【神降臨】Do Chau Giang

こんにちは、阪大パーラです！京大に触発されてブログを開設しました。

記念すべき第1弾はWUDC2020に参加した、ザンさん(別名ザン神)に書いてもらいました。

それではどうぞ！

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Worlds is not for the faint-hearted. Nevertheless, it’s a high-pressure avenue for tremendous improvement and excitement.

Preparation for Worlds

Masao and I teamed up only twice in international tournaments (first is Debate Korea Open and second is NEAO) before Worlds and the frequency at which we have prep practices on our own is sparse, which I must say is not rigorous enough if the end goal is a break in even the lowest category. However, to put it differently, this period was one in which we strolled at our own pace to various random directions and then converged at an end-point of self-improvement for both of us.

In retrospect

One crucial failure of mine is the lack of contribution to the team in terms of case matter building. We laid out this vision of forging a matter file consisting of country profiles and international organizations all over the world and of each of us in charge of different regions in the world - basically, Global South for me and Global North for Masao. In essence, such a portfolio is necessary for good performance in IR-favoring Worlds and the improvement of us typical Kansai debaters that prefer logic and general cases to IR issues. 

This plan was never carried through eventually, due to various reasons but, most substantially, due to my unwillingness to dig into complicated IR issues and the usual contentment with just logic. Nevertheless, we managed to pull through two IR motions - Mexican drug cartels and ASEAN - thanks to (1) a book on world’s conflicts that is of great popularity among Kansai debaters and (2) Masao’s targeted studying of Southeast Asian countries right before Worlds. This is to say that building a case file is necessary, but at the same time complementing it with logic is of equal importance.

Strategies for improvement

These are personal and not generalizable. Do take them with a grain of salt.

1)Impression management

There are specific things judges want you to say for certain themes, even though those things might not be that mutually exclusive to begin with. For example, judges expected doping, political campaign to pressure authoritarian regimes to resolve human rights violations, and economic burden on host countries to come up in the Olympic rounds. It means that sometimes, you need to play along with judges’ preconceptions to manipulate their impression towards your team. And do approach this with caution, as it might only apply to inround judges.

2)Practicality is of great value, but so is free-flowing along the current of the debate

Another thing judges at Worlds like is presumably practical extension. In SCS round, we thought we had broken the deadlock in the opening by bringing in value judgment as a metric of comparison. But it turned out to be a strategic mistake as the other 3 teams with very practical cases boxed us out. In other words, a principled extension disrupts the dynamic of the round that is set off with and solely centers on practicality and thus necessarily gives judges bad impression. It is not to say that you cannot have anything principled in your extension, but embedding it in a well-completed practical case would constitute a more meaningful extension in such an instance. The bottomline is to be flexible and perceptive to the atmosphere of the round, which certainly requires a lot of practice. One crucial failure of our team is detachment from our own opening in an attempt to search for a completely new extension. What can be improved is more attention to the opening half and assessment of what is lacking in our opening so that we can readily fill in. Therefore, strengthening your vertical extension is also a necessary practice in preparation for Worlds.

3)Relevancy-based extension

Minority extension will not always work. It’s something we learned from the Religious indoctrination round. It is not intuitive enough to run a minority marginalization case regarding religious children and parents’ indoctrination. No matter how many layers of logic you try to buffer your case with, it’s still a forte built on shaky grounds and prone to collapse. In conclusion, tying back to the motion is always crucial, or else you’re risking granting the judges the liberty to automatically refute your case even if the logic might stand at the end of the round.

4)Basics, basics, and basics

Economics motions are always hard. “Trade liberalization” is a common phrase we preach all the time in debates, but during the Trade barrier round, we met immense difficulty in concretizing our case from Opening Gov. It left a lot of room for Closing to overtake us with a similar line of reasoning but with more solid mechanisms, better framing and a clearer Counterfactual. That is to say, perfecting the basics with an enriched mechanism repertoire is the right way to go. However, take this with a grain of salt, since different motions have different ways they act upon you and, to varying degrees, compromise the basics you always remind yourself to upkeep. 

Secondly, in the face of seemingly hard or complicated motions, a basic strategy based on an appropriate Burden of Proof should never be lost sight of. It puts your chaotic and confusing prep time under anaesthesia. And arriving at such a basic strategy is not that easy as it needs thorough deliberation as well. 

5)A single-samurai case

Something our team had improved since NEAO was less dumping in the opening, yet it is still far-fetched from the single-samurai archetype we aspired ourselves to simulate.

First, a single-samurai case is the most potent when it is based on a WINNING case, not just any case or cases that sound cool. Secondly, it demands a beautiful synergy between the perfect first speaker and a deputy speaker that’s skilfully comparative. And of course, it is a practice already mastered by world-class debaters. 

But at least, abandonment of my hatred for the PM position and embrace of a perfect PM are what I aim for after seeing those great debaters. And this hope is non-sequentialist haha.

After-thoughts 

As per teamwork, it has always been Masao babysitting me and feeding me with brilliant matter. This model became visibly effective at NEAO and reached its peak at Worlds, as our inner-team communication truly took off.

I have no other words for my partner, and my senpai, but those of admiration and gratitude. He deserved much more had it not been for the various injustices we encountered during the tournament. 

Bear in mind that this is not a competition for the faint-hearted. It is very disheartening, as accent-based discrimination is real and your arguments can be readily neglected on the basis of such an unchangeable trait. However, the narrative that “the only way to cope with discrimination is to become better and prove to them your capability” preached continuously by my partner somehow gave us the marginal psychological room to charge forward and enjoy the tournament until its very end. And to some extent, I think the narrative manifested itself in the improvement of Masao’s speech structure and clarity as well as his manner as per engaging with the opponent.

On another bright side, the ultimate takeaway is the precious exposure to high-pressure competitiveness and the first-hand accumulation of logic from world-class debaters. International tournaments sure extrapolate you from your normal aversion to motions that are not to your liking and compel you to face the reality of having to deal with them. They require of you comprehensiveness as well as specificity.

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ザンさん、ありがとうございました！