11/22-11/29: Negating K-Affs Without T-Framework

Tournament Update

Due to Thanksgiving break, LD and PF debaters did not compete at bid tournaments this past weekend. Best of luck to everyone debating in the coming weeks, and stay tuned for tournament results!

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Negating K-Affs Without T-Framework

by Elmer Yang

Negating Kritikal Affirmatives can be very daunting, especially if you don’t often delve into Kritikal literature. There’s often a laundry list of buzzwords and deep academic jargon that can make getting a starting point on how to negate them difficult. This article is meant to help decode the mystery of Kritikal Affirmatives and help you craft strategies beyond copying-pasting your T-Framework blocks and calling it a day.

There are a few reasons why I think debaters should open themselves up to researching and debating strategies that go beyond T-Framework. Most Kritikal teams are prepared to debate the same strategy every round: T-Framework and the Cap K. This means that they are often miles ahead on pre-tournament preparation and practice against these arguments than you will be. In addition, teams will over-assume that the 1NC will include T-Framework and build central premises of the Aff around it. Some teams go so far as building solvency of the Aff around rejecting the 1NC’s performative imposition of Framework. Pulling up to a round without Framework in the 1NC can thus be extremely strategic, forcing the 1AR to work backwards from core premises and defend neglected parts of the Aff that the Aff chose to ignore in favor of pre-empting T. It also means that you now control the expertise of the round. Instead of playing on the turf the Aff is very prepared to debate, you are now forcing the Aff to debate about something you know just as well. Lastly, Kritikal teams compose some of the best teams in the country; the same way you would not pull up to a high-level policy round with hyper-generics, you should always give yourself something new to angle against Kritikal teams.

Before I dive into tips for how to negate K-Affs, it is important to understand the different types of Affs that fall into the “Kritikal” category. Too often, teams will approach all K-Affs as an amorphous and homogenous group which can result in poorly constructed 1NCs and 1ARs that pivot right out of your offense. For the purpose of this article, a K-Aff is any Aff that does not defend the resolution in a traditional, utilitarian/consequentialist sense. These include (but are not limited to) Affs that defend the resolution in an radical/abstract/metaphorical way, usually by challenging the bounds of “fiat” (understanding the resolution as a symbol, a form of radical imagination instead a policy, or agree with the end goal of the resolution but disagree with the agent or political means), Affs that reject the premise of the resolution but center alternative discussions of the “object” of the resolution (agreeing discussions about space or borders are good, but discussing them within the lens of statecraft or disembodied politics is bad), or Affs that openly do not care about the Topic but think that debate, the state, or society are bad and say we must resist it a-priori. I believe what challenges many teams is they too often assume Affs fall into the last category (which some do), when many K-Affs are more nuanced and do attempt to engage the topic in a certain way. Being able to identify and take advantage of the different types of Affs is the most important step in crafting effective negative strategies for them.

Here are some of the most useful tips that I have for getting started into developing non-Framework strategies vs K-Affs.

1] Think of Affs as sets of concepts rather than advocacy texts with advantages. Kritikal affirmatives can seem daunting because they’re often structured in varied and different ways and it's not always obvious what they are defending. Many times, they will try to deny you “search-words” that allow you to find relevant backfiles, which can make putting together a specific 1NC difficult (especially if it’s a new Aff or you have little pre-round time). The best suggestion I have here is thinking about what the Aff theorizes and how they come to those conclusions. For example, what broad literature bases does the Aff draw from? Do they draw from psychoanalytic concepts like “drives” or Baudrillardian concepts like “hyper-reality” or “information overaccumulation”? Do they lend themselves to Wildersonian afro-pessimism or some strain of settler colonialism studies? Most of these are not monoliths, but they can lend useful hints to drawing link strains connecting back to things you can either “turn” or read links to from a more common Kritikal base.

2] Don’t be afraid of the turn. No, this doesn’t mean “anti-blackness good,” but premises of the Aff’s theory/solvency can be good spots to attach generic “Kritikal Case Turns” to.

Most Aff’s will start off by making their offense very clear in the 1AC. Listen closely – does the Aff claim to say that the state or legal movements are bad? What about humanism? Does the Aff criticize productivity? How far against the resolution are they? Do they believe in the same end-object but disagree in the process/actor? Even if you don’t have the most specific ev-set to the Aff’s particular theory of power, K-Affs to generate offense against FW or the Cap K have to, by definition, be fairly sweeping, which can leave more general strats like “Mutual Aid Bad” or “Cap Good” a flexible 1NC out that the 2NR can then contextualize depending on the 1AR pivots.

