Boals,+John


 * Basic Info:**

John Boals Boalsj@gmail.com (Email me if you have questions about my judging preferences, this is not for email chains) Debated for Apple Valley (2013-17) Currently, I do College Policy for Concordia-Moorhead I coach Barrington KP and LD students at Charlotte Latin


 * Quick Prefs:**

K (Identity)-1 K (High Theory)-1/2 Policymaking/LARP-2/3 Theory/Trix-3 Framework (Analytic Philosophy)-Please strike me I barely understand anything but Rawls and util


 * EMORY UPDATE:**

1. Theory shells probably don't need to be as rigid as you'd think in front of me. If you wanna say a perm is intrinsic just spew out like three lines I dont need a whole shell.

2. Please be respectful where necessary. I will never be that person that enforces standards of decorum but if the aff is about violence against marginalized people, whipping out a conspiracy theory kritik will make me extremely upset and will guarantee you a loss and speaks no higher than 25. If you are worried if your strat would fall into this category, just ask id be much happier to politely tell you no before round rather than berate you after the round.

3. Reading is fundamental children! Knowing about history will get you far in debate and in school and so will actually reading the literature. I have seen too many debates where people talk about violence in the abstract without connecting it to real life. If you can throw out historical examples of social movements, their successes/failures or methods and tie that shit to your debate arguments you will make me so happy.

4. If you want comments on anything in the debate ask me after the round. This could be anything from comments on a performance you did, questions about how to answer an argument, how to improve a strategy like whatever you want. I know how much work y'all put in to this activity which means for the like hour to hour and a half i'm in the back of the room I'm there to help y'all in any way possible.

5. Please don't put me on the email chain, I know its weird but I just dont want to be on it.


 * 11/21 UPDATE:**

1. After doing college policy for a little while I have experienced a world beyond arbitrary theory shells and It's glorious. My disposition on theory has changed in that my BS meter is substantially higher aka please don't read ridiculous theory in front of me like I'll still vote on font size theory but your speaks will be ATROCIOUS.

2. My opinion on disclosure is marginally different now that I have coached an independent. I will now actually look at the wiki to see if there is a genuine attempt at disclosure, as we all know sometimes people forget to disclose or the wiki decides to not work just for them or in general. The one thing that will persuade me is if you show me screenshots of a conversation or provide some other method of proof that you had communication with the other person and they explicitly refused to tell you what the aff was. This is not to say that makes it game over for whether or not disclosure is good just that the violation debate is probably over.


 * People Who Influenced Me:**

Chris Theis Rick Brundage Josh You Ed Hendrickson Sean Fahey Chris Vincent James McElwain

If you can debate well in front of any of them you should be fine in front of me.


 * About Me:**

I debated LD for 4 years at Apple Valley in MN. During my 4 years, I ran everything except trix and analytic phil. I have successfully read LARP, pomo, identity, and theory. I ran T but always lost on it (remember that). I am comfortable with basically any area of literature except analytic philosophy which is a double-edged sword. If you know what you are doing and do it well I will be pleased however I will know if you are just throwing random offs at your opponent to trip them up and won’t be happy (I’ll still vote on it tho). TLDR: I’ll vote on whatever. Do what you do best and I’ll figure it out on my end. Just give me a framework and some impact comparison and we’re golden.

**Theory:**
I default competing interps and no RVI’s unless its an offensive counter interp.

If there is a counter-interp read that is competitive and has offense I will vote on it unless told otherwise

I like sketchy semantic I meets because they’re funny and deter bad theory and poorly worded interps

I always thought theory was run in situations where it didn’t need to be like most of the time abusive arguments are just bad so I never understood why people didn’t just answer them.

The one thing that is not debatable is disclosure. If I am judging you and you have not disclosed at a minimum the first three last three, tags and cites of previously read positions you will lose the round unless there is verifiable proof of technical difficulties (like wiki crashing or no hotel wifi).

**Topicality/Framework/Clash of Civ:**
I'm willing to vote either way on this. I think that the topic exists for a reason but what that reason is, what the topic means, and how we engage the topic are all up for debate.

I was/still am almost always on the side of the Antifa (anti-framework) but read topicality/framework every once in a while, just to fuck with people. Just to be extremely clear, I read topicality to troll kids not because I thought it was a real argument.

I am not particularly receptive to an RVI on these types of arguments but think that impact turns to T/Framework are extremely persuasive.

On the other side of things, a good topical version of the aff argument that encompasses the aff in its entirety or at least the thesis of the aff is extremely persuasive and should win you the round on its own if done correctly. On the other hand I do think that TVA's need a solvency advocate and should also be topical, most TVA's I hear are pulled out of someone's ass with no basis in the literature along with the fact that they usually don't even meet the definitions people read above them.

I don’t think that fairness is a voter but rather an internal link to equal access to the benefits of the activity. Try something less nebulous like education about the specific topic. For example, a voter that said learning about climate change from a policy perspective is good on an environment topic would be fantastic.

The 2NR on framework should tell me a) exactly what the aff did that was wrong b) why what they did was wrong c) why it matters for debate in general or even just for this round and d) why I should care about that problem more than the problems that aff will inevitably identify. Please be specific and make particular claims about abuse. Ground and limits (shockingly) are not standards on their own rather they are internal links that determine the level of access to some benefit to debate. For example, an aff that doesnt defend the USFG could remove the 50 states CP as ground which could limit access to some educational benefit or cause some unfairness for xyz reason.

