Hanes,+Russell

AFFILIATION: The Potomac School, McLean, VA EXPERIENCE: 4 years C-X and L-D coach 8 years C-X/CEDA debater ARTICLES: Debating Policies. Web published by the National Forensic League. Available at http://www.nflonline.org/uploads/Main/hanescxpfdebate.pdf “Popularizing Debate: A New Equity Strategy.” Book review of Cross-X. February Rostrum. http://www.nflonline.org/uploads2/Rostrum/0207_069_070.pdf “Toward a New LD Paradigm.” Co-authored with Scott Devoid (former student). October Rostrum. http://www.nflonline.org/uploads/Rostrum/1006_047_050.pdf

STYLE: Do not be blippy. Otherwise, speed is fine. Use good line-by-line technique; give clear signposts.

PARADIGM: By default, I am a policy-maker, but I will consider critiques and topicality. TOPICALITY: I use a competing interpretations theory. Please explain why your interpretation is better for debate, education, etc. -- make sure to explain your voting issue well. COUNTERPLANS: For the sake of time, please limit yourself to one counterplan. I have no on-face problem with PICs or with conditional counterplans, but I will also listen to arguments about they are abusive or not. Please clarify the status of your counterplan: for example, what do you mean by dispositional? CRITIQUES: I like critiques, especially ones that are policy-focused. However, I dislike nihilist and language critiques that give me no reason to prefer one side or the other.
 * CX Philosophy**:

PARADIGM: I use the “concept contextualization” paradigm to evaluate L-D rounds. Philosophers cannot agree upon definitions for even the most basic political concepts, such as democracy, justice, and rights, defining each term in multiple competitive or even contradictory ways. How do we sort out which definition is best? I reject the view that we can compare two definitions a priori (that is, absent any knowledge about real world facts) and decide one is “correct.” In my view, we can compare definitions of a concept only by contextualizing them a posteriori (after learning the relevant facts). Consider, for example, the concept of justice in the nuclear weapons topic: justice could be interpreted to mean just war or to mean equality and anti-hegemony. You will win by showing that your interpretation is best suited to the particular topic context. VALUE/CRITERION: Values and criteria can be a useful part of contextualizing the concept but are not necessary. TOPICALITY: Examples are topical or non-topical; impacts are relevant or irrelevant, but they are not topical or non-topical. Let me be clear: I do not ignore an impact just because you have standards that tell me to do so. This is not to say that I believe all impacts are fair game, only that you need to make substantive arguments to prove the irrelevance of an impact. In fact, weighing impacts is the single most important mechanism you have to contextualize the topic! CRITIQUES: I love critiques that re-frame the issue, highlighting an impact that the opposite side has tried to obscure. I dislike nihilist, postmodern, and relativist critiques that argue all affirmative impacts are equally unimportant, and I have a hard time seeing why they are a voting issue since I do not subscribe to a truth-testing paradigm.
 * LD Philosophy**: