debating debate

Music: David Helpling: Sleeping on the Edge of the World (1999)

This week has curiously been one in which I've revisited high school memories: I was not only a teenage clubkid, but I was a teenage debater too. A policy debater, in fact, and unless you've been away from the world's screens in the past week, policy debate has hit the national screen. Why? Because one of the University of Texas' sons of controversy, Bill Shanahan, was fired from his job at Fort Hayes University yesterday for "violating the university's faculty code of ethics." I think the stated reasons for his firing were wrong and the consequence of misunderstanding on two counts: (1) there is a widespread, false perception of what debate is and should be; and (2) there lurks an ideology of publicity that the debate world has been arguing about for over twenty years: "perception is key."

Shanahan's firing was a direct consequence of a YouTube video that was posted some weeks ago, prompting embarrassment and apologias from many in the debate community and outrage from those "not in the know" (like this fool). The video actually shows a post-debate discussion among judges and coaches about a debate that just concluded between Towson State of Maryland, and Fort Hayes State of Kansas, where Bill coaches. Because this national controversy hits close to home---debate is seated in my home discipline of Communication Studies; I came to this field through debate; our program has a very successful Speech team; and so on----I have a lot of opinions about this. Perhaps the most overarching and interesting issue is how the viral circulation of the video foregrounds the ideology of publicity and the logics of representation in postmodernity.

CIRCULATION AND APPETITE: THE CONDITIONS OF YOUTUBE JOURNALISM

In an insightful essay by John Hartley titled "The Frequencies of Public Writing" (excerpt here), Hartley argues that various forms of public writing have different frequencies, which impacts their "wavelengths" of consumption. Low frequency writing, such as inscriptions on monuments, are designed to have a very long wavelength of consumption, whereas very high frequency forms of writing, such as newspaper stories, have very short wavelengths of consumption. The advent of YouTube is a very curious form of public writing because it challenges Hartley's handy distinction at the level of desiring publics: while computer servers and other forms of electronic storage presumably do not exist as long as monuments, they nevertheless create an archive that can significantly extend a wavelength of consumption. And yet YouTube is also a very high frequency form of public writing (in light and sound, as it were). The hyperlink, in other words, seems to extend public writing for decades, yet electronic, Internet-based public writing is published at dizzying frequency. Wavelength for YouTube video consumption, consequently, is determined by solely by the roving appetites of publics/counterpublics of consumption.

As anyone who has seen the "news" today, what gets reported is more often the titillating or "shock" story rather than, say, world events. Surveillance and hidden video stories are increasingly the norm. Think: how many times have you watched the network news, CNN, FOX, or MSNBC and seen a YouTube video?

So why are YouTube videos being reported as "news?" One answer, of course, is technological. I'll leave my media ecology friends to discuss that part of the answer, because I want to look at motive. Francis Bacon is helpful at this juncture. Writing about rhetoric (Hartley's "public writing") in the seventeenth century, Bacon argued it was important to distinguish reason and affections. Because reason and affections often compete for attention, Bacon argued rhetoric was necessary. Consider this remarkable passage from The Advancement of Learning:

. . . if the affections in themselves were pliant and obedient to reason, it were true there should be no great use of persuasions and insinuations to the will, more than of naked propositions and proofs . . . . the affections themselves carry ever an appetite to good, as reason doth; the difference is, that the affection beholdeth merely the present; reason beholdeth the future and sum of time; and therefore the present filling the imagination more, reason is commonly vanquished; but after that force of eloquence and persuasion hath made things future and remote appear present, then the revolt of the imagination of the reason prevaileth.

Consequently, Bacon defined rhetoric as the application of "Reason to Imagination for the better moving of the will." The affections or passions are about instant gratification and "now," while reason crafts lively images to "shew" our wills toward the future. Rhetoric for Bacon was fundamentally an ethical enterprise.

High frequency, low-wavelength media like YouTube amplify the truth-effects of the (moving)image while simultaneously vanquishing reason in Bacon's sense of the faculty. The consequence is the evaporation of the ethical character of rhetoric as an art in our times. And I think we might say the same is true of the art of journalism, when what is much more important are the titillating facts and less so the issues these bring to fore (thus far, the only news program that strives to maintain the old, ethical art of journalism is the Lehrer News Hour). What has become more important for circulatory purposes is present gratification, and this over highly emotional content. Media wavelengths are dominated, in other words, by the affections. Leavis would have condemned contemporary journalism as catering to primal passions, of course, and Adorno would most certainly weigh with something more acerbic. In short: YouTube is the final death-knell of Old Rhetoric. What new rhetoric has replaced it? The Amoral Rhetoric of Affect. The activity of debate is its newest victim.

