1nc vs Ng Practice Debate

7/27/2019 1nc vs Ng Practice Debate

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1nc

A. Your decision should answer the resolutional question: Is the enactment of

topical action better than the status quo or a competitive option?

1. USFG should means the debate is solely about a policy established by

governmental means

Ericson 03(Jon M., Dean Emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts California Polytechnic U., et al., The DebatersGuide, Third Edition, p. 4)The Proposition of Policy: Urging Future Action In policy propositions, each topic contains certain key elements, althoughthey have slightly different functions from comparable elements of value-oriented propositions. 1.An agent doing theacting ---The United States in The United States should adopta policy of free trade. Like the object of evaluation in aproposition of value, the agent is the subject of the sentence. 2. The verb shouldthe first part of a verb phrase thaturges action. 3. An action verb to follow shouldin the should-verb combination. For example, should adopthere meansto put a program orpolicy into action though governmental means. 4. A specification of directions or a limitationof the action desired. The phrase free trade, for example, gives direction and limits to the topic, which would, forexample, eliminate consideration of increasing tariffs, discussing diplomatic recognition, or discussing interstatecommerce. Propositions of policy deal with future action. Nothing has yet occurred. The entire debate is about whethersomething ought to occur. What you agree to do, then, when you accept the affirmative side in such a debate is to offersufficient and compelling reasons for an audience to perform the future action that you propose.

Economic engagement is limited to expanding economic ties

elik 11Arda Can elik, Masters Degree in Politics and International Studies from UppsalaUniversity, Economic Sanctions and Engagement Policies, p. 11

Introduction

Economic engagement policies are strategic integration behaviour which involves with

the target state. Engagement policies differ from other tools in Economic Diplomacy.

They target to deepen the economic relations to create economic intersection,interconnectness, and mutual dependence and finally seeks economic interdependence.This interdependence serves the sender stale to change the political behaviour of target stale. However they cannot be counted ascarrots or inducement tools, they focus on long term strategic goals and they are not restricted with short term policychanges.(Kahler&Kastner,2006) They can be unconditional and focus on creating greater economic benefits for both parties.Economic engagement targets to seek deeper economic linkages via promoting institutionalized mutual trade thus mentionedinterdependence creates two major concepts. Firstly it builds strong trade partnership to avoid possible militarized and nonmilitarized conflicts. Secondly it gives a leeway lo perceive the international political atmosphere from the same and harmonized

perspective. Kahler and Kastner define the engagement policies as follows "It is a policy of

deli berate expanding economic ti eswith and adversary in order to change the behaviour oftarget state and improve bilateral relations ".(p523-abstact). It is an intentional economic strategy that expectsbigger benefits such as long term economic gains and more importantly; political gains. The main idea behind the engagementmotivation is stated by Rosecrance (1977) in a way that " the direct and positive linkage of interests of stales where a change in the

position of one state affects the position of others in the same direction.

This is only tangible trade and financial benefits --- including political, military, orcultural engagement explodes the topic


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Haass 00 Richard Haass & Meghan OSullivan, Senior Fellows in the Brookings Institution ForeignPolicy Studies Program, Honey and Vinegar: Incentives, Sanctions, and Foreign Policy, p. 5-6

Architects of engagement strategies have a wide variety of incentives from which to choose. Economic

engagement might offer tangible incentives such as export credits, investment insurance or promotion,

access to technology, loans, and economic aid.2 Otherequally useful economic incentives involve the removalof penalties, whether they be trade embargoes, investment bans, or high tariffs that have impeded economicrelations between the United States and the target country. In addition, facilitated entry into the global economicarena and the institutions that govern it rank among the most potent incentivesin todays global market.

Similarly, political engagement can involve the lure of diplomatic recognition , access to

regional or international institutions , or the scheduling of summits between leadersor the

termination of these benefits. Military engagement could involve the extension ofInternational

Military Educational Training (IMET) both to strengthen respect for civilian authority and human rights among a countrys armedforces and, more feasibly, to establish relationships between Americans and young foreign mffitary officers.4 These areas ofengagement are likely to involve, working with state institutions, while cultural or civil society engagement is likely to entail building

people-to-people contacts. Funding nongovernmental organizations, facilitating the flow ofremittances, establishing postal and telephone links between the United States and the target country,

and promoting the exchange ofstudents, tourists, and other nongovernmental people between the countries

are some of the incentives that might be offered under a policy of cultural engagement .This brief overview of the various forms of engagement illuminates the choices open to policymakers. The plethora of optionssignals the flexibility of engagement as a foreign policy strategy and, in doing so, reveals one of the real strengths of engagement.

