by Joel Erickson | Apr 12, 2022 | Soapbox
You’ve all imbibed the “burden of communication rests on the communicator” and “the judge is always right” narratives from your coaches and parents. Contrary to the (intentionally provocative) title, these sentiments aren’t inaccurate per se. Homeschool debate is a...
by Ben Brown | Oct 27, 2021 | Concept Analysis, Soapbox
As zealous a proponent of high school speech and debate I may be, I’m forced to admit that its practical applications have their limits. Specifically, many might argue that those who succeed in speech and debate are able to do so because they develop skills which...
by Harrison Durland | Feb 12, 2021 | Debate Blog, Soapbox, Theory
This post is part of a series:See part 1 hereSee part 2 hereSee part 3 here Throughout this series, I’ve been setting the stage for and summarizing Pragmatism as an expansive paradigm/weighing mechanism for a judge to make decisions in debate (among other things, such...
by Harrison Durland | Jan 8, 2021 | Debate Blog, Soapbox, Theory
In the previous article in this series, I discussed some of the flaws with paradigms that rigidly rely on things such as traditions/norms and rules as the foundational metric for good theory arguments, judging philosophies, or other choices in debate (e.g., which...
by Harrison Durland | Dec 25, 2020 | Debate Blog, Soapbox, Theory
In my previous article I discussed some of the “goals and anti-goals of debate.” It was partially a standalone topic, but it also served as a lead-in to this broader series on what I’ve decided to call Pragmatism Theory (or just “Pragmatism”). This article still won’t...
by Harrison Durland | Dec 11, 2020 | Debate Blog, Soapbox, Theory
Government team: “The purpose of debate is to have civil discussions about the topics before us.” Opposition team: “No, the primary purpose of competitive debate should be fair competition.” And so I listened as the teams spent chunks of the debate trying to debate...