Going for a turn in the 2NR can feel daunting and like you are playing too much on the Aff’s field. In these situations, my best advice is to give a lot of examples about the link/turn story, make sure to identify very clearly what parts of the case you are implicating, and try to externalize your offense. For example, versus Affs that draw from Fred Moten’s work on the undercommons, my debaters often read a piece of Webb evidence on case that argues that situating the undercommons within debate risks the “institutionalization” of those collectives that shuts down their revolutionary potential (operating as both a “you can’t solve” arg and a “you make institutions worse” arg). We externalized our offense when going for it by making a “legitimization” of institutions that argued they created the fuel and credibility for academic institutions to support themselves and used comparative framing arguments about form over content to weigh the turn.

3] Don’t be afraid to ask “softball questions”. When teams who don’t engage or face the Kritik often go into cross-examination of the 1AC, they are afraid to look silly or like they don’t know what they’re doing. This allows Kritikal teams to walk circles around them, leave the AC sufficiently vague, and when the 1NC misses core nuances/tricks of the Aff, the 1AR pounces and pivots. Don’t be afraid to ask level-setting questions about the Aff’s theory or solvency mechanics. Pinning down the Aff to something you can force them to defend is critical for defending non-Framework strategies, especially in a K v K debate where the link, and subsequently the perm, is the biggest hinge in the round.

4] Look at the wiki to see what other teams are doing. College and high-level high school policy teams often have coaches and researchers who specialize in answering the K with unique and specific positions. Use the wiki as a resource to see what the current meta-game is versus popular literature bases. Wake Forest, Dartmouth, and Michigan are college programs often at the cutting edge of the AT Kritik meta-games and they put out some super-specific positions that you can leverage in your high school rounds. For example, Dartmouth broke the “Blood and Soil K” of grounded Settler Colonial theory which eventually made it into the hands of certain high school LD teams that resulted in several high-profile wins last year. You should use the wiki not just as a resource to take these arguments, but to look at cites as a jumping off point for your research to expand and develop new lines of argumentation.

5] K v K debate does not have to be particularly niche or specific. You don’t need to cut a specific author or niche literature base to come up with an effective K v K strategy. Many of the best K teams in the country specialize in a generic lit base (like settler colonialism or capitalism) and craft specific link strategies to K-Affs while folding them into broad themes they already have. If you already know set col, you can prep your “groundless theory bad” or your “materialism good” links versus postmodern Affs. Ditto with the Cap K and your “telos-based politics of organizing towards a collective, material end-goal good” links versus any range of Affs from Asian poetics to Black home-making. Understanding one lit-base, then cutting links to a multitude of different K-Affs can be extremely helpful in getting your feet wet in K v K debates. My favorites involve set col and semiocapitalism due to the ease of applying very generic link themes to nearly every area of the Aff, but teams also do it with Deleuze, Baudrillard, cap, and university/academy.

6] Lastly, the Link is THE most important portion of your 2NR. Why is your position relevant to this particular type of Aff? Why does it prove the Aff is a bad idea? In a day and age where the Kritik is quite meta, it is not enough to throw out a random “State Good” Cap K link and hope it either sticks or is dropped. Being able to focus and develop your link is important since in 95% of K v K debates, the perm is the right and winning 2AR. The main reason why is that K-Affs can be vague and slippery—they’re meant to morph and pivot in the 1AR and re-characterize themselves to make your hard pre-round research irrelevant. Some of this can be solved by using cross-x time more effectively, but you should also control the narrative of the Aff: draw quotes from the Aff to justify your link, use examples, and explain what parts of the Aff the link you are going for implicates, especially the permutation. This is also where understanding the exact type of Aff the Aff is can really help since by doing so, you can pick types of link strains that are more effective and responsive. The 2NR must create a tight and effective explanation of your link story relative to the Aff so no amount of 2AR maneuvering can create doubt in the existence of a link.

Writing strategies without Framework can seem an insurmountable hill. But using these tips, and some time, effort, and experience, you will be able to create some of the most strategic prep and increase your win rates exponentially versus Kritikal teams.

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Elmer Yang is a current FinTech Business Analyst who graduated from the University of Texas-Austin with a degree in Business Honors. He debated at Mckinney Boyd High School in Texas and has been a debate coach for 6 years coaching both Policy and LD. Elmer’s students have received over 100 bids to the TOC and won the TOC, MSTOC, New York City Invitational, Glenbrooks, Mid America Cup, and Harvard Westlake.