In Omni, Negatives run Policy Cases Too

If you haven’t yet, take a moment to brush up on the 3 kinds of resolutions before reading on.

A case is a logical syllogism that concludes with a position on the resolution.

Value and fact cases demand a strict structure for coherence, like this:

  • Resolved: Killing can be justified.

  • Value: Utilitarianism

  • Value Link: Functional Morality

  • Contention: Killing can uphold Utilitarianism

This is just an upside-down version of basic deductive reasoning:

  • Premise 1: Killing can uphold Utilitarianism

  • Premise 2: Utilitarianism is the best moral measure because it is functional

  • Conclusion: Therefore, killing can be justified

In value and fact debate, negatives are expected to run cases that mirror the affirmative structurally but end with the opposite conclusion. But in policy, affirmative arguments usually don’t make sense for the negative to run. And because traditional policy theory doesn’t give us a good understanding of Scope and Presumption (lots of posts about Presumption coming later in this series), negatives often get into the weak mindset that all they need to do is be as difficult and contrary as possible.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Your case is the sum of your offensive arguments. In Omni, negatives create cases by assembling a logical syllogism of offensive arguments (like Disadvantages) that conclude with a position on the resolution. Omni policy debaters have the option of partially pre-scripting negative speeches just like the value kids.

One of the main goals of Omni is a facelift to negative argument classes to improve clarity and give them better strategic options. Most notable: it gives negatives two new argument classes that they can run almost every round, making it easier than ever to build 12-16 minutes of coherent advocacy.

Presumption is critical to Omni theory. We’ll start on that in the next post.

Joseph AbellComment