The role and limitations of stock issues - by Victor Joecks

The debate about the debate: The role and limitations of stock issues

A lack of clarity about stock issues leads to frustrated debaters, confused judges and bizarre ballots. Here is what many miss about stock issues.

The first insight is that every Team Policy debate round contains two separate debates. The first is on whether the Affirmative team presented an appropriately structured case. The second debate is on the merits of the Affirmative team’s plan.

Think about it this way. Imagine there are two boxers who are going to fight at Boxer AFF’s gym. But when Boxer NEG arrives, he notices a problem. One of the four posts holding up the ropes is defective.

Boxer NEG goes to the judge and says, “Boxer AFF had a responsibility to provide a usable ring for today’s round. He failed to do that. Therefore, I should win the fight regardless of how the fight itself goes.”

Perhaps the analogy is obvious, but let me explain how this applies to Team Policy.

The stock issues — Topicality, Significance, Inherency and Solvency — are like the four posts of the boxing ring. They provide an appropriate and predictable framework for the judge to determine if the Affirmative has fulfilled its burden to present an appropriate case.

·  Topicality: Ensures that the Affirmative is upholding the resolution.

·  Significance: Requires the Affirmative to identify a problem that needs to be solved.

·  Inherency: Ensures the Affirmative proposes a plan that isn’t already happening.

·  Solvency: Requires the Affirmative to connect its plan to improving the status quo.

Stock issues protect the Negative. Topicality limits the number of cases that the Negative must prepare for. Significance requires a problem to solve. Inherency gives the Negative predictable ground — defending the status quo. Solvency requires the Affirmative to show how the world would be better off under its plan.

Stock issues also help the Affirmative. If an Affirmative team wants to craft a structurally sound case, the stock issues show them how to do so.

The problem comes when judges and debaters attempt to use the stock issues to determine who won the fight in the ring. It’d be absurd to determine the winner of a boxing match by looking at the four posts after the round. Yet that’s what many are attempting to do.

Consider the stock issue of solvency. Suppose the Affirmative has three solvency points. The Negative offers no Disadvantages, but successfully defeats Solvency Point 3. Solvency Points 1 and Point 2 flow through to the end of the round.

Does the Affirmative win Solvency because it has two points of Solvency remaining? Or does Negative win Solvency because it successfully defeated one Solvency point?

It’s unclear because judges and students have unwittingly mixed the two debates: Has the Affirmative presented an appropriate plan? And should the plan be implemented?

Here’s the key point. These two debates should be judged differently.

The first debate is on the structure of the Affirmative’s case, not the quality of the Affirmative’s arguments or the desirability of its plan. A judge should determine if the Affirmative has presented a structurally sound case using the stock issues framework. The Affirmative case needs to check these four boxes.

Is the Affirmative plan topical? If no, Negative wins. If yes, move to the next question.

Does the Affirmative plan identify harms, thereby upholding Significance? If no, Negative wins. If yes, move to the next question.

Does the Affirmative identify a problem that isn’t being solved by the status quo, upholding Inherency? If no, Negative wins. If yes, move to the next question.

Does the Affirmative identify how its plan will make the world better, meeting its Solvency burden? If no, Negative wins. If yes, move to the next question.

If the Affirmative meets its stock issue burdens, then the judge moves on to the second debate — whether the Affirmative plan is a good idea.

Instead of checking boxes, this debate should be evaluated using a weighing mechanism that compares the benefits of the plan with its downsides. You can call this net benefits, desirability or comparative advantage. Those terms are all getting at the same idea — does this plan make the world a better place?

Once you understand this framework, the answer to the scenario posed above is easy. Assume the other three stock issues weren’t contested. The Affirmative presented a plan with Solvency. The judge checks that box and moves on to weighing out the round. Affirmative ends with Solvency Points 1 and 2. Negative ends with no Disadvantages. The world is better off under the Affirmative plan. Affirmative wins.

The challenge for debaters is that understanding this — and even explaining it well — won’t mean their judge does. There’s no quick answer for that problem, but increasing an awareness of this dichotomy in every debate round would help.

Part of the game of debate is debating about the debate. But that game is much more enjoyable and educational when everyone understands what’s happening in the round.

Victor Joecks is a STOA speech coach and once debated for Hillsdale College. He hosts the Sharpening Arrows podcast, which trains teens to think Biblically about life and politics. He writes a political column for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Email him at victor.joecks@gmail.com.