At the same time, it also suggests the urgent need for considered analysis of this strategy. The purpose of this book is to addressthis need by deriving insights and lessons from past episodes of engagement and proposing guidelines for the future use ofengagement strategies. Throughout the book, two critical questions are entertained. First, when should policymakers considerengagement? A strategy of engagement may serve certain foreign policy objectives better than others. Specific characteristics of atarget country may make it more receptive to a strategy of engagement and the incentives offered under it; in other cases, acountry's domestic politics may effectively exclude the use of engagement strategies. Second, how should engagement strategiesbe managed to maximize the chances of success? Shedding light on how policymakers achieved, or failed, in these efforts in thepast is critical in an evaluation of engagement strategies. By focusing our analysis, these questions and concerns help produce aframework to guide the use of engagement strategies in the upcoming decades.

Its refers to the United States Federal Government and is possessiveUpdegrave 91(W.C., Explanation of ZIP Code Address Purpose, 8-19,http://www.supremelaw.org/ref/zipcode/updegrav.htm)

More specifically, looking at the map on page 11 of the National ZIP Code Directory, e.g. at a local post office, one will see that thefirst digit of a ZIP Code defines an area that includes more than one State. The first sentence of the explanatory paragraph begins:"A ZIP Code is a numerical code that identifies areas within the United States and its territories for purposes of ... " [cf. 26 CFR 1.1-

1(c)]. Note the singular possessive pronoun "its", not "their", therefore carrying the

implication that it relates to the " U nited S tates" as a corporation domiciled in the D istrict of

C olumbia (in the singular sense), not in the sense of being the 50 States of the Union

(in the plural sense). The map shows all the States of the Union, but it also shows D.C., Puerto Rico and the VirginIslands, making the explanatory statement literally correct.

Substantial increase means greater than zero

UNEP 2 (United Nations Environmental Program, 10-2, www.unep.org/geo/geo3/english/584.htm)

Change in selected pressures on natural ecosystems 2002-32. For the ecosystem quality component, see the explanation of theNatural Capital Index. Values for the cumulative pressures were derived as described under Natural Capital Index. The maps showthe relative increase or decrease in pressure between 2002 and 2032. 'No change' means less than 10 per cent change in pressure

over the scenario period; small increase or decrease means between 10 and 50 per cent
http://www.supremelaw.org/ref/zipcode/updegrav.htmhttp://www.supremelaw.org/ref/zipcode/updegrav.htm


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change; substantial increase or decrease means 50 to 100 per cent change; strong increase meansmore than doubling of pressure. Areas which switch between natural and domesticated land uses are recorded separately

B. They claim to win the debate for reasons other than the desirability of topical

action

C. You should vote negative:

Focus over the best policy option is key to reclaiming debates from the right

Walt 2011 (Stephen M. Walt, Professor of International Affairs at Harvards John F. Kennedy School ofGovernment, July 21, 2011, International Affairs and the Public Sphere, online:http://publicsphere.ssrc.org/walt-international-affairs-and-the-public-sphere/)

Academics can make at least three distinct contributions to public discourse on global affairs. First, although the digital revolution has

made a wealth of information from around the world accessible on a near real-time basis, most of us still lack both extensive direct data

on events in far-flung areas and the background knowledge necessary to understand what new developments mean. If our towns

school district is troubled or the local economy is suffering, we can observe that for ourselves and make

reasonably well-informed judgments about what might be done about it. But if the issue is the war in Afghanistan, an

uprising in Yemen, a naval confrontation in the South China Sea or the prospects that some battered economy will be bailed out

successfully, most of us will lack the factual knowledge or conceptual understanding to know what is reallygoing on. Even when basic information is readily available, it may be hard for most of us to put it in the appropriate context or make

sense of what it means. When citizens and leaders seek to grasp the dizzying complexity of modern world

politics, therefore, they must inevitably rely upon the knowledge and insights of specialists in military affairs,

global trade and finance, diplomatic/international historians, area experts, and many others. And that means relying at least in

part on academic scholars who have devoted their careers to mastering various aspects of world affairs and

whose professional stature has been established through the usual procedures of academic evaluation (e.g., peer

review, confidential assessments by senior scholars, the give-and-take ofscholarly debate, etc.). Second, and more

importantly, an independent academic community is an essential counterweight to official efforts to shape

public understanding of key foreign policy issues. Governments enjoy enormous information asymmetries in many areas ofpolitical life, but these advantages are especially pronounced when dealing with international affairs.[5] Much of what we know about

the outside world is ultimately derived from government sources (especially when dealing with national security affairs), and publicofficials often go to considerable lengths to shape how that information is reported to the public. Not only do governments collect vast

amounts of information about the outside world, but they routinely use secrecy laws to control public access to this information.

