Lincoln-Douglas Debate topic study guide

As a long-time high school debate coach I still like to be useful to students, so I'm posting this study guide to suggest a negative case for the National Speech and Debate Association's Lincoln-Douglas Debate (LD) topic for September/October, 2023:

Resolved: The United States ought to guarantee the right to housing.

I pick the negation because it is less intuitive. If, out of nowhere, I asked you, "Why do people have a right to housing?", your first response might be, "People will freeze to death if they don't have somewhere to sleep." If I asked you, on the other hand, "Why do people not have a right to housing?", you might need to ponder. If you are a debate competitor, you'll need to respond in a timely fashion because debate requires each competitor to argue both sides. The suggestions below are designed to help you ponder the resolution's negation.

First a brief look at LD. It is named for the famous series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephan Douglas in 1858, part of the campaign in which Lincoln tried to take the seat of the Illinois state senate incumbent, Douglas. Lincoln lost that election, but the debates, seen as presaging today's mass media driven politics, made Lincoln famous across the nation and boosted his successful bid for the presidency in 1860.

Lincoln-Douglas high school debate is also called "values debate" because its argumentation emulates the 1858 debates, which addressed the morality of slavery using values based arguments, as opposed to policy. It is a one-on-one debate. The topics are released two months in advance, so hundreds of students are now working on this topic. I hope my study suggestions are useful to you!

Outline for suggested negation case for the Sept./Oct. NSDA LD topic, Resolved: The United States ought to guarantee the right to housing.

1. By using the article "the" in "the right to housing," the wording of the resolution asserts that there is a right to housing (Using "a" instead of "the" would perhaps have been a wiser choice by the resolution authors, lending ambiguity, and so defensibility to the claim of a "right").

2. What is a "right"?

3. My source for all definitions is the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. A "right" is "something to which someone has a just claim."

4. What is a "just claim"?

5. The nature of the subsequent argument will hinge on the definition of "just claim." Depending on which definition you choose, you could have either an affirmative (Aff) or a negative (Neg) argument.

6. If you choose, "legally correct: Lawful," then you have demolished the Aff case, since there is no law requiring that people be housed. This is probably all you need for a Neg case.

7. If the Aff defines "just claim" as one "having a basis in or conforming to reason: reasonable", here's a possible response:

8. What is "reason"?

9. Reason is "the power of comprehending, inferring, thinking."

10. Thus, an assertion that universal housing is a "just claim" indicates a contention that this opinion stems from thinking and analyzing information.

11. If the Aff uses the "thinking" argument, point out that the Neg thought about it too and came to a different conclusion, rendering the Aff argument meaningless. QED, You win.

12. More ammunition if needed: The Aff case is further vulnerable because of the resolution's use of the term "ought" in "ought to support the right to housing." "Ought" is commonly defined by LD'ers as denoting moral obligation. In normal thought and conversation, it is acceptable just to "feel" a moral obligation, and the idea that people should be housed comes naturally with such a feeling, but in debate, contentions must be proven. Moral rightness cannot be a feeling, or a given; its nature must be demonstrated as part of a convincing "proof." Etymology is helpful here, but not definitively: "moral" comes from Latin, "mos," meaning "custom." So moral behavior, as originally conceived, is behavior that conforms to local custom. To conjur up the modern definitions, the dictionary gives us, not an explanation of what "moral behavior" is, but a string of synonyms, e.g. "good," "right," "ethical," etc, going in circles and leaving us with only a word history indicating that a "moral" behavior is one that is sanctioned by a particular society. But societies differ. One society might value death in battle. Another might not. Determination of morality is subjective; ipso facto a morality code cannot prove that a particular action is the only morally correct one. Thus Neg wins.

Of course none of these considerations is intended to "prove" that everyone should not have housing. In fact I think they should. But it's remarkably difficult to prove they have a right to it, or that they don't.

Gaian Mentalics Unite!

Isaac Asimov's six-novel science fiction series, Foundation (1951-1988) covers a vast future history of human civilization. Its beginning is already far in the future, after humans have colonized and conquered our galaxy and created a Galactic Empire. Despite the time and space differences, Foundation's fictional history seems closely parallel to our current real history. In both histories, humanity faces collapse and destruction and is called on to respond intelligently.

In the story, a scientist named Hari Seldon works out a mathematical forecast, using a method he terms psychohistory, which indicates that the Empire will soon fall, followed by a dark age lasting 30,000 years. Seldon sets out to create two secret "foundations" - one at Earth's end of the galaxy and one at the far end- whose members would use psychohistory to affect history. Seldon predicts that with planning and interventions from the foundations, the galaxy's dark age can be shortened to 1,000 years.

In the more limited context of our single planet, we too face collapse of our human civilizations, spelled out in our new creations in biotech and AI. The collapse will be a rebirth, as we are replaced with an updated species. Old style humans involved in the transition's rollout- either through science, business or politics- will be somewhat protected, but most of humanity will face a brutal retirement and attendant dark age.

What if we had a "foundation," not necessarily secret as in the novel, to help with this transition, to make it less of a dark age? Such a group could be composed of visionaries, scientists, political thinkers and, most crucially, retired English teachers! Its functioning would not be like that of political parties, which reflect and distort the noise of the moment. This foundation would think in terms, not of election seasons, but of centuries and millennia. Though it might not have statutory power, it should have the ear of power and a significant bully pulpit.

Asimov was a realist in the sense that he was not utopian. The foundations in his story work reasonably well and according to Seldon's plan for a few centuries, restoring structure to galactic society, but then any number of things start going to hell, among them a resurgence of selfish egos in politics. Complicating the picture, the First Foundation, as it thinks of itself, has lost track of the Second, and develops anxiety and paranoia about it. When the Second Foundation is located (in the vicinity of "a mythical planet called Earth") we learn that Second Foundation progeny have evolved into Mentalics, who can read and manipulate the emotions of others (even more than people can today!). It turns out that Mentalics are everywhere, carrying out conspiracies within conspiracies that Hari Seldon may or may not have engineered.

The coolest thing in the story, to me, is a forgotten planet called Gaia, possibly unforseen by Seldon, which "is inhabited solely by Mentalics to such an extent that every organism and inanimate object on the planet shares a common mind." That alone would seem to justify the galactic experiment.

The story ends with the two foundations agreeing to disagree: the First Foundation based on "mastery of the physical world and its traditional political organization," and the Second Foundation "based on Mentalics and probable rule by an elite using mind control." A third force is Gaia, with "its path of absorption of the entire galaxy into one shared, harmonious living entity in which all beings, and the galaxy itself, would be a part."

Asimov's foundations do not save humanity, but they do express humanity's thoughts on saving itself, in non-utopian terms. Our formulations should not be utopian either. Setting up a foundation that employs the long-view of the human project, and imbuing it with prestige and authority of sorts, would not be the same as saving the planet, or even a country. But it could be a useful escape from the deceptions of party politics, whose only concrete goal today is to see a nuclear weapon go off in Ukraine.

A foundation could give us a shot at more productive goals, with a sense of future.