CONTEXT: THIS IS NOT A DEBATE

With a better understanding of YouTube as a news source, we can now turn to Dr. Edward H. Hammond's decision to fire Dr. Shanahan and suspend the debate team based on a YouTube video. There are unstated reasons that inform this decision, I'm certain, but the official party line is that "seeing is believing." I'll discuss Bill's controversial behavior below, but for the moment let's underscore the more significant ideological move: Hammond didn't just remove Shanahan, but he also suspended the debate team. In the press release crafted and distributed yesterday by Fort Hayes' publicity folks, the president held up Shanahan as a symptom of debate in our times:

I was a college debater . . . . I place high value on college debate as an exceptional learning opportunity. However, I had no idea that college debate had degenerated into the kind of displays that we witnessed when we watched CEDA events on the Internet. College debate has changed greatly. The lack of decorum and the lack of civility are not compatible with the educational standards at FHSU, and I doubt they are compatible with the educational standards at most universities. . . . If anyone doubts my conclusion, that person should view the entire debate, which was laced with four-letter words, a lack of personal respect and a lack of civil discourse.

It is not clear what Hammond means by "the entire debate." I did what Hammond asked me to do, and watched (well, listened to) the actual debate, which you can find here. It's an hour and a half long. The debate is between undergraduate students from Towson and Fort Hayes, not the others in the room. I didn't notice anything close to a lack of civility. What I saw was an interesting and engaged discussion of racism (about which more below). I can only conclude Hammond was referring to the video in which Shanahan and a the coach from the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Shanara Reid, are arguing about the debate.

This blog does not have a long reach and is not read far beyond the confines of readers associated with the academic field of Communication Studies, but in the off chance someone not associated with debate or my field reads this, let's be clear: This video, the heated exchange between Shanahan and Reid, is not a debate. Hammond's suggestion that this exchange is emblematic of contemporary debate is misleading and grossly misinformed, and from a perspective sympathetic to the activity, irresponsible.

The uptake of the "angry professors" debate---lets call it Shanahara Gate---is motivated by the appetite that has been cultivated among mass media outlets for ever more sensational, provocative, "in the moment," news. It is not ironic, but rather a sad truth, that Bacon's observations about the ability of affections to trample reason are clearly observable in Hammond's remarks. Not even the president of a state university took the time to click his way to the actual debate. He chose, instead, instead to recognize truth in an eight-minute, decontextualized exchange between two debate coaches who are passionate about the activity. Had he actually sought out the debate between Towson and Fort Hayes, and had MSM reporters followed suit, they might have discovered the passion behind Reid and Shanahan's heated remarks goes to the heart of what debate is thought to be---its values---as well as a very deep problem in the United States: racism.

IT'S (THE) RACE, STUPID

So our cultivated affections have led us to focus on the palpable agonism of two (seemingly) pissed off debate coaches instead of the cause of their tension. As a consequence, a debate team has been suspended from engaging another team on the topic of race relations in our country. To add insult to injury, the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) buckled: "we respect the decision made by Fort Hays State University and their President Dr. Edward H. Hammond to dismiss Dr. Bill Shanahan," CEDA said in a statement. "The organization has expressed its deep and profound disappointment by the incident immediately after the quarterfinal debate between Fort Hays State University and Towson University at the 2008 CEDA national tournament." Um, ok. With an opening statement like this, the country's governing debate organization condones Hammond's irresponsible conflation of the YouTube video with the actual debate. However unwittingly, Hammond's decision to suspend the debate team and CEDA's response is a form of silencing, and while not direct, I cannot help thinking such move is motivated by Whiteness, and the way in which Whiteness cannot tolerate challenges to the unmarked. Towson's argument in the actual debate round---that policy debate protects and is an expression of Whiteness---still wins the round! Let me explain.