Government officials can shape public beliefs by leaking information strategically, or by co-opting sympathetic journalists whoseprofessional success depends in part on maintaining access to key officials.[6] Given these information asymmetries and their obvious

interest in retaining public support for their preferred policies, it is hardly surprising that both democratic and non-democratic

leaders use their privileged access to information to build support for specific policies, at times by telling

outright lies to their own citizens.[7] This situation creates few problems when the policies being sold make good strategic

sense, but the results can be disastrous when they dont. In such cases, alternative voices are needed to challenge

conventional wisdoms and official rationales, and to suggest different solutions to the problem(s) at hand. Because

scholars are protected by tenure and cherish the principle of academic freedom, and because they are not directly dependent on

government support for their livelihoods, they are uniquely positioned to challenge prevailing narratives and

policy rationales and to bring their knowledge and training to bear on vital policy issues. If we believe that

unfettered debate helps expose errors and correct missteps, thereby fostering more effective public policies ,then a sophisticated, diverse and engaged scholarly community is essential to a healthy polity. Third, the scholarly world also offers a

potentially valuable model of constructive political disagreement. Political discourse in many countries (and especially the United

States) has become increasingly personal and ad hominem, with little attention paid to facts and logic; a trend reinforced by an

increasingly competitive and loosely regulated media environment. Within academia, by contrast, even intense disputes are supposed tobe conducted in accordance with established canons of logic and evidence. Ad hominem attacks and other forms of character

assassination have no place in scholarly discourse and are more likely to discredit those who employ them than those who are attacked.By bringing the norms of academic discourse into the public sphere, academic scholars could help restore some of the civility that has

been lost in recent years. For all of these reasons, it is highly desirable for university-based scholars to play a

significant role in public discourse about key real-world issues and to engage directly with policymakers where appropriate. As I have argued elsewhere, academic research can provide policymakers with relevant factual knowledge, providetypologies and frameworks that help policymakers and citizens make sense of emerging trends, and create and test theories that leaders

can use to choose among different policy instruments. Academic theories can also be useful when they help policymakers anticipate

events, when they identify recurring tendencies or obstacles to success, and when they facilitate the formulation of policy alternativesand the identification of benchmarks that can guide policy evaluation. Because academic scholars are free from daily responsibility for


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managing public affairs, they are in an ideal position to develop new concepts and theories to help us understand a complex and

changing world.[8]

Policy simulation is more likely to increase agency than cause spectatorship- best method

for decisionmaking

Joyner 99 Professor of International Law in the Government Department at Georgetown University

(Christopher C., Spring, 199, 5 ILSA J Int'l & Comp L 377)Use of the debate can be an effective pedagogical tool for education in the social sciences. Debates, like other role-playing

simulations, help students understand different perspectives on a policy issue by adopting a perspective as

their own. But, unlike other simulation games, debates do not require that a student participate directly in order to realize the benefit of thegame. Instead of developing policy alternatives and experiencing the consequences of different choices in a

traditional role-playing game, debates present the alternatives and consequences in a formal, rhetorical fashion

before a judgmental audience. Having the class audience serve as jury helps each student develop a well-thought-out opinion on the issueby providing contrasting facts and views and enabling audience members to pose challenges to each debating team. These debates ask

undergraduate students to examine the international legal implications of various United States foreign policy actions. Their chief tasks are toassess the aims of the policy in question, determine their relevance to United States national interests, ascertain what legal principles are involved,

and conclude how the United States policy in question squares with relevant principles of international law. Debate questions are formulated as

resolutions, along the lines of: "Resolved: The United States should deny most-favored-nation status to China on human rights grounds;" or"Resolved: The United States should resort to military force to ensure inspection of Iraq's possible nuclear, chemical and biological weapons

facilities;" or "Resolved: The United States' invasion of Grenada in 1983 was a lawful use of force;" or "Resolved: The United States should kill

Saddam Hussein." In addressing both sides of these legal propositions, the student debaters must consult the vast

literature of international law, especially the nearly 100 professional law-school-sponsored international law journals now being published inthe United States. This literature furnishes an incredibly rich body of legal analysis that often treats topics affecting United States foreign policy,

as well as other more esoteric international legal subjects. Although most of these journals are accessible in good law schools, they are largely

unknown to the political science community specializing in international relations, much less to the average undergraduate. By assessing the roleof international law in United States foreign policy- making, students realize that United States actions do not always measure up to international

legal expectations; that at times, international legal strictures get compromised for the sake of perceived national interests, and that concepts and

principles of international law, like domestic law, can be interpreted and twisted in order to justify United States policy in various international

