Beyond the Plan: How Kritiks Are Transforming Policy Debate

Kritiks in policy debate can be very diverse. Most debaters today are familiar with kritiks about identity, whether that be afro-pessimism, techo-orientalism, or settler colonialism. While one of the earliest kritiks was the border kritik, over time, kritiks have evolved to include many different other things. 

A kritik, when reduced down to its most basic level, is a counterplan and a disadvantage in one type of argument. However, most kritiks don't have a specific link to the plan; most disadvantages might. Oftentimes, kritiks link to the affirmative plan with underlying assumptions of the plan. IE: fiat (the hypothetical implementation of the plan through the United States federal government), ontology/epistemology (the way of being/the way of thinking), or representations (representations of death, violence, or aggression). 

Kritiks should have 3 main parts in order for it to function. The first one is the link to the affirmative plan — How does the affirmative team’s argument or plan relate to your Kritik, and how does it increase a type of structure? Second is the impact — the harm that is caused by the link to the affirmative. This could be, but is not limited to, racism, depression in debaters, or psychological harm. Third is the alternative — A way to solve the link. Usually, alternatives are non-physical solutions to the problem. Examples of alternatives can range from "thinking of the plan in a different mindset" to "becoming a living library." Some teams kick the alternative and just go for the substance of the kritik itself, although the implications of winning off of this vary between judges. 

The affirmative team will respond with multiple steps when defending their positions. First is the framework; negative teams will have to be familiar with the structure of the framework in order to win rounds. A common framework interpretation may sound like this: “Weigh the hypothetical implementations of the plan against the K. The K must defend causal links, uniqueness, and solvency.” The aff should have multiple reasons why this is preferable; the most common is fairness and clash. Fairness: aff has to defend every representation and rhetoric they say, which leads to impossible aff prep. Clash: no clash about the actual substance of the affirmative. Second is link defense; affirmative teams should be able to defend their representations. Examples of this could look like “Fiat is good because it trains debaters to think like legislators” or “conceptualizations of China as an enemy are necessary because ignoring threats could spell worse impacts.” 

Kritikal teams should also be able to consistently win spill-up/subject formation. Spill up is described as a reading of a kritik spilling over into out-of-round discussions and action; this could look like movements or even protests. Subject formation is the change of one’s subject. An example of spill-up can be the reading of a kritik makes people less racist or less willing to read certain representations with evidence to prove it. Many judges believe kritiks should if they win a risk of a round spilling up before voting for a kritik or a kritikal affirmative. However, if k teams win that the other team did something racist or is holding up a racist model they do not need to win spillover in order to win the round.

The evolution of kritiks has yielded a wide range of modern-day arguments. One example is the Berkeley Prep RV original, the luminosity kritik. The luminosity kritik was a kritik that criticized the use of intellectual property as a way that perpetuated anti-asianess inside and outside of debate. Luminosity is the practice of Buddhism/spiritual praxis that generates energy inside asian bodies (more explanation of energy arguments on K-aff section). The kritik is a kritik that gains offense off of framework, in response to the k. The kritik claims that affixing asian debaters to an impersonalized model (framework) is a racial microaggression that can lead to feelings of depression, heart attacks, and stomach issues. This kritik, along with other well recognized kritiks like disembodyment, is an example of a fiat kritik, like many others this type of kritik has become one of the most popular in the top circuit. These kritiks gain offense off of framework, but also sometimes the links themselves. Winning a perm do both on a fiat kritik can also be difficult because the kritik is critiquing something intrinsic to your model/plan. A team responding to a kritik best bet is to have large amounts of fiat good defense.

As kritikal debate evolves, arguments do too. The current high school debate now includes many ways for a team to win on a kritik, but also respond to a kritik. Many kritikal affirmative teams have found new ways to win over a framework and spill over debate with new, but smart pieces of evidence. One example of this is the card tagged “COMPARTIMENTALIZED.” This is an example of a card on fairness under the framework. Compartimentalized states that procedural fairness should only be evaluated in practice, but not as a concept. To put it more simply, compartmentalized states that we should keep fair procedures in debate, like evaluating a round fairly and flowing, but not actually voting for fairness. Many teams describe compartmentalization as “selective fairness.” Another example is “FMRI” cards or scientific neurological study cards. These cards can be very useful when applied in the right manner. FMRI cards state that repeated engagement with rhetoric will mold the brain into becoming more akin to rhetoric. For example, violent rhetoric could make people more violent and inflict literal trauma on people. However, many teams have found it difficult to respond to this argument using evidence that specifically says that FMRI studies are flawed and sometimes unreliable. Social learning theory is also a similar concept to the FMRI evidence, saying that people will learn socially from the environment they are surrounded by, and that punishment (punishment is just rejecting the team) can help people learn socially. On the other hand however, teams responding to kritiks or kritikal affirmatives have found ways to defend their positions. When faced with the allegations of racism or a racist practice happening in round, some teams respond with “Tabroom solves.” The premise of the response is that teams should go to tabroom (the tournament organizers) and resolve the conflict there without putting the ballot on the line.

