To understand judging you need to buy one of those cheap anthologies of literary criticism, the dominant form of judging right now is New Criticism.

I think I’ve finally found a way to teach debate that might have value that doesn’t make me nauseated before and after I’m done. 

This is about teaching thought and argumentation under the guise of some sort of debate format.

The worst enemy of American debate formats is instrumentality.

Most debate rules and procedures are designed to eliminate uncertainty, therefore eliminating the point of the event which is to negotiate uncertainty.

Increases of instrumentality increase the distaste for debate formats

The thing to keep in mind when watching debate videos is: If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha.

I didn’t come up with all of these, and there might be a few more, but I have to get up super early to fly, so that’s all I’m going to do tonight. Maybe more later. These posts are so behind on depth, but they are good markers of where the depth must be plumbed.