circumstances. In this way, the debate format gives students the benefits ascribed to simulations and other action

learning techniques, in that it makes them become actively engaged with their subjects, and not be mere passive

consumers. Rather than spectators, students become legal advocates, observing, reacting to, and structuring

political and legal perceptions to fit the merits of their case. The debate exercises carry several specific educational

objectives. First, students on each team must work together to refine a cogent argument that compellingly asserts

their legal position on a foreign policy issue confronting the United States. In this way, they gain greater insight

into the real-world legal dilemmas faced by policy makers. Second, as they work with other members of their team, they realizethe complexities of applying and implementing international law, and the difficulty of bridging the gaps between United States policy and

international legal principles, either by reworking the former or creatively reinterpreting the latter. Finally, research for the debates

forces students to become familiarized with contemporary issues on the United States foreign policy agenda and

the role that international law plays in formulating and executing these policies. 8 The debate thus becomes an

excellent vehicle for pushing students beyond stale arguments over principles into the real world of policy

analysis, political critique, and legal defense.

Unbridled affirmation outside the game space makes research impossible and

destroys dialogue in debate

Hanghoj 8http://static.sdu.dk/mediafiles/Files/Information_til/Studerende_ved_SDU/Din_uddannelse/phd_hum/afhandlinger/2009/ThorkilHanghoej.pdf Thorkild Hanghj, Copenhagen, 2008 Since this PhD project began in

2004, the present author has been affiliated with DREAM (Danish Research Centre on Education andAdvanced Media Materials), which is located at the Institute of Literature, Media and Cultural Studies atthe University of Southern Denmark. Research visits have taken place at the Centre for Learning,Knowledge, and Interactive Technologies (L-KIT), the Institute of Education at the University of Bristoland the institute formerly known as Learning Lab Denmark at the School of Education, University ofAarhus, where I currently work as an assistant professor.

Thus, debate gamesrequire teachers to balance the centripetal/centrifugal forces of gamingand teaching, to be able to reconfigure their discursive authority, and to orchestrate the multiple voicesof a dialogical game space in relation to particular goals. These Bakhtinian perspectives provide a


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valuable analytical framework for describing the discursive interplay between different practices andknowledge aspects when enacting (debate) game scenarios. In addition to this, Bakhtins dialogicalphilosophy also offers an explanation of why debate games (and other game types) may bevaluable within an educational context. One of the central features of multi-player games is thatplayers are expected to experience a simultaneously real and imagined scenarioboth inrelation to an insiders (participant) perspective and to an outsiders (co-participant)perspective. According to Bakhtin, the outsiders perspective reflects a fundamental aspect ofhuman understanding: In order to understand, it is immensely important for the person whounderstands to be located outside the object of his or her creative understanding in time, in space, inculture. For one cannot even really see one's own exterior and comprehend it as a whole, and no mirrorsor photographs can help; our real exterior can be seen and understood only by other people, becausethey are located outside us in space, and because they are others (Bakhtin, 1986: 7). As the quotesuggests, every person is influenced by others in an inescapably intertwined way, and consequently no

voice can be said to be isolated. Thus, it is in the interaction with other voices that individualsare able to reach understanding and find their own voice. Bakhtin also refers to theontological process offinding a voice as ideological becoming, which represents the process ofselectively assimilating the words of others (Bakhtin, 1981: 341). Thus, by teaching and playingdebate scenarios,it is possible to support students in their process of becoming not onlythemselves, but also in becoming articulate and responsive citizens in a democratic society

Dialogue is critical to affirming any valueshutting down deliberation devolves into

totalitarianism and reinscribes oppressionMorson 4http://www.flt.uae.ac.ma/elhirech/baktine/0521831059.pdf#page=331Northwestern Professor, Prof. Morson's work ranges over a variety of areas: literary theory (especiallynarrative); the history of ideas, both Russian and European; a variety of literary genres (especially satire,utopia, and the novel); and his favorite writers -- Chekhov, Gogol, and, above all, Dostoevsky andTolstoy. He is especially interested in the relation of literature to philosophy.

