EAT PLANTS, NOT COWS: A VEGETARIAN RESPONSE TO "THE LAST SACRED COW"

Bill Shanahan, University of Texas
1989 - Punishment Paradigms : Pros and Cons

The preceding article, "The Last Sacred Cow? Counterplans Re-visited" by Danny Plants, is a provoking attempt to leave no theoretical assumption untested. 1 applaud Plants' decision "to come out of the closet." The importance of "questioning fundamental assumptions" indeed is the lifeblood of debate. The critical thinking skills engendered by such an approach have been lauded by debate practitioners and theorists probably since the beginning of competitive debate. My vegetarian response to Plants' attempted slaughter of the sacred cow is due in part to his desire to arouse his audience, but also because the contest between a (Baylor) bear and a cow seems somewhat inequitable.

In the hopes of averting the inopportune and precipitous decline of the sacred cow, I advance three objections to Plants' revisitation: exclusion of the counterplan as a negative strategy precludes examination and questioning of the affirmative's fundamental assumptions; rejection of an optimal interpretation of "should" in favor of a marginal approach unfairly biases the debate against the status quo; and, fiat does not emanate solely from the word should in the resolution. Each of these objections is sufficient to warrant a rejection of Plants' call to rid debate of the counterplan. Together, though, they sent a compelling case to encourage counterplan usage. Plants and I both agree that questioning of fundamental assumptions is desirable. He enacts this agreement with the article at hand. By revisiting counterplan theory, Plants knowingly questions one of the fundamental assumptions of debate as currently practiced. While he may not agree with the precept of challenging assumptions, obviously the value of such a practice is borne out by his article. If questioning assumptions is not valuable, why write the article? Certainly, Plants would not suggest that only assumptions advanced by him should be questioned. In fact, I believe Plants would endorse wholeheartedly the practice of assumption challenging. Whether his approval is explicit or inferred, "The Last Sacred Cow" speaks for itself (yet another reason not to butcher it).

With this goal firmly established, examination of Plants' attack is possible. If his argument fails to stand up to its own criteria, then the cow is saved. Since Plants is not available to either agree or disagree with my scrutiny, the most equitable examination possible is to expose him to his own devices. Plants fails the test. Counterplans offer debate the ability to access the core of either the resolution or the affirmative plan. I am unclear which is being defended by Plants. The phrase "resolutional action," which he uses repeatedly, is a combination of the resolution and the affirmative plan--that is, the action undertaken in support of the resolution. (For an excellent discussion of the debate concerning resolutional, sub-resolutional, and plan focus, see: Herbeck, Katsulas, and Leeper, "The Locus of Debate Controversy Re-Examined: Implications for Counterplan Theory." (Journal of the American Forensic Association, Winter 1989.) Irrespective of how this question is addressed, counterplans allow for cogent examination of fundamental assumptions of either the resolution or the affirmative plan.

One of the examples presented by Plants is a congressional debate over the merits of mandating safety belts. He objects to the strategy of a member of Congress interrupting the debate and arguing for a ban on all automobiles, suggesting that such an irrelevancy would be dismissed out of hand by the more clear-thinking members of Congress. Said members would view the interruption as absurd. Why? Because they assume the existence of automobiles. Congress is so inculcated with today's standard of living that they cannot even fathom such a radical departure. To use Plants' own words, "Remember, at one time there was no such thing as a counterplan [substitute 'automobile']." The automobile is the congressional members' sacred cow. The out-of-hand rejection only confirms the need to question the desirability of automobiles. A failure to do so allows fundamental assumptions to remain unquestioned.

The next example offered by Plants furthers my argument. When deciding where (or what) to eat, someone suggests a game of tiddly-winks. Plants objects to this suggestion because "playing tiddly-winks has absolutely nothing to do with the process of selecting WHERE to have dinner." I can almost envision Danny screaming this sentiment at Marty (his former partner at Baylor) after the latter suggested playing instead of eating. Plants concedes that the "tiddly-winks suggestion" would have been relevant if the question were "Should we even have dinner?" Exactly. The question of whether or not to eat is assumed when one asks where to eat. At the risk of overstating my claim, to eat or not to eat is a "fundamental assumption" of the where question. Suggesting to a "tiddly-winks enthusiast" that she or he is begging the question of where to eat is similar to chastising a fledgling debate theorist for begging the question of how to argue a counterplan successfully. If questioning the assumptions of debate is worthwhile, then questioning the assumptions of congressional members and potential diners is as well.

