Fahey,+Sean

Benjamin Franklin ‘16, Tulane ‘20 Coaching Conflicts: The Brentwood School, George Ranch MS

I debated for 4 years at Benjamin Franklin High School in New Orleans, LA. I primarily debated LD on the Louisiana local circuit, but also regularly did extemp and congress with some success. I competed as a lone wolf on the LD national circuit my junior and senior year and qualified to the TOC both years. I also got to finals of the 2016 CFL National Tournament my senior year.

I study English, Computer Science, and Philosophy at Tulane University. I now coach the Brentwood school, the occasional independent, and have taught at the Victory Briefs Institute for two years.

__**2018 Jan/Feb Update (Jan. 5th ****, **** 2018): **__ Did debate kill warranted extensions? Please bring it back. I miss them so much. I don't even believe people know what their advocacy says anymore. I don't know why anything solves. Please. Somebody. Help!

__**2017-2018 Season Update (Sept. 29th, 2017):**__ My paradigm has changed a lot after a year of judging and shifts in personal philosophy. I am generally down for any argument as long as it is well-made. I have familiarities, but they rarely influence my decisions except in high level, very contentious rounds. Watch my face, I'm still very expressive about how I feel about an arg. Disclosure is still strongly voted for when verifiably true. I like cheeky theory more now, but stupid interps are still stupid interps and will be treated as such. Reasonability is not a safe place to leave me, I will gutcheck in odd ways based on my current mood. I still value displays of substantive knowledge through clear outlining of argument warrants in the rebuttals over lightning fast extensions to win every flow. Hope this helps.

__**TOC Edit 4/26/17 (The spreadsheet is only for 2017):**__ 1. At the TOC, I will hack (vote for assuredly if properly extended on a semantic flowing basis) for a 'standard' (first three words, last three words, tag, citation w/author quals and source access, all previously broken positions being read in round im judging have been disclosed with an hour leeway) disclosure theory interp if you prove the interp true (regardless of substantive response) with timestamped screenshots. Don't take this as an excuse to not justify your disclosure shell though because then I think you equally void a discussion about disclosure regardless of whether or not I'll hack (because you should disclose at the TOC for Christ sake, if you disagree please /consider/ striking me) 2. I made a [|spreadsheet] that may give some statistical & material grounding to how you pref me, round reports will be filled in soon to the best of my memory 3. I just want to make this clear - just because you read Baudrillard in front of me, it will have little to do with your likeliness of winning the round. I have found that out of the disproportionate amounts of time I've judged it, I vote it down more than most other arguments. I would honestly just prefer you read Kant at this point if you don't intend on flexing with the content matter. Really, I quite like Kant. I really do, s2g.

__**Edit 1/26/17:**__ I finally got around to updating this for Jan/Feb 2017. A lot of my views on debate have maybe matured a bit since I, in a reactionary movement, wrote my original paradigm after TOC in 2016. Also, after having judged multiple national circuit tournaments through late out-rounds, my views on argument “acceptability” have been severely loosened. I have voted for arguments from every ‘paradigm’ of circuit debate this year (tricks, plans, burden structures, nontopical k affs, ‘analytic’ framework NCs, and, yes, skep). I wrote an article about debate linked at the top that says a lot about the generally skeptical background of my debate views, socially and substantively; however, I’ll lose my nice job if I stage a protest against some white kid’s structural violence aff and I really just don’t care that much – but for the sake of paradigm, the article does show how willing I am to let the round create itself. I’m really more interested in seeing rounds where debaters are confident about their arguments and content because I’m disinterested in watching debates where debaters act like neutral units in the input-output machine of debate language and norms. Give me some personality and show me you researched, read, and have some level of reverence for your arguments as logical exchange and interplay with more value than ballots. My favorite debaters I’ve seen this year all read pretty different arguments, but I love judging them because they debate like it should be common fucking sense that they’re right because they know they are. Now apparently it’s up to me to decide whether you actually are right (idk whose idea it was to give me that type of power over meaning), but I’m more likely to take your arguments seriously if you do (and you’ll get higher speaks for refreshing authenticity!). As a general rule, I think a debate can have great value as long as it is taken seriously relative to its actual implications. There’s too little time to take high school debate too seriously.

If any of the above doesn’t jive with your style, feel free to try and change my mind with good debating (I think the debater/student is a veritable source of knowledge and concept creation in debate/educational relationships) or strike me. I expect to judge local circuit rounds and national circuit rounds and have a separate paradigm for each; my local circuit paradigm is at the bottom. If you have any questions about any of this or any of the positions I read in high school, feel free to email me at SeanFaheyLD@gmail.com.

__**The stuff: **__

I think most people knew me for being grumpy and reading post-structuralism a lot; this hasn’t changed much, but I’m an open-minded guy. Read anything, as long as you can own anything. I feel most qualified to judge K debates (K-wise, I mostly read lotsa Baudrillard & lotsa Anthro w/ a lil CLS, CRT, & DnG) over anything else given I have the most intimate experience with that style and body of academic work.