Bakhtin viewed the whole process of ideological (in the sense of ideas and values, howeverunsystematic) development as an endless dialogue.As teachers, we find it difficult to avoid avoice of authority,however much we may think of ours as the rebels voice, because ourrebelliousness against society at large speaks in the authoritative voice of oursubculture.We speak the language and thoughts ofacademic educators, even when we imaginewe are speaking in no jargon at all, and that jargon, inaudible to us, sounds with all the overtonesof authority to our students. We are so prone to think of ourselves as fighting oppressionthat it takes some work to realize that we ourselves may be felt as oppressive andoverbearing, and that our own voice may provoke the same reactions that we feel when we hear anauthoritative voice with which we disagree. So it is often helpful to think back on the great authoritativeoppressors and reconstruct their self-image: helpful, but often painful. I remember, many years ago,when, as a recent student rebel and activist, I taught a course on The Theme of the Rebel and

discovered, to my considerable chagrin, that many of the great rebels of history were the verysame people as the great oppressors. There is a famous exchange between Erasmus andLuther, who hoped to bring the great Dutch humanist over to the Reformation, but Erasmus kept askingLuther how he could be so certain of so many doctrinal points. We must accept a few things to beChristians at all, Erasmus wrote, but surely beyond that there must be room for us highly fallible beingsto disagree. Luther would have none of such tentativeness. He knew, he was sure. The Protestant rebelswere, for a while, far more intolerant than their orthodox opponents. Often enough, the oppressors arethe ones who present themselves and really think of themselves as liberators. Certainty that one knowsthe root cause of evil: isnt that itself often the root cause? We know from Tsar Ivan the Terribles letters


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denouncing Prince Kurbsky, a general who escaped to Poland, that Ivan saw himself as someone whohad been oppressed by noblemen as a child and pictured himself as the great rebel against traditional

authority when he killed masses of people or destroyed whole towns. There is something in thenature ofmaximal rebellion against authority that produces ever greater intolerance,unless one is very careful. Forthe skills offighting orrefuting an oppressive power are notthose ofopenness, self-skepticism, or real dialogue. In preparing for my course, I remember my

dismay at reading Hitlers Mein Kampf and discovering that his self-consciousness was preciselythat ofthe rebel speaking in the name of oppressed Germans, and that much of his amazing appealotherwise so inexplicable was to the German sense that they were rebelling victims. In our time, the

Serbian Communist and nationalist leader Slobodan Milosevic exploited much the same appeal.Bakhtin surely knew that Communist totalitarianism, the Gulag, and the unprecedentedcensorship were constructed by rebels who had come to power. His favorite writer, Dostoevsky,used to emphasize that the worst oppression comes from those who, with the rebelliouspsychologyof the insulted and humiliated, have seized powerunless they have somehowcultivated the value of dialogue, as Lenin surely had not, but which Eva, in the essay by Knoeller aboutteaching The Autobiography of Malcolm X, surely had. Rebels often make the worst tyrants becausetheir word, the voice they hear in their consciousness, has borrowed something crucial from the

authoritative word it opposed, and perhaps exaggerated it: the aura of righteous authority. Ifonesideological becoming is understood as a struggle in which one has at last achieved thetruth, one is likely to want to impose that truth with maximal authority; and rebels of the nextgeneration may proceed in much the same way, in an ongoing spiral of intolerance..

Reality exists and failure to recognize that undermines their agenda

Sokal, 1996(Alan, professor of physics at New York University, A Physicist Experiments with cultural Studies, June 5,http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/lingua_franca_v4/lingua_franca_v4.html)

Why did I do it? While my method was satirical, my motivation is utterly serious. What concerns me is the

proliferation, not just of nonsense and sloppy thinking per se, but of a particularkind of nonsense and

sloppy thinking: one that denies the existence of objective realities, or (when challenged) admits their

existence but downplays their practical relevance. At its best, a journal like Social Textraises important questions that no scientistshould ignore -- questions, for example, about how corporate and government funding influence scientific work.

Unfortunately, epistemic relativism does little to further the discussion of these matters . In short, my concern overthe spread of subjectivist thinking is both intellectual and political. Intellectually, the problem with such doctrines is that they are false

(when not simply meaningless). There is a real world; its properties are not merely social

constructions; facts and evidence domatter. What sane person would contend otherwise? And yet,much contemporary academic theorizing consists precisely of attempts to blur these obvious truths -- the utter absurdity of it all being

concealed through obscure and pretentious language. Social Text's acceptance of my article exemplifies the intellectual arrogance of

Theory -- meaning postmodernist literarytheory -- carried to its logical extreme. No wonder they didn't bother to consult a physicist. If

all is discourse and ``text,'' then knowledge of the real world is superfluous; even physics becomes just

another branch of Cultural Studies. If, moreover, all is rhetoric and ``language games,'' then internal

logical consistency is superfluous too: a patina of theoretical sophistication serves

equally well. Incomprehensibility becomes a virtue; allusions, metaphors and puns

substitute for evidence and logic. My own article is, if anything, an extremely modest example of this well-established genre. Politically, I'm angered because most (though not all) of this silliness is emanating from the self-proclaimed Left.

