1. How to Run a Kritik Affirmative
Alex McVey

2. K affs – Cheating?! May or may not be cheating
Which may or may not be OK – the rules of debate are up for debate!
No one kritik is alike
Kritiks on the aff may or may not be related to the topic, they may or may not have a plan
Debate is a persuasive activity. There are some persuasive reasons why you should have to have a topical, fiated, USFG plan, but there are also some persuasive reasons why you may not need one.

3. Flavors of K affs
Topical, Fiated, USFG plantext with critical advantage areas
Has a plantext, but may not defend its literal impelmentation
Resolution as a metaphor
Passive voice
No plantext, but related to the resolution
No plantext, not related to the resolution
Performance
High Theory
A mix of the two
How close you are to the resolution helps determine how you will answer framework

4. Go all in
Usually, teams who try to play the middle of the road have a hard time:
Plans can be easily defeated on a slew of new/tiny counterplans with small but substantial net benefits.
Or teams will go the other way and use the K literature you read against you, PICS out of the plan, floating PIK’s etc…
Inconsistent literature bases
If you have a K aff with a plan, you have to get in depth on the plan’s function
If you’re going to “cheat”, cheat!

5. Make an argument*
Remember – people like debate because it is an activity that engages in controversial political questions with argumentative insight and pointed analysis.
Avoid obfuscation for obfuscation’s sake.
Note: Frequently, K affs will avoid telling the entire story of their argument in the 1ac. (Deferral) This is not the same as not making an argument. Enthymeme is an argument with an unstated premise.

6. The Stock Issues
Good critical affirmatives will usually fall under the basic argumentative norms of the stock issues paradigm.
Inherency: Prove that there is currently a certain assumption, discourse, debate practice, cultural text, norm, way of interpreting the resolution, etc… that is problematic
Harms: Explain why it is problematic
Solvency: Propose a critical method of analysis/evaluation/performance that resolves, moves beyond, challenges, or critiques the assumption that you find to be problematic.

7. Role of the ballot
A good critical aff will tell the judge what the role of their ballot is,
The role of the ballot shapes how you respond to / how the judge should interpret every argument
A good role of the ballot should deal with both questions of method and questions of impacts.
A good role of the ballot should tell the judge what matters, and what does not matter.
You must be prepared to weigh between/against competing roles of the ballot

8. 80 % of your prelim debates
T/Framework
Cap

9. How to debate against framework
Will depend on your relationship to the resolution
If you defend a topical plan, make framework a T question and apply your K’s as reasons to prefer.
If you don’t have a plan but are related to the resolution, you may want to try to play some defense to their topic education claims.
If you are entirely unrelated to the resolution, you probably want to impact turn their topic education claims
Kritik their specific standards/evidence – have a diverse set of 2ac FW kritiks so you can adapt to diverse flavors of FW.

10. How to debate against FW part 2
You should probably have either
a compelling list of things they can say against your aff
A compelling impact turn to the idea of predictability and ground
Your framework should be intimately tied to your role of the ballot.
Debate framework like a disad/counterplan – what are the relative impact/solvency claims for each team’s framework?
Be prepared to invest substantial time in the framework debate – remember, usually if you win your role of the ballot you will tend to win the debate.

11. The Debate about Debate
Debate as an activity has serious diversity issues: underrepresentation of women and people of color both as debaters and as coaches/judges.
The kritik of universality / the view from nowhere
Debates about inclusion/accessibility in the debate space
Debates about the performativity/style of debate
Debates about identity
Race
Sex
Gender
Class
Intersections

12. Know your stuff
Defending a critical aff will require an immense depth of knowledge of the literature base surrounding your argument/philosophy
You should be constantly reading new journal articles about your argument
Nothing is worse than someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about trying to BS about critical literature – you’ll sound ignorant and will probably double turn yourself.
Know the literature – know the critiques of your theory and your theory’s deep application.

13. Practice CX
Especially when first developing a critical aff, it is important to practice CX
30 minute CX drills with a coach are a good idea, especially if that coach isn’t familiar with critical literature.
Have an answer to the question “why vote affirmative”
Be prepared to give examples

14. Bring your voice to the debate
The best critical affs are ones that the debaters care deeply about
Dive in! There is an immense amount of critical/cultural literature out there to learn from. Start your journey and you never know where you’ll end up.
Be passionate. We kritik because it matters.
Be open to learning.

15. Some random ideas for critical aff areas specific topic
Guantanamo Bay
Ciudad Juarez
Cartography/Borders K (Michael J. Shapiro, Gregory Tuathail, Derek Gregory)
Cuban embargo
State of Exception (Agamben)
Imperialism
as a metaphor for gated communities / Segregation
Antiblackness (Wilderson, Sexton) – Cuban Slavery
Chicana Cultural Theory (Anzaldua)
Decoloniality
Communism
War on Drugs

16. Debating Against Kritikal Affs – When to run framework
Do they have a plan? If so – you better have a specific T argument before getting into a framework debate.
If they don’t have a plan, and you don’t have a stock kritik to go for against their aff, framework is a good option for the 1nc.
If you have a kritik or a case argument to make against the aff, most judges would prefer to hear that over a framework debate…
But don’t run away from framework – use it strategically
Use framework to get strategic concessions for arguments on other flows

17. Debating FW against a K aff
Establish a clear violation and a clear interpretation of your role of the ballot.
Make the standards turn the case (stasis, agonism, democracy/deliberation/dialogue key to check abusive power of state/capitalism)
Substantiate the impact to fairness and education – Testability, portable skills, limits, switch side debate.
Either –
A. There’s a Topical version of the aff
B. You can do it on the neg.
Think of these like counterplans that solve their offense to framework.

18. Have a stock Kritik vs K affs
Cap (Historical Materialism)
Anthropocentrism
Baudrillard
Nietzsche
K’s of impacts
Method/Performance K’s
Either go One Off or make sure you have an explanation for any contradictions.

19. Have a big case debate
Should include: Impact turns, impact framing arguments, author/philosophy indicts
Impact turns – they say cap bad, you say cap good.
Usually not wise with identity based arguments, i/e DON’T SAY RACISM/SEXISM GOOD!
However, it IS ok to say that identity politics, personal politics, body politics, etc… are all bad.
Impact framing – Always Value to Life, Extinction impacts first, Util good, Predictions good, Security good
Indicts –criticisms of the aff’s author or branch of philosophy – frequently can be found in book reviews!
It is hard for K affs to answer a diverse 1nc with a big case debate. Chances are they will either undercover framework or drop something important on case.