However, I am willing to hear most of the bullshit debaters can cook up. I really like good util debates that flex good research; theory is an increasingly interesting to me, blippy theory is hard to vote on and unconvincing; ofc I vote on topicality, I'm not a hippy; Despite my argument history, I enjoy analytic philosophy (I've studied a lot of it, so I'm pretty familiar) and clever tricks and am more than ready to vote for it when it's well done. I’ve opened up more to tricks as simply the logical conclusion of the weird style of debate we do, so you know. If I get it, I’ll vote on it. It’s debate, you can kinda say w/e you want and hopefully I fux with the vision.

That said, I find I have a higher than average threshold in general on the logic of theory. I find a lot of theory debates devolve to technical displays of mental scripting and I can't appreciate half-baked standards about fairness that are ironically dubious excuses for introducing new layers. I presume nothing - justify every part of the shell please. Edit 1/26: I’ve since judged a fair amount of high level theory rounds with less migraine than I foresaw (only headache) so do your thing, but I really mean it when I say blippy (you know the half-boiled warrants I’m talking about) theory args are just silly.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I give out speaks admittedly pretty arbitrarily like literally everyone else. Varad Agarwala says I give good, only slightly inflated speaks. He’s my lawyer and if you don’t like your speaks you should go talk to Varad and pref him highly for higher future speaks. If you really want to win in front of me or get high pretty points, read my longer paradigm. It's growing due of editing, but it's still valuable for guidance. EDIT 4/26/17: Refer to spreadsheet for speculation of what magic fairy points I may statistically throw at you.


 * __<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Sean Opinions That U Should Consider the Observation & Emulatation Of! __**

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Edit 2/4 (Golden Desert): Idk why this needs to be said, but compiling your speech doc is part of your prep. Emailing it is not (but don't steal prep, it's not hard to email something) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Good evidence wins rounds <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Email chains w/ me on them > flashing <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">If you open source all positions you read and show me after round, I will give you +1 speaker points <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">CX is binding, use it well <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Being funny (if you are actually funny) gets speaks <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Good analytics and creativity tell me you're good <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Don’t be hateful. If you have violent beliefs that affect your language, actions, or opponent, I can’t change that, but I can take a stance on how I felt about watching it with my ballot.

__**<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Sean Opinions Disclosed For My Reference Power When U Try 2 Grill! **__

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I’m very pro-disclosure (broken positions with tags, citations, first three/last three words of card text, with appropriate updates at the very minimum as a rule – I support open source disclosure and did it as a debater). I will vote on disclosure theory and will accept out-of-round evidence to verify a violation.

__**<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Extra Behavior That I'd Notably Rather Not Bear Witness To: **__

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Positions that reasonably (reasonably would be contextualized by theory) could have a trigger warning, but do not and are challenged on this (Even if you don’t believe in trigger warnings, be considerate of different viewpoints on sensitive issues – humility is good) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Hateful, ‘substantive’ arguments for the sake of strategy. If you impact-turn oppression I will impact turn your record with my ballot <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Don’t read a kritik concerned with ‘pessimism’ or some nihilist metaphysics with something like 50 States or Politics, that’s usually not condo that’s a perf con. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Please do not spread out debaters who clearly can not spread. You can still win this way if you're really that much of a tryhard, but I will decimate your speaks because you're an asshole. Be considerate and inclusive. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">If I think you're stealing prep, I will tell you to hurry up and will dock you a speaker point. I do this more than I’d like. Idk how people can talk about philosophy at 100s of words per minute, but can’t send an email quickly. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">¯\_(ツ)_/¯

__**<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Local Circuit Paradigm: **__

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Yeah, you need solvency (as per Jon's request Solvency = a term in debate used to refer to the evidential justification for an [generally the affirmative topical action] advocacy's ability to pragmatically/empirically achieve its impacts [solving something bad, making something good]. We need this to justify things even if they're conceptually good.) Yeah, you should spend a good amount of time on framework (philosophy args) and use that to exclude your opponent’s impacts (as incoherent or unimportant within your philosophical theory)– it is the easiest way to win lay debates. Yeah, please attempt to do evidence comparison for my sake. Yeah, I like analytic arguments in framework debate given they are logically rigorous. Yeah, CX is binding and you should try to use it strategically - clarification questions are fine, but shouldn’t dominate CX. Yes, I will disclose if the tournament allows me. If it doesn’t, I will always be willing to give oral critiques either after round or if you see me around after round. I am willing to sit down with you, look at my flows, and tell you what to work on. Yeah, I will evaluate stranger arguments than most, but do not not NOT exclude your opponent with wacky shit. Yeah, if you’re an asshole I will dock your speaks. Yeah, please make jokes if you’re funny. Yeah, PLEASE TELL ME WHY YOU WIN ACCORDING TO A WINNING FRAMEWORK DON’T JUST GO DOWN THE FLOW AND SIT DOWN I WANT TO KNOW THAT YOU KNOW WHY I SHOULD VOTE FOR YOU DON’T MAKE DECIDING THE ROUND A GRAND INTERPLAY WITH FATE THAT COULD BE BETTER RESOLVED BY A COIN TOSS.