We're witnessing here a profound historical volte-face. For most of the past two centuries, the Left has been identified

with science and against obscurantism; we have believed that rational thought and the fearless analysis of objective reality(both natural and social) are incisive tools for combating the mystifications promoted by the powerful -- not to mention being desirable

human ends in their own right. The recent turn ofmany ``progressive'' or ``leftist'' academic humanists and

social scientists toward one or another form ofepistemic relativismbetrays this worthy heritage

and undermines the already fragile prospects for progressive social critique. Theorizing

about ``the social construction of reality'' won't help us find an effective treatment for


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AIDS or devise strategies for preventing global warming. Nor can we combat false

ideas in history, sociology, economics and politics if we reject the notions of truth and falsity. The results ofmy little experiment demonstrate, at the very least, that some fashionable sectors of the American academic Left have been getting

intellectually lazy. The editors ofSocial Textliked my article because they liked its conclusion: that ``the content and methodologyof postmodern science provide powerful intellectual support for the progressive political project.'' They apparently felt no need to

analyze the quality of the evidence, the cogency of the arguments, or even the relevance of the arguments to the purported conclusion.

Their method prevents pragmatic political solutions

Gilman-Opalsky 2K11 [Richard, Assistant Professor of Political Philosophy in the Department of Political Science at the Universityof Illinois at Springfield. Spectacular Capitalism: Guy Debord And the Practice of Radical Philosophy. Page numbers at the end of the card]

To conclude, let us now step back from Baudrillard. There is much in common among many of the thinkers who

were part of the era in French theory that was trying to comprehend the unique position of post-

World War II highly technological capitalism. Many agreed with Baudrillard that radical

movements from the past had failed and were, perhaps, structurally guaranteed to fail given thedimensions of the new system (the system of objects, as Baudrillard would say, or the spectacle, as Debord would say). A new

analysis of sign-value and consumption, of post-industrial society was necessary. However, such

an analysis, still applicable and necessary today, can beplaced in the service of rethinking

revolutionary possibilities and praxis. But in order to do this, we must allow ourselves to makeclaims about reality, truth, and historywe must utilize theory that retains a normative core and

a commitment to thinking through the liberatory projects of our time.As we have seen, Baudrillard

refused such claim-making and optimism and viewed all existing and conceivable social andpolitical movements as wrong turns. It is my contention, however, thatBaudrillard is the wrong

turn, and that in order to find our way back from the malaise of the worldview reached by his

philosophy, we must retrieve and extend a more contentious theory (not only from Marx, but from those who

did better to rethink Marxism, such as Debord).I hope to have shown that, if we read Baudrillard critically, his work can

make us more critical, more analytical, less gullible, and less manipulable. These are good things. But, if

we are not careful, Baudrillards workonly confirms the passivity of academics and others who

have little to no interest in social movements and an ever-declining interest in radical and

revolutionarypolitics. Indeed, Baudrillards work offers up a philosophical justification for the totalabandonment of revolutionary praxis, making it easier to accept various forms of acquiescence

and reconciliation (should it not be unsettling that Baudrillard brings us from a radical situationist position to many of the same

conclusions as Francis Fukuyama?51). Dangerously, a politics of acquiescence and reconciliation describes

well the age of Obama, where elections reassure many (and not just in the US) that they can even give

America a black president who is sometimes (somehow) called a communist, despite the absurdity

of that conclusion.52

We must, therefore, pursue and develop a new philosophy of praxis thatcounteracts tendencies towards acquiescence and reconciliation. Yet, such a new theory must be

cognizant of and must take seriously the sources of those tendencies, whether they come from

Baudrillard, or from somewhere else.[57-58]

Global warming is an unprecedented event that shatters traditional decision making

calculus - the impact is untold suffering.Romm 8 - Phd in Physics from MIT (Joe,

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/03/30/202487/adaptation-trap-2-not-so-honest-

broker-roger-pielke-jr/, The adaptation trap 2: The not-so-honest-broker, March 30th

2008)

Climate scientists dont spend a lot of time studying 800 to 1000ppm, in part because they cant believe

humanity would be so self-destructive as to ignore their increasingly dire warnings and fail to stabilize at


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well below 550 ppm. The IPCC notes that if equilibrium CO2-equivalent concentrations hit 1000 ppm, the best estimate for temperature

increase is 5.5C (10F), which means that over much of the inland United States, temperatures would be about 15F higher. This increase

would be the end of life as we know it on this planet . Interestingly, 5.5C is just about the temperature differencebetween now and the end of the last ice age, the difference between a livable climate for human civilization that is well suited to agriculture and

massive glaciers from the North Pole down to Indiana. Is it 100% certain that 1000 ppm would result in Sea level rise of 80 feet to 250feet at a rate of 6 inches a decade; Desertification of one third the planet and drought over half the planet, plus the loss of all inland glaciers; and