Kritikal affirmatives are affirmatives that don't defend parts or all of the resolution. Kritikal affirmatives will not defend the resolution under the pretense that the resolution will perpetuate or facilitate bad/racialized logics. The most common type of kritikal affirmative is affirmatives based around one’s subjectivity, IE, blackness, or Asianess; however, there are still affirmatives over other subjects like Baudrillard, a French philosopher talking about hyperrealities in everyday life. Most kritikal affirmatives have to have a link either talking about the resolution or the debate as a whole, and argue that debates over the resolution are harmful for a certain reason. Kritikal affirmatives should also defend a method that solves or helps with harmful debate inaugurated from the resolution. These methods are often non-material, so instead of a normal policy affirmative saying that we should increase domain awareness technology in the arctic, a kritikal affirmative might say to affirm rage or poetry as a method to resist racist structures. 

Approaching kritikal affirmatives can be very difficult, after all, your normal disadvantages and counterplans will not link to the 1AC’s presentation of evidence, case will be even harder to contest for negative teams. The most common argument against kritikal affirmatives will be Topicality-USFG, and sometimes the capitalism kritik. Since most kritikal affirmatives don't fiat hypothetical government action, most negative teams will run Topicality USFG, and most affirmative teams will respond with framework. Most often, these types of debates (T vs Kaff) will turn into a big framework round, so negative teams going for Topicality USFG should be prepared. In my opinion, I believe the capitalism kritik to be the superior way to negate or test kritikal affirmatives, for multiple reasons. One is that most kritikal affirmatives will gain a majority of their offense from TUSFG; some teams will bombard opponents with upwards of 7 DAs on framework, and conceding even one of these DAs could lose you the round. Second is that most kritikal affirmative teams, like me, are most comfortable giving framework 2ARs, shifting the debate to something the affirmative team is less experienced talking about could give you a huge advantage. Most capitalism kritiks’ links are based on the idea that resistance or movement strategies are captured by capitalism. A common impact of the capitalism kritik is the extinction of life because capitalism is inherently unstable. The capitalism kritik can be very strategic because it is one of the only ways negative teams can gain one of the most powerful types of offense. With the capitalism kritik, negative teams can make kritik, and extinction outweighs arguments because the death of all living species likely outweighs any other type of impact. Alternatives are often centered around communist planning or a socialist party. Affirmative teams should respond to the capitalism kritik with uniqueness and a perm. For example, “kritik is non-unique to the affirmative plan because asian movements and identities are already being consumed by capitalism with the hypersexualization of asian women in media, this proves that the impact of the kritik doesn't come from the reading of the 1ac.” “Permuation do both because the affirmative plan can assist the communist movement.”

Krikital affirmatives usually affirm a non-material method. Many of these methods are able to create energy inside of minority bodies. Examples of methods are fugitive planning in the undercommons, chinese punk and anaphora, such methods claim to generate racial battle energy inside of minority bodies, which can have multiple strategic uses for kritikal affirmatives. First is that many kritikal affirmative teams argue that maximizing minority energy is a prerequisite for any change, this also creates uniqueness in that most minority bodies are already exhausted. Second is that the uniqueness claim justifies perms in KvK (mainly capitalism) debates. Teams may use the claim that the affirmative generates energy in minority bodies to prove that communist planning or a socialist movement will not be possible without the affirmative method because minorities will be too exhausted inside the movement to create any change. 

The last thing I wanted to cover in this paper, as it would be a dishonor to k debate if I didn't cover it, are debates over black debate. The NDT 2023 finals is a great example of black debate, where Michigan debated against Wake Forest over the call to the black chorus. One Wake debater explained that Wake Forest converted their 1AC into a negative kritik for this specific finals round. Here Wake Forest specifically cited the story of Mr Smith from Song Of Solomon from Toni Morrison, mentioning how Mr. Smith's jump (flight) off of Mercy hospital was a contract to his people that allowed for the first black baby to be born in Mercy hospital. Wake forest argued for a model of debate that does not snuff out blackness, a place where black people feel welcomed. Wake Forest ultimately won the round on a 4-1 decision. Such is just one example of black debate, but it has undoubtedly influenced all parts of debate whether it be kritikal or not. While I cannot cover the entire history and premise of black debate in this paper, black debate has largely influenced what performance looks like in debate today.