We Still Prefer Energy

After sleeping on it, we continue to believe the choice is clear

Yesterday, we published an article that urged voters to select the Mexican energy topic for September/October. 

One component of our larger argument involved critiquing a harmful dynamic we’ve seen develop over the last decade: camps attempting to align their topic selections through backchannels without public input. We want to be clear on two points.

First, the conclusion of that argument was simply a call for voters not to see camp selections as determinative, to vote for the topic they believe is best, and to encourage a more thorough public discussion of the options. 

Second, our argument made clear that no specific person or camp is uniquely culpable. We described a set of social pressures and incentives that have resulted in this dynamic over time. We acknowledged that we have often participated in this process. This summer’s topic selection process has clarified that something needs to change. While there is usually a clear consensus choice, the alignment between camps obscured deep disagreement in the community this year. 

Some have questioned the timing of our article. This objection belies a misunderstanding of our intent. Our purpose was not to name and shame camps or convince them to align with our preferred topic choice but to persuade voters to select the strongest topic. Topic voting opens next week. Additionally, although we had strong instincts on which topic would be best, before publishing our opinion, we wanted to conduct research and hold debates on the topic so the public could make as informed a decision as possible. Camps should select the topic they think is best, rather than the topic they think will win, and use the resulting resources and experience to inform voting.

We're encouraged by the discussion our article has generated and hope that respectful disagreement and debate continue on the topic options. We’d like to respond to three concerns raised in a piece titled ‘A2: VBI’ and then leave space for the community to draw its own conclusions about the topics. 

First, we’re troubled by the use of quotation marks in the post that attempt to associate our piece with arguments we have not made and are not interested in defending. Many of these quotations are far from the arguments made in our original post, and we encourage everyone to read the piece as a point of comparison. Beyond this, we have two broader concerns. 

Novice Retention

We fundamentally disagree on which topic will be better for novice retention. Students are more likely to be engaged by an interesting, novel topic rather than debating issues they are already bombarded with from all sides. 

We also believe in the power of debate to transform students’ beliefs. However, that is a slow and gradual process that stems not from the content of the arguments on any one two-month topic but from acquiring critical thinking skills over time. We think framing the border topic as a remedy for students’ xenophobia is incorrect and ignores the students on the other side of the room who may quit before they ever have a chance to grow from their participation in debate–particularly if they have a personal relationship to the topic, as many students do. 

Most judges are not educators and will not necessarily approach these debates with care and nuance. Most PF debates are judged by parents who are both untrained to effectively mediate debates that spiral out of control and are likely to harbor strong beliefs about the border during an exceedingly polarized election cycle. It is important to remember that camps and the national circuit do not compose the majority of debates on the topic, and we shouldn’t rely on those forces to mold debates into something humane to all students. Even in cases where teachers are present and well-equipped to guide these debates, many are coaching in states that increasingly restrict their ability to act in the best interest of their students. This concern has been frequently relayed to us by directors of programs disconnected from national debate institutes. 

On the other hand, no one has yet articulated a reason why the energy topic is inaccessible to students anywhere on the ideological spectrum or is likely to cause harm to any student. The closest we have seen to this is the presumption that novices will be uninterested in debates about Mexican energy. Our experiences at a camp session using the topic left us confident this was wrong - the debaters we worked with demonstrated high levels of intellectual curiosity and appreciated the opportunity to engage with a content area they were unfamiliar with. 

Topic Ground

Some have reiterated their concerns with the strength of the negative on the energy topic, a uniqueness problem for some core advantage areas. We think these concerns are overblown and that responses have tended to cherry-pick cards while ignoring a critical mass of recent uniqueness evidence (e.g., President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum and her Morena party’s plans to revamp the public sector). Regardless, camp research is a starting point - we encourage the community to do their own research and evaluate the evidence VBI and other institutes publish for themselves. The debates at our Philadelphia session proved the negative is more than viable.

We look forward to seeing the affirmative evidence referenced in the response article. Unfortunately, the currently publicly available evidence and what we’ve heard about debates on the topic happening elsewhere do not inspire confidence that the border topic can sustain two months of rigorous debates.