More than 70% of all species going extinct, plus extreme ocean acidification? Of course not. Such certainty is not possiblefor a climate transition that is completely unprecedented in the history of the human species. I

can state with very high confidence that the possibility all of those outcomes will occur is high er thanthe world seeing even a single science and engineering-based technological breakthrough (let alone several as delayers like Pielke seem to becounting on) in the next quarter century or so significant enough to somehow avert such catastrophes far more cheaply than simply acting now

with existing technology to avoid 450 ppm. Importantly, even a 3% chance of a warming this great is enough to

render useless all traditional cost-benefit analyses that argue for delay or only modest action, as

Harvard economist Martin Weitzman has shown. Yet, absent immediate and strong action, the chances of such

warming and such effects are not small, they are largegreater than 50% . These impacts seem especially

likely in an 800 to 1000 ppm world given that the climate appears to be changing much faster than the IPCC had projected. The Greenland and

Antarctic ice sheets already appear to be shrinking 100 years ahead of schedule as Penn Stateclimatologist Richard Alley put it in March 2006. Indeed, a number of peer-reviewed articles have appeared in the scientific literature in the past18 months supporting the real possibility of a 6-inch-a-decade sea level rise. As for desertification, The unexpectedly rapid expansion of the

tropical belt constitutes yet another signal that climate change is occurring sooner than expected, noted one climate researcher in December. As

a recent study led by NOAA noted, A poleward expansion of the tropics is likely to bring even drier conditions to the U.S. Southwest, Mexico,Australia and parts of Africa and South America. In 2007, the IPCC warned that as global average temperature increase exceeds about 3.5C

[relative to 1980 to 1999], model projections suggest significant extinctions ( 40- 70% of species assessed )

around the globe . That is a temperature rise over pre-industrial levels significantly exceeding 4.0C. So a 5.5C rise would likely put

extinctions beyond the high end of that range. And these horrific impacts are certainly not the worst-case scenario . AsNASAs James Hansen explained in a 2004 Scientific American article: The peak rate of deglaciation following the last Ice Agewas aboutone meter [39 inches] of sea-level rise every 20 years, which was maintained for several centuries. Imagine sea level rise of nearly 20 inches a

decade lasting centuries. Now imagine what future generations will think of us if we let it happen. A year ago Science (subs. reqd) published

research that predicted a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest levels of aridity comparable to the 1930s Dust Bowl would

stretch from Kansas to California. And they were only looking at a 720 ppm case! The Dust Bowl was a sustained decrease in soil moisture of

about 15% (which is calculated by subtracting evaporation fromprecipitation). Even the one-third desertification of the planet by 2100 scenarioby the Hadley Center is only based on 850 ppm (in 2100). Princeton has done an analysis on Century-scale change in water availability: CO2-quadrupling experiment, which is to say 1100 ppm. The grim result: Most of the South and Southwest ultimately sees a 20% to 50% (!) decline

in soil moisture. You may be interested in how fast we can hit 1000 ppm. Well, the Hadley Center has one of the few models that incorporates

many of the major carbon cycle feedbacks. In a 2003 Geophysical Research Letters (subs. reqd) paper, Strong carbon cycle feedbacks in aclimate model with interactive CO2 and sulphate aerosols, the Hadley Center finds that the world would hit 1000 ppm in 2100 even in a scenario

that, absent those feedbacks, we would only have hit 700 ppm in 2100. I would note that the Hadley Center, though more inclusive of carbon

cycle feedbacks than most other models, still does not model any feedbacks from the melting of the tundra even though it is probably the most

serious of those amplifying feedbacks. Clearly, 800 to 1000 ppm would be ruinous to this country, creating

unimaginable suffering and misery for billions and billions of people for centuries to come . No one

who believes in science and cares about humanity can possibly believe that adaptation is a more

rational or moral policy than focusing 99% of our climate efforts on staying far, far below 800

ppm.