**LARP:**
I like plans that are constructed and thought out well. Something like country spec is fine but lowkey boring because it doesn’t really avoid much neg offense. Same goes for creative CP’s or disads with good links to the aff.

LARP rounds are always hella boring so if you make it interesting I'll be pleased and will reward you accordingly.

I think condo is good to an extent. 7 condo cp’s is bad but 2-3 is whatever.

**Identity Kritiks:**
This was my bread and butter senior year. I read queer pessimism on the neg almost every round. I also have a pretty good understanding of antiblackness literature. More Moten and Harney, Calvin Warren and Frank Wilderson than Hartman or Sexton though. Ableism was something I never really specifically touched on but the authors I read somewhat overlap so don’t be afraid to read something I might not be familiar with. This goes for most kritikal identity arguments actually, Ive read a lot of authors which means I understand the fundamentals well enough to figure the rest out quickly with good analysis on yalls part.

I think that specific link work on the AC is underrated. Reading link cards that apply to the whole topic is all well and good but what specifically about the 1AC is bad? The impact level work on the kritik is sometimes important and sometimes not. If your links say the 1AC is oppressive that’s really all I need but if the 1AC wins that they can weigh case against the K you should be prepared to do some more impact analysis.

The best kritik rounds I’ve seen have a large amount of material analysis. This means taking events from history or other methods of analyzing the world and using them to show why your methodology is correct.

State’s prolly bad in general but I think good instances of legalism exist. I don’t think any author would say we shouldn’t use lawyers to get queer POC out of prison. The point of clash for the state debate really exists at the link level. If the neg wins that the aff is a bad instance of state power they win and vice versa.

I think alternatives need to solve the kritik and could also solve some of the impacts of the affirmative if leveraged correctly.

I do not believe that straight people should read authors like Edelman or Stanley. This also applies to authors like Wilderson. The exception to this is if an author has personally given you the go ahead (it happens) or if they have written in a published piece of literature that its ok. For example, Harney and Moten have a section in their book where they discuss the necessity of white people fighting back against racism through the Undercommons. Jack Halberstam also discusses this in that same book. Make sure you accurately represent your authors to the best extent possible (I understand debate sometimes requires bastardization but keep it under control).

I like performance, I did it and did it well. It builds ethos and pathos well but cannot be used to replace actual arguments on the flow. I need some argument as to the validity and importance of your performance. I also do not think that the performance alone is reason to vote someone up. Do not say I should vote for you because you read someone else’s narrative. The case in which this makes sense is where a narrative is given as a reason to take a certain action in which case the narrative then becomes evidence in support of an action. I will, however, vote someone down on performance. If you win that the performative nature of the 1AC or 1NC was oppressive or bad for the activity in some way I am more than comfortable voting someone down. This might be a double standard but ¯\_(ツ )_/¯.

**High Theory Kritiks:**
High theory is difficult to classify but I would argue that if someone has called it high theory or ivory tower it probably is. For me, this includes authors like Agamben, Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, good ol Baudy, Bifo, Heidegger, Derrida and others I can’t recall as of writing this.

I read most of these authors when starting out as a K debater because honestly Identity Politics scared me. After starting to read some ID pol however I realized that most high theory authors are basically all lives matter versions of the good identity kritiks. Does this make them problematic? Maybe. I think that most of these authors are foundational to identity literature and therefore have an important role to play in kritikal debate. These authors (with the exception of Foucault and a few others), are missing a lot of good analysis that makes them easy to understand and also makes them easier to leverage against identity arguments. Debaters who actually understand the content and application of authors like Baudrillard are a) extremely rare and I have met 2-3 in my entire career and b) extremely successful because they are able to actually explain what the consequences of the kritik are in a way that escapes the intellectual mutual masturbation that exists in most of academia.

I think that these kritiks are extremely difficult to articulate well in the short time span of LD but it is possible. If you want to read something like this in front of me just remember that I will know what you are talking about so you should spend slightly less time on pure explanation and more explaining how your arguments predict/control the internals to your opponent’s impacts and what exactly the alternative does or how we go about adopting it. For example, explain how whatever being actually impacts individuals who would supposedly be helped by the legal project of the 1AC.

You should also read the above sections about link/impact/alt work and attempt to do the same things.

**Analytic Phil (STRIKE ME):**
I don’t understand it like at all. I have tried to read even the most basic of philosophy authors and just cannot grasp ethics. I’m probably just missing fundamentals but I could care less about whether or not to push the fat man in front of the trolley because it just doesn’t help me learn to survive or teach me different liberation strategies.

If you for some god forsaken reason decide to read some in front of me either a) kick it in the next speech or b) explain it in super simple terms. Assume my knowledge of philosophy is the same as some random person on the street who watched a khan academy video on kant 3 years ago and faintly remembers the words categorical imperative.

**Other Somewhat Important Things:**
I presume neg unless a counter-advocacy is read and then presumption shifts aff. Arguments can be made to shift presumption to another direction but how about you spend that time garnering offense so I don’t have to vote on presumption.

Permissibility will almost always flow neg because ought means a positive obligation. You will be hard pressed to convince me otherwise. If your strat is to trigger skep you are better off proving skep means you look to presumption not permissibility.

I default competing worlds but think that competing worlds is just a method by which we answer the resolutional question true or false

I have a deep love in my heart for Michael Marder and hauntology. They are both horrible debate arguments but are fantastic reads.

If your authors are problematic, don’t cite them directly. For example, cite Rawls instead of Pogge.

This will be updated as I learn more about my judging preferences.

Last updated: 11/21/2017