests of everybody. And this is precisely what yields the utility principle. It does not necessarily yield equality in
the resulting distribution. There are certainly very good utilitarian reasons for seeking equality in distribution too; but justice is something distinct. The
utilitarian is sometimes said to be indifferent between equal and unequal distributions provided that total utility is equal. This is so; but
Some further notes on this suggestion will be in place here. First,
it conceals two important utilitarian grounds for a fairly high degree of actual goods (tempered, of course, as in most systems including Rawlss by various advantages that are secured by moderate inequalities). The second is
that inequalities tend to produce, at any rate in educated societies, envy hatred and malice whose disutility needs no emphasizing. I am convinced that when these two factors are taken into account, utilitarians have no feed to
fear the accusation that they could favor extreme inequalities of distribution in actual modern societies. Fantastic hypothetical cases can no doubt be invented in which they would have to favor them; but as, as we shall see,
this is an illegitimate form of argument
Justice requires calculation or it serves as an alibi for the worst. Reynolds; 2006 (Theory and Event; 9:3;
Negotiating the Non-negotiable: Rawls, Derrida, and the Intertwining of Political Calculation and 'Ultra-politics')
This kind of argument about the relation between ethics and politics is part of his recent work more generally. In the 'Preface' to one of his final books, Rogues: Two
Essays on Reason, Derrida begins by acknowledging that "no politics, no ethics, and no law can be, as it were, deduced from this thought of deconstruction. To be sure,
nothing can be done with it... But should we then conclude that this thought leaves no trace on what is to be done for example in the politics, the ethics, or the law to
come?" (R xv) Clearly his reply to this rhetorical question is in the negative, and rightly so. Derrida suggests that his emphasis upon justice 'to come', democracy 'to
come', etc., might in fact be considered to be 'ultra-political' (R 39). In this text, Derrida also continues to insist that "Pure ethics, if there is any, begins with the
respectable dignity of the other as the absolute unlike, recognised as non-recognisable... Pure politics, which begins with the neighbour as like, or as resembling... spells
the end or the ruin of such an ethics" (R 60). He goes on to suggest that the political (on this narrow understanding) begins by choosing and preferring the like and that
which is knowable, as well as calculable units of measure and axioms. However, it is also important to note that Derrida continually insists that these kind of technical
and political measurements such as calculation and the adding of votes are not a problem for the incommensurable (that is, the incalculability of ethics); rather, such
techniques are precisely the chance for the incommensurable. There is no incommensurable without, or apart from, the commensurable and the calculable (R 53), even
though the calculation inevitably neutralises the singularity to which it paradoxically gives access. Similarly, in his now famous essay, 'Force of Law', which examines
the structurally isomorphic relation between calculable law and the incalculable demands of justice, Derrida insists that justice (and deconstruction)
requires us to calculate. Without this, he admits that his own persistent references to justice 'to come' might just serve as an
alibi for 'the worst' (DPJ 28).
18
1AR Generic K Ext- Friend/Enemy

The friend/enemy distinction is the ultimate capacity for instilling meaning in life.
Vander Valk; 2002 (Rockefeller College Review; 1:2; Decisions, Decisions: Carl Schmitt on Friends and Political Will;
http://www.albany.edu/reckefeller/rockreview/issue2/Paper4.pdf)
the political as that which is capable of providing the ultimate existential experience and
nourishment. Friendship involves choice, and choice requires decision. By placing a decision about friends and enemies at the
heart of the political, Schmitt imbues the political sphere with a capacity to create meaning in ones life . This capacity to create
Schmitt uses the language of friendship to describe
meaning and sustain the values by which individuals conduct their lives has traditionally belonged to the realms of the moral, the religious or the aesthetic. In Schmitts
depiction of the centrality of the friend/enemy distinction, the ultimate capacity for instilling meaning in life, for generating
and instilling certain values over other, rests with the political.
It will be shown how the moment of decision regarding membership within ones
group of friends create two relationships, one between friends and enemies, and one between friends, that is to say, between citizens, and their sovereign.
The exception is key to democracy- keeps it alive and in motion.