Critique is a vacuous process of self-aggrandizement. Their primary assumptions rest on

the narrative of the nave masses, too stupid to understand the world around them,

simultaneously creating a matrix of contradictions that ensures critical theory can never

truly be proven wrong

Latour 2004 (Bruno, Professor at Sociology, Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters ofFact to Matters of Concern)


9/9

And, yet, I know full well that this is not enough because, no matter what we do, when we try to reconnect scientific objects

with their aura, their crown, their web of associations, when we accompany them back to their gathering, we

always appear to weaken them, not to strengthen their claim to reality. I know, I know, we are acting with the bestintentions in the world, we want to add reality to scientific objects, but, inevitably, through a sort of tragic bias, we seem always to be

subtracting some bit from it. Like a clumsy waiter setting plates on a slanted table, every nice dish slides down and crashes on the

ground. Why can we never discover the same stubbornness, the same solid realism by bringing out the obviously webby, thingyqualities of matters of concern? Why cant we ever counteract the claim of realists that only a fare of matters of fact can s atisfy their

appetite and that matters of concern are much like nouvelle cuisinenice to look at but not fit for voracious appetites? One reason is of

course theposition objects have been given in most social sciences, a position that is so ridiculously useless

that if it is employed, even in a small way, for dealing with science, technology, religion, law, or literature it

will make absolutely impossible any serious consideration of objectivityI mean of thinginess. Why is this so? Let

me try to portray the critical landscape in its ordinary and routine state.21 We can summarize, I estimate, 90 percent ofthe

contemporary critical scene by the following series of diagrams that fixate the object at only two positions, what I have called

the fact position and the fairy positionfact and fairy are etymologically related but I wont develop this point here. The

fairy position is very well known and is used over and over again by many social scientists who associate criticism with

antifetishism. The role of the critic is then to show that what the naive believers are doing with objects is simply a

projection of their wishes onto a material entity that does nothing at all by itself. Here they have diverted to theirpetty use the prophetic fulmination against idols they have mouths and speak not, they have ears and hear not, but they use this

prophecy to decry the very objects of beliefgods, fashion, poetry, sport, desire, you name itto which naive believers cling with so

much intensity.22 And then the courageous critic, who alone remains aware and attentive, who never sleeps, turns

those false objects into fetishes that are supposed to be nothing but mere empty white screens on which is

projected the power of society, domination, whatever. The naive believer has received a first salvo (fig. 2). But, wait, asecond salvo is in the offing, and this time it comes from the fact pole. This time it is the poor bloke, again taken

aback, whose behavior is now explained by the powerful effects of indisputable matters of fact: You, ordinary fetishists,

believe you are free but, in reality, you are acted on by forces you are not conscious of. Look at them, look,

you blind idiot (and here you insert whichever pet facts the social scientists fancy to work with, taking them

from economic infrastructure, fields of discourse, social domination, race, class, and gender, maybe throwing

in some neurobiology, evolutionary psychology, whatever, provided they act as indisputable facts whose origin,

fabrication, mode of development are left unexamined) (fig. 3). Do you see now why it feels so good to be a critical

mind? Why critique, this most ambiguous pharmakon, has become such a potent euphoric drug? You are always right! When

naive believers are clinging forcefully to their objects, claiming that they are made to do things because of

their gods, their poetry, their cherished objects, you can turn all of those attachments into so many fetishes

and humiliate all the believers by showing that it is nothing but their own projection, that you , yes you alone,

can see. But as soon as nave believers are thus inflated by some belief in their own importance, in their own

projective capacity, you strike them by a second uppercut and humiliate them again, this time by showing

that, whatever they think, their behavior is entirely determined by the action of powerful causalities coming

from objective reality they dont see, but that you, yes you, the never sleeping critic, alone can see.Isnt thisfabulous? Isnt it really worth going to graduate school to study critique? Enter here, you poor folks. After arduous years of reading

turgid prose, you will be always right, you will never be taken in any more; no one, no matter how powerful, will be able to accuse you

of naivet, that supreme sin, any longer? Better equipped than Zeus himself you rule alone, striking from above with

the salvo of antifetishism in one hand and the solid causality of objectivity in the other. The only loser is the

naive believer, the great unwashed, always caught off balance (fig. 4). Is it not time for some progress? To the fact

position, to the fairy position, why not add a third position, a fair position? Is it really asking too much from

our collective intellectual life to devise, at least once a century, some new critical tools? Should we not bethoroughly humiliated to see that military personnel are more alert, more vigilant, more innovative than we, the pride of academia, thecre`me de la cre`me, who go on ceaselessly transforming the whole rest of the world into nave believers, into fetishists, into hapless

victims of domination, while at the same time turning them into the mere superficial consequences of powerful hidden causalities

coming from infrastructures whose makeup is never interrogated? All the while being intimately certain that the things

really close to our hearts would in no way fit any of those roles. Are you not all tired of those

explanations? I am, I have always been, when I know, for instance, that the God to whom I pray, the worksof art I cherish, the colon cancer I have been fighting, the piece of law I am studying, the desire I feel, indeed,

the very book I am writing could in no way be accounted for by fetish or fact, nor by any combination of

those two absurd positions?

1nc vs Ng Practice Debate

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