My second objection to Plants' attempted massacre of "the sacred cow" centers on his marginal approach to "should." Plants suggests that marginality allows the judge to test the resolution against the status quo (Interestingly, Plants moves away from his "resolutional action" and to "resolution." Is he, perhaps, unmasking his true preference here?). In this test, the focus is the status quo. Using Plants' language, the status quo must be proven optimally desirable within resolutional constraints-that is, the status quo must be proven desirable versus all conceivable topical alternatives. The affirmative can offer any resolutional action in order to disprove the desirability of the affirmative. Yet, when examining the affirmative-as negatives are want to do-it must be shown to be superior to only the status quo. The status quo's burden is marginal. This unfairly biases the test in favor of the affirmative. The tests are inequitable.

One might respond that to expose the affirmative to an unlimited optimal test is equally unfair because the status quo must only pass a limited optimal test, one limited by topicality. The status qyo is proven undesirable only by topical action. However, the optimal test administered by counterplans is not unlimited. Counterplans have the burden of competition. Thus, the status qyo is optimally tested by resolutional action and the resolutional action is optimally tested by competitive action. Burdens are balanced and fair tests are administered. An obvious assumption here is that fairness is desirable. Unlike my previous inferrence concerning the desirability of questioning assumptions, I have no support to offer for this inferrence except my personal interactions with Plants. I am firmly convinced that we are both in agreement about the desirability of fairness. In order to be fair to the status quo, the resolutional actor must be tuned to the same trials.

Debate could equitably do away with counterplans by subjecting the status quo to a marginal test. The resolution could be a single resolutional action. The status quo would be thereby examined marginally and the negative would be limited to only a status quo defense. Arguably, regardless of how the resolution is framed, the comparison of one alternative involves a marginal test if the negative is limited to only one option. Hence the counterplan could not be conditional. Another equitable solution might be a negative resolution. Then, the affirmative and the negative would both involve a marginal test, the affirmative versus the negative. The senseless beheading of a sacred cow is not required.

Finally, fiat does not emanate from the word should in the resolution solely. Plants argues that fiat allows avoidance of questions of "would," whether or not the resolutional action would be adopted. Fiat allows debaters to focus more clearly on whether the topic should be affirmed (there is that resolutional focus again, ah well). Since the affirmative is being tested according to a standard of marginal desirability, existence of the world should in the resolution is irrelevant. I realize that Plants' justification for marginality is derived from his interpretation of "should," but certainly the desirability of such a marginal perspective is not only due to properly defining it. Instead, Plants defends marginality for a number of reasons (argumentative benefits, for example). The actual resolutional frame is not altogether relevant. If high school debated this year's problem area instead of its resolution, fiat would still facilitate discussing whether or not to vote affirmative. The problem area asks what the federal government can do for prison reform. The resolution focuses on whether or not the federal government should decrease overcrowding. What can the federal government do? The affirmative answers that federal government can decrease overcrowding. How would a debate transpire? The affirmative might fiat the nationwide policy to decrease overcrowding in prison and jails in the United States. The negative would then discuss the relative merits of such an approach. Fiat "should." This example might render counterplans inappropriate, but the purpose of the example was to disprove the need for "should" in order to have fiat. Also, if this example were to eliminate counterplans, reworking might be a way to rid debate of counterplans. The concept of fiat involves a suspension of reality. the exclusion of negative fiat does not serve as a reality check for debate. Similarly, the inclusion of negative fiat does not involve a greater suspension of reality.

Rather than debate Plants on the relative argumentative benefits of each of our approaches, one final example of what would be excluded will have to suffice. I will use this year's resolution in order to add relevance for you. If counterplans are excluded, the elimination of prisons and jails might not be debated this year (depending on how topicality is decided). Such an exclusion would be a travesty. Clearly, a fundamental assumption of the resolution is the existence of prisons and jails. The question of whether or not prisons should exist might be begging the question of how to decrease overcrowding in them. Nonetheless, the caging of individuals and its attendant atrocities must be questioned if the United States is ever to become more than an apologist for tyranny, a hypocrite mouthing sentiments and casting aspersions about freedom.

Save the cow. Remember the words immortalized in song by the Smiths:

MEAT IS MURDER.