One cannot tell what Reid and Shanahan are arguing about; in the video you see Shanahan acting wildly, professing to embrace his assholism, but in general the viewer has no idea what the topic is. I asked a friend and one of our many debate coaches, Sean Tiffee, to explain what the argument between Shanahan and Reid was really about. Here's what he said, with my clarifications in brackets:

I wasn’t personally at the tournament, and I didn’t see the altercation, but here's the story as I understand it: it's quarterfinals at CEDA Nationals. The way judges are done for out rounds is via strike card, which is where five judges are placed on a card before the round and each team gets to take one off ["strike a judge"], leaving a three person panel. Towson strikes Brent Saidon because he used to debate for Fort Hays and is close with Bill. Fort Hays strikes Shanara Reid because she had judged them earlier in the tournament they didn’t think that she had liked their arguments (some of the evidence they cited was that she had given them 27s for points [which seemed to them punitive; good debaters tend to get higher points]).

Towson is affirmative [the first to offer an argument that will be debated for a round] and runs a black aesthetic affirmative that argues that [policy] debate is indicative of white supremacy and that there needs to be a black aesthetic; the team that most consistently does this should win. Part of their argument in the 1AC [the first speech of the debate] is that Fort Hays struck the only African-American judge on the card, which is reflective of the white supremacy in debate [in general]. Fort Hays runs this complicated "doubling" argument where they become the mirror image of the [the first speech] and force the affirmative to confront their doppelganger. However, this doubling argument doesn't really deal with the fact that they struck Shanara from the [judging panel], so this becomes the point of separation between the two sides.

Towson questions why Fort Hays struck Shanara, and Fort Hays responds that the question shouldn't be a point of discussion . . . because [the issue of striking judges is] "pre-round" or "pre-text." Fort Hayes argues the round should be determined on what happens in the round, not outside. There is also some discussion, I think, about whether the strike card should be public or private knowledge.

Clearly, this is an over-simplification of the argumentation that took place in the round, and it may even be a misrepresentation because I didn’t see it, but this is how I’ve heard it described from multiple people. It's a 2-1 for Towson [they win the round]. During the post-round oral critique [after debates, the judges discuss the arguments and explain why they voted], one of the judges said the issue of striking judges is pre-text and he can't vote on the fact that Fort Hays struck Shanara from the card; another judge votes for Towson and says striking judges is part of the round. The two judges disagree and talk about it with one another during the post-round oral critique, and the one who had voted for Fort Hays leaves.

The ["angry professors"] video starts very soon after he leaves and is preceded by Reid disagreeing with some of the nonverbals that Shanahan is displaying during the post-round discussion. I may be wrong about that, however, and it may have been Bill who first spoke; again, I wasn’t there and I’m not entirely sure what happened in the moments immediately preceding the video clip.

Note Tiffee stresses the importance of context for understanding the discussion taking place in the video. Nevertheless, to paraphrase:

• Towson's actual argument in the debate is that debate protects Whiteness, and that only a "black aesthetic" approach to debate can correct the problem.
• Fort Hayes responds by agreeing, and advances an argument that forces the Towson team to confront their own "white supremacist" assumptions (if I understand this correctly; it's not clear to me from watching the video either).
• Towson responds that however much For Hayes agrees or mirrors their position, the fact remains that they struck an African American judge, and that fact is quantifiably more harmful than their selection of judges.
• Fort Hayes responds that the striking of judges is external to the argumentation in the debate, and therefore, should not be considered.
• In a two-to-one decision, Towson is declared the winner of the debate. The decision rule is whether or not the striking of judges is internal or external to the debate round. Two judges believe that it is, one judge argues that it is not.

The proverbial elephant in the room directly addressed by the Towson team is racism: is policy debate, as an activity, "white" and exclusionary? The "aesthetic" of debate, they suggest, is a white thing that perpetuates social discrimination. Now, I wasn't in the debate round and don't want to spend an hour and a half flowing the arguments, but it seems to me a "black aesthetic" falls prey to the same critique of hegemony. Regardless, the issue is RACE.

It is in this context that we must confront the YouTube video featuring the interaction between Reid and Shanahan. The unspoken subtext is that Reid is suggesting that Shanahan and his team's arguments are racist. That this is truly the issue being discussed/screamed about is made even more apparent by Dr. Sandoz's passionate impromptu about "building bridges." The bridge is across color.