Balakrishnan, Prof Law @ U- Chicago; 2000 (The Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt; P. 263-264)
The shrewdest insights into democracy are not always made by friends of the people. The truth in Schmitt's polar
opposition of liberalism and democracy is historically variable: in others, one term can be seen as the negation of the
other. Fratelli, coltelli. To the extent that neoliberalism is a liberal doctrine, the relationship between these two terms
today is probably about ass complex and antagonistic as it was during the Weimar Republic. Mainstream political
discourse has not acknowledged this because, in the meantime, democracy has shed much of its original, ancient meaning
as a political system in which all power is in the hands of an assembled people. The standard justification for this semantic
corruption is that ancient forms of direct democracy cannot be resurrected in a modern context of a complex division of
labour and private liberties. But the significance of Schmitt's conception of democracy is that it elides this sharp ancientmodern dichotomy of direct versus representative government. Even if it is impossible to establish a political system in
which a permanently assembled people govern itself, Schmitt suggested that a political system is authentically democratic
to the extent that it is open to periodic 'emergencies' in which the people can swing into action as an independent semilegislative power. Demonstrations, gigantic rallies and general strikes are events which keep alive, and in motion, the
original constituent power of the people. Democracy takes on its real meaning in the exceptional situation. Although
Schmitt was no friend of the council democracy which sprang up in the aftermath of military defeat, the memory and
institutional residues of this revolutionary episode continued to inform his understanding of democracy until the end of the
Weimar era, even as he attempted to give it a more plebiscitarian form. Schmitt, following Machiavelli, recognized the
role of the class struggle in catalyzing popular government. From this [263] perspective it is arguable that the relentless of
these forms of popular power over the last two decades- and the related decline of belief in the efficacy of public power of
any kind- is a ruinous development for democracy.
Refusing to read Schmitt because he was a Nazi is depoliticization- it elevates morality over political relations. All
of our impacts are offense to this argument.
Mouffe, Prof Pol Theory @ Univ Westminster; 2005; On The Political; P. 4-5
Because of the rationalism prevalent in liberal political discourse, it is often among conservative theorists that I have found critical insights for an adequate
understanding of the political. They can better shake our dogmatic assumptions than liberal apologists. This is why I have chosen to conduct my critique of liberal
thought under the aegis of such a controversial thinker as Carl Schmitt. I am convinced that there is much that we can learn from him, as one of the most brilliant and
intransigent opponents of liberalism. I am perfectly aware that, because of Schmitt's compromise with nazism, such a choice might
arouse hostility. Many people will find it rather perverse if not outright outrageous. Yet, I believe that it is the intellectual force of theorists,
not their moral qualities, that should be the decisive criteria in deciding whether we need to establish a dialogue with their work.
I see the refusal of many democratic theorists to engage with Schmitt's thought on moral grounds as typical of the moralistic tendency which is
characteristic of the post-political Zeitgeist. In fact, the critique of such tendency is at the core of my reflection. A central thesis of this book
19
is that, contrary to post-political theorists want us to believe, what we are currently witnessing is not the disappearance of the political in
its adversarial dimension but something different. What is happening is that nowadays the political is played out in the moral register. In
other words, it still consists in a we/they discrimination, but the we/they, instead of being defined with political categories, is
now established in moral terms. In place of a struggle between right and left we are faced with a struggle between 'right and
wrong'.
The imperative of today's universalist American order is thou shall be included. Any alternative to this
proposal is immediately denounced as evil as to be eliminated.
Rasch; 2003 (CulturalCritique;54;"HumanRightsasGeopolitics:CarlSchmittandtheLegalFormofAmericanSupremacy)
In the past, we/they, neighbor/foreigner, friend/enemy polarities were inside/outside distinctions that produced a plurality
of worlds, separated by physical and cultural borders. When these worlds collided,it was not always a pretty picture, but it
was often possible tomaintain the integrity of the we/they distinction, even to regulate itby distinguishing between
domestic and foreign affairs. If "they" differed, "we" did not always feel ourselves obliged to make "them"into miniature
versions of "us," to Christianize them, to civilize them,to make of them good liberals. Things have changed. With a
singlepower global hegemony that is guided by a universalist ideology, allrelations have become, or threaten to become,
domestic. The inner/outer distinction has been transformed into a morally and legally determined acceptable/unacceptable
one, and the power exists (or is thought to exist), both spiritually and physically, to eliminate the unacceptable once and
for all and make believers of everyone. The new imperative states: the other shall be included. Delivered asa promise, it
can only be received, by some, as an ominous threat.
Schmitt's relevance to international relations is obvious- states that claim to abolish war appeal to humanity to
justify police operations against outlaw regimes.
Balakrishnan, Prof Law @ U-Chicago; 2000 (The Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt; P. 265-266)
Schmitt's relevance to commentary on international relations should be even more readily apparent. Here we leave behind
the world of the rule of law and enter the state of nature- that is, a zone where the fictions of legality can be particularly
pernicious. More effectively than anyone else he called into question the stability of an international order in which all
states are subject to incipient forms of international government, but only to widely varying and often unspecified
degrees: his polemics capture the Kafkaesque ring of a jargon which declares war between states to be abolished, and
invokes the highest [265] ideals of humanity to justify 'police operations' and sanction regimes against outlaw
governments.
20

Generic K Answers

Încărcat de

Informații document

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Generic K Answers

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

2AC- Generic K Frontline

B. Roleplaying gooddemocracy and peace

understanding among peoples.

3. Turn- Realism prevents war.

Defence and security, 1998, Realism in

realist world-view wants

4. Permutation- Do the plan and all non-exclusive parts of the alternative.

predominate, achieving, if not a reconciliation, then at least a viable synthesis.

5. Turn- Ontological technostrategic discourse is crucial to human existence.

solve conflicts and gives meaning to life.

distribution and use of power.

unyielding concern with moral goodness

Moral absolutism inhibits this

appeasing contours, because they would be identifiable (PF 83).

B) That enables nuclear war.

turns the real enemy into an

World Politics, p. 270-71, footnote on 277)

poststructuralist approach seems to assume that security cannot be common or positive-sum

Cut to footnote on page 277

1AR Generic K Ext- Framework

Our plan seems to be as follows :

Policy details are key abstract rhetoric devices ensure failure

vague proposals are the best politicians can offer,

details, any criticism can be parried by saying "that was not

one side takes more than its share, competitive equity

is necessary because it sharpens thought in action. We

case essentially denies the arguments that state action is

forms of contest and resistance seek to inform or convince others by

able to examine its own exclusionary effects or situated

particularly crucial in the public

1AR Generic K Ext- Realism

the tendency to dominate "is an element of all human

of stability and intense security competition in international politics

, power cycle theory argues that

F. Rejecting Realism is impossibleothers states wont follow

H. Realism ensures survival.

1AR Generic K Ext- Perm

The permutation solves a combination of macro and micropolitics is best

postmodern theory has important contributions to make to this project )

1AR Generic K Ext- Materialism/Technostrategic Discourse Good

assumption that it is representations that make action

possible is inadequate by itself.

intertextuality and inter-referentiality isolate

1AR Generic K Ext- Util/Consequentialism

1AR Generic K Ext- Friend/Enemy

The exception is key to democracy- keeps it alive and in motion.

S-ar putea să vă placă și