my revised judge critique

8/10/2019 My revised judge critique

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A judge critique: The 2014 HEnDA final debate

At the outset, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the HEnDA staff

and steering committee successfully running this years tournament. I would also like to

congratulate all the students who took part in the HEnDA debate this year (not only

nationally but also locally/prefecture-wise), given the politico-economic as well as

ecological significance of this years topic. I was very pleased to see many young men

and women finally get to debate nuclear power, without any politico-educational

pressure that discourages them from engaging this very issue. And the final round

represented the best of the HEnDA debate this year. The performance by Eiko (the

affirmative) and Utsunomiya (the negative) should offer simple evidence that high

school students (if they work hard, of course) can enjoy the intellectual exchange of

well-informed argumentation on complex policy issues in their second (academic)

language.

While one might (be tempted) make a case for the both-win in this respect

(since all are winners!), however, I as a debate judge was not given such an option. I

eventually voted for the affirmative, weighing primarily the advantage two against the

two disads combined. Before explaining how I reached my decision, I have to say that I

primarily operate as a critic of argument (Balthrop, 1983) whenever I judge a round

of competitive debating. That is, I am concerned LESS about how a debater herself

intends or means by any particular argument she makes; to me, the MORE important is

what that particular argument should mean and imply/implicate within the context of a

given round. I understand judging debate should involve evaluation of competing and

interactive claims, not of what debaters have in their mind, that constitute a text of

debate I (re)created and the way to do so is to be engaged in a critical interpretation of

what I have on my flowsheet.Having this said, I see the second advantage of the affirmative should be

given more weight in the overall evaluation of competing policy claims, thus warranting

the adoption of the resolution. The affirmative effectively indicted the status quo; Fujita,

Saito, and the Japan Federation of Lawyers (Nichibenren) evidence presented in the

constructive speech all pointed to one significant and inherent problem: Those who

work at nuclear power facilities are unprotected, which is Okayed by the present policy.

The negative team challenged this advantage with a list of countermeasures; they also

extended the argument that nuclear workers consented to work at these facilities.


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Neither amounted to wholly taking out the thrust of the affirmative position, however,

as the affirmative defense reiterated that the problem is structural. I also found the

affirmative position more persuasive than the negative when they stated that no other

jobs would kill one percent of those who work, effectively mitigating the force of the

negative evidence that only one percent of nuclear power workers die.

Regarding the first advantage, I would say this alone would not warrant the

affirmative ballot. At the end of the debate, I found its significance as it was originally

presented in the constructive speech greatly diminished. While it never became

completely nil, it is difficult for me to assess the affirmatives chance to gain the

advantage. That is, I am not sure, among the nuclear reactors whose operation the

government will resume, how many will cause Fukushima-like hydrogen explosion in

case of earthquake and tsunami, given the negative attack that the government has

strengthened safety standards and inspections after 3/11.

By above I do not mean that the affirmative always needs quantification to

demonstrate the significance of ones advantage. Rather, I am simply asking debaters

(both the affirmative and the negative, in fact) to explore and make arguments on the

question of inherency, i.e., what would happen if the status quo (the present policy

without the adoption of the resolution) continues to persist. In this final debate, it is

assumed that the operation of a nuclear reactor is resumed if it passes rigorous safety

inspections based on the renewed safety standards. Without knowing which (or how

many) reactors will pass these tests under the status quo, for instance, you will never be

able to evaluate the risk of nuclear accidents.

The negative ran two disadvantages that unfortunately lacked unique link

and impacts comparable to the affirmative advantages. I strongly suggest negative

debaters should substantiate its final impact and make it unique to the affirmativewhenever they run a disad. Regarding the first disadvantage (price hike), for instance,

the affirmative could not completely deny the link between the affirmative plan and

price hike; the best they hoped for is that the price hike is not going to be much (only

some 20 yen difference?) and that GDP may not be affected much. It is the negatives

burden to demonstrate impact uniqueness, capitalizing on that seemingly small

difference and arguing that the price hike caused uniquely by the affirmative is

significant (its seriousness is comparable to the harm that the affirmative tries to prevent,

etc.), in addition to the general impact attached to price hike. Absent that uniqueness, I


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did not find this disad persuasive enough.

I understand that many in the audience might have found the energy

security disadvantage a potential voter. While I do praise the negative team to run this

international disad a possibility of which is also discussed in the real-world policy

making, I have to say it lacked link uniqueness. The negative extended this disad all

through the round, saying that the Middle East (where some 20 (or 40?) percent of

Japans crude oil import is from) is politically unstable (the emergence of the Islamic

State, etc.). The affirmative was not able to completely take out the link; instead they

insisted that the import from the Middle East is just 20 (or 40?) percent. The question is,

if the adoption of the resolution would uniquely hurt Japans energy security, given that

we have already been dependent on the overseas oil supply, as the affirmative team

reiterated. And neither team went further than that.

All in all, the second advantage of the affirmative (combined with the

remaining portion of the first advantage) outweighs the negative disads with (in my

view) insufficient link arguments. On behalf of the judging pool, I would very much

appreciate it if you can kindly understand that a decision in debate cannot be expressed

in a simple sign of inequality.

(Satoru Aonuma, Tsuda College)

Reference

Balthrop, V.W. (1983). Debate judge as a critic of argument: Toward a transcendent

perspective. The Journal of the American Forensic Association,20. 1-15.

my revised judge critique

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