Although I do not condone either Reid or Shanahan's behavior (which, frankly, most debaters would tell you was not a surprise), their supposed "anger" makes much more sense when you read it as an expression, not of individual motives or a failure of control, but of a larger social tension between "white people" and African-Americans, and a long and bloody history of violence and oppression. Sandoz's passionate speech about the activity of debate as a way to work-through this tension and history both directly addresses the "elephant in the room" and helps to contextualize why Shanahan keeps saying he cares about he activity. From a sympathetic perspective, the activity of debate provides a forum, in a sort of "game" environment, for debaters to confront the most pressing social issues without fear of reprisal or violence. Debate is, in Burke's words, ad bellum purificandum, a way to duke it out without risking violence or harm. Occasionally feelings "bubble over" (admirably, not from the actual debaters!) because this is a forum which gives those feelings an appropriate and "safe" avenue of expression. Shanahan is reacting to the suggestion he is racist; Reid is venting feelings that the activity of debate---if not Shanahan---is racist. What many policy debaters would tell you is that no one in that room expected there to be fisticuffs or violence. While certainly heated, the folks in the room knew it was "safe."

Hammond's decision to suspend the debate squad because debate has "degenerated" is a form of silencing and another blow to academic freedom. The comparison may be crude, but the publicity motive behind this gesture is no different than the many attempts to silence Kanye West when he said what many of us thought to be true: George Bush don't care about black people. Although the activity of debate is unquestionably modeled on a white aesthetic (which Fort Hayes responded to they only way they could: by agreeing), I think Towson's argument extends to the way in which this controversy was handled itself: note how no one is discussing the actual content of the debate. Instead of using the opportunity of this controversy to address the difficult but extremely important issue of race relations---the very reason Reid is angry and Shanahan is passionately flailing about---is submerged, affect is detached from its source, and resignified as the ravings of an individual crazy.

Let's be honest about the affect/effect of the YouTube video: it's about racism. As the Towson team argued, racism is systemic. Racism inheres in structures, like the practice of policy debate, or FEMA, or educational institutions like, for example, Fort Hayes State. Racism is an ideology that works through us in a systemic way. Shanahan and Reid's emotions are a reflection of the frustration many of us feel about the systemic nature of racism: it is no one person's responsibility, but our mutual, structural burden to work-through and on. We wince when we see Shanahan bounce about because we recognize ourselves in the bouncing: what white person who is against racism hasn't felt similarly frustrated when called to account for possible racist beliefs? It's frustrating, and perhaps all the more because there's an element of truth in having it pointed out? Sandoz's chair-standing speech about debate should be read as an attempt to make debate a place where such confrontations can happen (preferably without acting-out), to feature it as an opportunity to reckon with systemic ills in a safe place and space; it was an attempt to recontextualize the exchange that just happened between these two coaches as an exception but nevertheless demonstrative of the issues the activity seeks to engage.

HUSTLE AND FLOW: CONTENT AND KRITIK

If there is an irony to be observed in this controversy, it’s the undeniable fact that the debate that took place over the inherent racism of the activity was made possible by none other than [drum roll please] Bill Shanahan. Until Shanahan began to make his substantial influence in the debate world, the activity was a fairly staid and formal affair about certain "stock issues" in respect to some social, cultural, or political controversy. I learned to debate in the late 80s in high school in respect to stock issues, which I won't go into except to say that the debate format was fairly rigid.

While here working on his doctorate at the University of Texas at Austin in the late 1980s, Shanahan began coaching his teams to run Kritiks or "critiques." Critiques were arguments made in a debate round that either challenged the assumptions or premises of the resolution being debated, or the rules, formats, performances, and so on, of debating itself. Shanahan was an avid reader of critical theory and continental philosophy, and he brought critical thinking into the arena of debate. Kritiks broke new ground in the debate world and transformed the debate round from an activity that was little more than a verbal chess match, returning it to a concern with civic engagement, the very thing upon which debate in college was originally about. In other words, Kritik's returned debate to debate. The exchange between Towson and Fort Hayes over racism is, consequently, something that Shanahan helped to make possible.

Another significant reason why Kritik's are important is that they opened up competitive debate to more participants. As the HBO documentary Synopsis/Resolved demonstrates in an insightful manner, academic debate is not what people think it is: it has become a very fast, rapid-fire game of "spewing." Spewing refers to speaking so fast that one's opponent cannot write down every point one is making. Writing down arguments is called "flowing." If one cannot flow a spew, irrelevant of his or her reasoning abilities, the round could be easily lost by "dropping" some very quickly spoken argument. The kritik tends to have the effect of slowing down the round---or at least it used to. It is a kind of meta-move that shifts the debate from spew-mode to critical/reflective mode. If a judge or a series of judges accepts kritiks, the debate may slow down considerably and real, in-room issues can be discussed. This is particularly helpful for students who cannot flow quickly nor "spew" themselves.

