The Modest Novice LD Resolution

Resolved: Civil disobedience in a democracy is morally justified.

Resolved: In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate tactic for achieving justice.

Perhaps this is just the way I tend to view democracy, but I see a (functioning) democracy as a system that equally represents each of its constituents. For example, the United States before 1920 was not a real democracy since its citizens did not receive equal representation in the government. Call it the social contract or whatever you like, but each individual trades in the right to make decisions about what happens to murderers, how we use nuclear weapons, which auto company gets the bailout money, etc. and gives that to their representatives in Congress and the executive branch, in return for protection from the state and things like running basic human services. More importantly, they give up the right to make judgment calls about the justice or injustice of a particular action, and give that ability to the court system. Therefore in a true democracy, since each person is equally represented and no one person has more say (in terms of voting) than any other, every action by the state is morally justified, and so any action by a citizen that is contradiction to the state cannot be an action that achieves justice. If there were a situation where justice did not exist, the state would have collapsed (meaning that democracy did not exist), or the citizens would have overthrown that government, as we apparently have the right to do in the social contract, Declaration of Independence, and related documents. This point of view is based on, however, the way I understand justice, which is that there is no independent system of ethics, but rather that morality is determined by the majority in a society rather than existing inherently in the human condition. As a result, I much prefer the former resolution, because an action can be morally justified without necessarily achieving justice.
So, I feel that the second resolutional statement is not really a fair resolution, but I suppose you don’t really care about how I feel about the resolution. The second is better from a novice learning point of view simply because justice is such an oft-debated issue in LD that learning about how to ‘achieve justice’ is probably one of the most useful things an up-and-coming debater can learn.
Max Katz
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Physics, Class of 2011

I think we can reasonably say that we have two possibilities:

Resolved: Civil disobedience in a democracy is morally justified.

Resolved: In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate tactic for achieving justice.

Please vote (send your choice to midhudsonleague@gmail.com). Feel free to discuss more here too, if you wish, but the deadline for ballots is 4/30/09. If you ask me, we can debate either of these, for a couple of months at the novice level. We can always upgrade the topic next season if a fatal flaw is discovered. (And there can be no more fatal a flaw than having to run last year’s Sept-Oct topic.)

Thanks.

A comment from a few days ago:

As someone with no LD background, I have a question.  Say the negative wants to define civil disobedience to include violence.  Do the two teams debate about which definition is more accurate and better for debate like in policy or does the judge just sort of pick one?

Thanks,
K. Clark

Well, in LD, debaters could argue who has the better interpretation, but since this is novices, that level of sophistication would never arise in a meaningful way.

Diane weighed in, in the comments, with the actual wording the NFL used when this topic came up in the NFL last.  Who’d've thunk actual research and knowing things might help:

Resolved: Civil disobedience in a democracy is morally justified

I kinda like it.  It does introduce morality, but really, this topic has to introduce morality within the framework of rights.  As Jim said, the major grounds that civil disobedience can be justified is on personal morality, but it does limit Aff to that ground, which makes the novice ideal debate a straight up personal morality vs societal rights contest.  Also, the word “justified” is also less problematic with “morally” hanging in front of it.

It’s true, anyone can comment, though to avoid spammers the first comment you make on a given account must be moderated by yours truly first.  Then you have free reign to say whatever you please.  Which might turn out to be unfortunate, but c’est la vie.

To make an actual post, however, requires further superpowers.  I’m sure once we get into the “making curriculum” part of this exercise, more people will want said powers.  Just let me know.

Something like “Individuals have the right to use civil disobedience when protesting unjust conditions.” — Thus spake Palmer.

I’m wary and chary (disambiguation: Wary and Chary, vaudeville team) of a right to civil disobedience. We have a generally accepted group of natural rights that translate into allowing us to do whatever we want short of harming others (and being harmed ourselves). Then we have specifically enumerated civil rights outlined in laws and charters and the like. (Some scholars separate these two bodies into rights and privileges. That is Clarence Thomas’s approach.) The idea that it is civically granted as a right to disregard civic grants sounds inherently contradictory to me. The “right” to disobey laws is a restatement of the moral imperative that we cannot obey laws we find immoral. Because genocide is legal in a country does not permit me to conduct genocide because it is morally repugnant; rights don’t play much of a part in this discussion, or at least a meaningful part.

On the other hand, I’m fond of the phrase “unjust conditions.” Unjust conditions sounds a little less volatile (and horrible) than “achieving justice.” But maybe what we would end up doing is arguing the limits to protest, which has a certain tempest/teapot aspect to it.

(I think anyone can comment, but not necessarily add an entry without an okay from CP. Feel free to email me if you want me to post something for you without a lot of hassle.)

What can I say, Jim inspires me.  At any rate, Jim listed a bunch of different takes on the topic.  I’m sure you think it’s too long.  So I’m going to add another.

I put this one in a comment two posts ago, but perhaps it was buried, since it got zero response.  Or perhaps it’s terrible, that’s fine too.  But what about turning the topic around a little to try to give the negative better ground.  Something like “Individuals have the right to use civil disobedience when protesting unjust conditions.”

Does making affirmtatives defend CD as a right, not just a potentially just action, balance the topic more?

See Palmer’s comment (i.e., fightin’ words) on the last post. But for Pete’s sake, what is the wording going to be then? (I admit I’ve just been getting sort of tired of waiting it out. What’s my rush? I mean, after all, I am older than Ben Franklin ever was!)

