A Case against Spreading in LD

September 1, 2009

Because one of my normal tournament stops, USC, is now picking up a Finals TOC bid, it would appear spreading is going to become a more controversial topic when it comes to LD. I’ve lost all interest in TOC, however, it looks like we’re going to go head to head for most of the season. I intentionally stayed away from TOC tournaments because spreading has reached the same level as Policy spreading which is ludicrous. If spreaders win, it only makes matters worse. The only people that can change this are the debaters themselves because it appears the coaches feel this is an advantage which means it’s not going away anytime soon. This article is going to try and provide you with reasons why you should rethink spreading in LD.

It’s well documented that Policy is dropping rapidly. It would seem that only the Policy people understand why they need to spread at such a ridiculous rate. It’s never going to end because once a Policy debater becomes a coach, he’ll insist that his students spread as well. For this very reason, I don’t coach Policy because I know that for my kids to stand a chance they will have to spread. This is what needs to be understood. I stay away from Policy because it’s already understood that you must spread in order to do well in that category. Therefore, I coach LD where the speaking is at least articulate and you don’t have to take deep breaths in order to complete a thought. However, because Policy is dying out, Policy debaters are now moving to LD and treating it like Policy. If you’re going to do LD, then you need to play by LD rules. Nowhere does it say that you can’t spread in LD, but Policy and LD are two different styles of debating and spreading doesn’t work for LD. If you are an LD debater, you need to understand that Policy spreading needs to stop because you can’t spread abstract thoughts.

Policy is factually based vs. LD that is philosophically based. You can’t spread the ideas of Kant and have the judge catch everything. Abstract thoughts need time to be digested slowly in order to truly understand the concept. When it comes out with rapid fire there is no way a judge has time to internalize what he has just heard. All you need to do is compare the Final 2008 LD round of the NFL and the Final 2008 TOC round. In my opinion, the NFL final round was better because there was an actual debate taking place that could be understood by the average person. Watch the TOC final and tell me how many average people could actually follow what was going on. Infact, the AFF seemed to be off topic but because she was Policy spreading it took a while to actually break down her case. I would be embarrassed to be an organization with a final round where there really was no debate. Policy strategy doesn’t work for LD, especially if you have a judge like me that wants to see an actual debate.

I’m somewhat of a hypocrite on this topic because although I can’t stand spreading, I’d prefer a policy judge over any other type of judge simply because they can flow better. But when it comes to choosing a winner, Policy judges really don’t have a clue on how to do it except by keeping track of the number of cards read by each side. Card stacking may work in Policy, but it shouldn’t in LD simply because you can group all of those cards together and make one big argument. Dates don’t matter either because you are arguing ideology not facts. So when someone can read 30 cards in their 6 minute speech that shouldn’t guarantee a win simply because the other side didn’t have time to argue all 30 cards. If the other side at least acknowledges that there were 30 cards and can group them into categories and make arguments against those categories, I would find that totally acceptable. I don’t believe you can spread a person out in LD like you can in Policy. The Policy people of course would disagree and therein lies the problem.

It would really be nice if the TOC organization made a stand against spreading and put a stop to this nonsense. LD was at one time a forum where parents or any person off the streets could judge and at least somewhat follow what was going on. Eventually, it’s just going to begin dwindling like Policy because it will be hard to find judges that can actually follow what the students are saying. All it takes is one non spreader to start winning and things will begin to change.