The president of Fort Hayes State was correct to assert that debate has changed since he was a debater. It's gotten much, much faster. His assumption that Shanahan represents that change is, in some sense, also correct. It is a shame, however, that Shanahan's personal shenanigans have eclipsed the transformation of the activity he helped to effect: policy debate now engages the real-world by directly confronting ideologies directly in play in the actual debate round, and because of the kritik, has allowed more students to "play."

ENCOMIUM FOR BILL

If you've read this far, you've probably figured out I'm fond of Bill Shanahan. Like all failed human beings, Bill has his issues (and stories about his time here at UT are legendary). Everyone in the debate community knows this, and even expects Bill to act-out at tournaments. He's thought of affectionately by some as "our family crazy." Others are not so crazy about Bill. He's certainly a polarizing figure, and if you don't understand the performance of affect, you're not going to get him.

I have been away from the debate world now for about twelve years, and much has changed (CEDA developed to challenge the problem of spewing, then sped up itself and absorbed the NDT, etc.). No doubt there are more stories about Bill, some negative, and I probably should learn more about his behavior since I left debate before I come out to praise him. He had a tremendous effect on my life, however, so I at least owe him this:

As a geeky, effeminate, and "weird" kid in high school, I didn't discover my niche until my sophomore year. That was "goth/punk" and clubbing. That was drugs. And that was debate. Debate changed how I thought about the world and what was possible for me. You see, prior to learning about debate the life plan was to finish high school, go to community college, find someone to settle-down with and have babies. That's what a small town boy did.

We had this crazy debate coach hired at my high school who recruited me and my friends for debate. I didn't know jack shit about the activity. Nor did the coach, really. But what he did was raise money and send us to the Northwestern Debate Camp (I was a cherub). Spending the summer at NWU, I discovered I didn't have to go to community college, but could actually leave Georgia. I was introduced to the field formerly known as Speech Communication. And as our little South Gwinnett High School squad got better, we started to travel the country debating. My world was exploded, as I began to see academics as a way to find a place---a home---for my difference.

Prior to my final year debating in high school, I was sent to Ken Strange's Dartmouth Debate Institute. We all had to debate the second day of camp, and based on our abilities, we were assigned to labs. My debate partner and I were good debaters, but we were not fast. I could spew, but I couldn't flow. My partner could flow, but couldn't spew. Bill Shanahan's lab was for those debaters who were not "fast," and I was assigned to it.

On the first day of lab Bill gave a wild lecture on Nietzsche---it has nothing to do with debate. I was blown away (checked out some Nietzsche books the next day). Here's this long haired hippie with no shoes insisting that I think for myself. In the lab, Bill didn't focus on getting us to cut cards or to write briefs. Instead, he focused on getting us to think. It was there that we were introduced to the Kritik (here's a recent demonstration of a Kritik and discussion at the institute that I attended). The Kritik opened up for me (and my partner) new possibilities we had never considered; it allowed us creative but "slower" folks to debate competitively on the national level. At that time, kritiks were not as accepted as they are today, and so we probably lost as many rounds as we won. Even so, Bill taught me how to "stay in the game."

One thing I remember vividly, though, was his personal attention and care about us kids. At that camp, I was the poorest kid---or at least next to it. I was among only a handful of kids from a public school; most of the kids there were from private schools and wealthy families. At the end of camp, one could buy a commemorative t-shirt for $12. I couldn't afford one. At some point Bill overheard me discussing this. There was an exit interview with Ken Strange for each of the debaters. In that interview Strange gave me a t-shirt. Bill obviously said something to him.

Shanahan changed how I thought about the world as a young high school student. Combined with my acid-eating, meeting him influenced me to be where I am today. He was a hero for me at that age. In some sense he still is.

Aside from reckoning with the fact that love is not enough, perhaps the biggest disappointment of adulthood is learning that adults are nothing more than kids with experience. I do wish Bill didn't "go off" as he did in the video, but nothing will change my recognition that he showed me love, kindness, and guidance as a young person.

Finally: CEDA should gets some gonads and stick up for the activity and a long-time, dedicated servant. Throwing Bill under the bus was not the right way to go here. If the activity of competitive debate is to survive, much more savvy, rhetorically crafted messages to the MSM are needed to combat the de-contextualizing effects and potentially devastating impact of YouTube.