Last attempt: Resolved: In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate tactic for achieving justice.

Violent ultimately doesn’t hack it for me, because that really isn’t what CD is all about. It’s counterintuitive (you never see Gandhi packing heat in video games, for instance).

Resolved: In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate tactic for solving injustice. 

Solving injustice forces the issue of, literally, solving a problem, which seems to give some needed weight to the neg. Protests don’t solve, they publicize. They have virtuousness on their side, but not necessarily effectiveness. This wording is okay. It doesn’t sing, but it hums along.

Resolved: In a democracy, civil disobedience is a morally correct tactic for achieving justice/solving injustice.

I don’t really shy away from discussing morality, but I worry that including it in the wording forces the issue in preparation. That is, in my own curriculum (which is, granted, a meeting a week), it takes at least a month to get as far as morality in any meaningful way (and, of course, a minute to learn, a lifetime to master).

Resolved: In a democracy, civil disobedience is necessary for solving injustice. 

This requires thought, but if there is injustice in a democracy, then the laws in place aren’t hacking it. So, changing the laws isn’t as easy as it seems. Maybe the laws institutionalize injustice of some sort (e.g., Jim Crow).

My leaning here would be In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate tactic for solving injustice. I’m open to anything at this point.

You probably know its sentiments pretty well already, but if you don’t, go back to Ben Franklin’s summation speech at the Constitutional Convention. I think it applies to us. Granted, we’re not exactly building a country here, but the situation has similar aspects. This is probably not perfect, but it is pretty good. And we can always see how it works and tweak it next year.  We’ve all had plenty of opportunity to discuss it and offer whatever amounts of cents we have felt were appropriate. I personally have waffled and vacillated enough to start a new dance craze, and I still see flaws in this and that about it. But as a starting point for training high school freshmen (and the occasional late-starting sophomore), this should work pretty well. And that is the goal, after all, not to create the world’s greatest resolution, but to create an effective resolution for recruiting and training new debaters. In one way or another this has been voted on for use by the NFL membership more than once. It has been selected also for PF debate. The time has come to get going. So, let the going be gotten. By the power vested in me by, well, me, so it shall be written. So it shall be done.

“Resolved: In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate tactic for achieving justice.”

From Sheryl Kaczmarek:

Peter and I spent two hours today with Zach, Victor and Devin today specifically discussing the Modest Novice topic. Although there are lots of things we discussed that aren’t critical, I would really like to argue forcefully against the inclusion of the word “violent” in the resolution. For one thing, most definitions of “civil disobedience” specify non-violent action, which means I am not sure it is a good idea to try to force a discussion of “violent civil disobedience” when the literature doesn’t necessarily support such an interpretation, or define it. Peter wonders what the difference between “violent civil disobedience” and “rebellion” is, and I’m not sure. Was the Civil War an example of “violent civil disobedience?” How about Timothy McVeigh’s attack in Oklahoma City? After all, McVeigh claimed his bombing was a protest against federal actions in Waco and against federal income taxes. Besides, all that is accomplished by adding the word “violent” is to shift the side that gets to claim Rosa Parks. Since the affirmative is required to defend violent action, that means the negative can say that while “violent civil disobedience” is not an “appropriate tactic” ordinary, every day “civil disobedience” is an “appropriate tactic.” I think I’d like to be negative every round when I can blame the affirmative for bombings like the one in Oklahoma City and claim that MLK and Rosa Parks achieved greater justice.

In addition to concluding that inclusion of the word “violent” is a mistake, we wondered about the use of the word “appropriate” in front of the word “tactic.” We are not entirely sure how anyone measures “appropriate” and we worry that there is so much ground between acceptable, desirable, possible or permissible that “appropriate” becomes a very large concept. I think I understand why “appropriate” was chosen over “effective,” for example, since a discussion of efficacy rather implies a discussion of solvency but I am not sure why the phrase “for achieving justice” doesn’t implicate solvency anyhow and if the students were to debate the effectiveness of “civil disobedience” “for achieving justice” at least affirmatives would have to do more than chant MLK and Rosa Parks every round. Affirmatives would have to actually prove that “civil disobedience is an effective tactic for achieving justice,” which actually is debatable, I think. Peter pointed out that there probably were other ways which would have integrated the buses, some of which might have worked faster than what Rosa Parks did, as important as that was. I don’t think the negative needs to prove that Rosa Parks was unimportant or bad to win — instead the negative merely needs to argue that civil disobedience as a tactic is not an effective way to achieve justice.

The “appropriate” vs. “effective” word change is not something we feel as strongly about as we do about removing the word “violent,” and maybe “effective” is also not the best choice, but we would like to a least offer our input on that word choice. I am not entirely certain I would oppose use of the phrase “morally acceptable” in place of “appropriate” although I know there was some discussion earlier about not bringing morality into the resolution directly. We still think morality can be brought in, whether the phrase is in the resolution or not, so maybe it would be better to get all of the big concepts into the resolution right away and be done with it. Regardless of what happens to “appropriate,” we urge that the word “violent” be dropped. Incidentally, I think the negative might still be able to blame the affirmative for all forms of “civil disobedience” if they can find an inclusive definition.

I think this counts as Newburgh’s four and half cents worth…we await responses.

Sheryl