Debate is good for queer students because predictable clash spills over to real world impacts. Structural unfairness doesn’t matter in debate because the inability to find perfect models turns education.

This essay has presented a reading of the question “what might it mean to queer debate” which isolates a site of irresolvable tension between “queer” and “debate.” Queer’s central characteristic is its ability to be radically open and develop meaning based on its particular instantiations; debate, on the other hand, is constrained by a variety of factors including speech times, the competition format of the activity, and wins and losses. Rather than try to resolve this tension by either limiting queer or unlimiting debate, I have suggested that we might consider reading it as an instance of aporia, an irresolvable impasse which is nevertheless generative insofar as it invites us to reconsider thinking in the face of this incommensurability. For me, this generative understanding of the necessary conflict between “queer” and “debate” focuses on the hyper-specificity and intense contextuality of queer and applies it to an understanding of debate. As a result, my suggestion has been that to queer debate is to approach each individual debate and consider it on its own terms such that our students sidestep arguments about the overall adoption of each model in favor of the particular contingencies associated with each specific debate. Of course, I have provided but one suggestion when considering how we might queer debate. Many may reasonably disagree with me, and I certainly invite others to advance their own positions, theories, and ideas about what it might mean to queer debate. If one of the central lessons of queer’s evolution throughout recent history is the term’s ability to change depending on its contingent deployments, then a queer model of debate must also be able to morph in different ways. And as I have also suggested, debate’s evolution reflects a similar history to queer’s, changing significantly as teams push the boundaries of what should and should not function within debate rounds. Similarly, aporia invites a plurality of responses, albeit those which are inevitably trapped by the impasse that is aporia. Perhaps there are other contextual factors which may invite a queer model of debate that looks different than the model-less model I have proposed here. In addition to proposing a queer model of debate, I hope to have provided two important lessons for those of us interested in both the educational value of debate and the continuation of debates about debate. First, I have suggested that debate is a messy activity. Even as rules and norms governing the activity ensure a certain standard of predictability, the inability to come to definitive conclusions about how all debates should look ensures that the activity has a certain level of disorganization, chaos, and confusion. Many people who judge “clash of civilizations” rounds which pit different models of debate against each other suggest that they do not believe there is a “right” answer to how all debate should be; as someone who often judges these kinds of debates (and votes for both the “policy” and the “kritikal” teams with frequency), I tend to agree with my colleagues. Yet the disorderly chaos preventing the policy debate community from resolving debates about debate makes possible a level of ingenuity and creativity that we should inculcate in our students. My point is not that debate is necessarily unstable or impossible to prepare for; nor is it that debate should not be stable or predictable at all. Rather, my position is that one of the important lessons debate can teach our students is to be artful and slick, figuring out how to adapt to different situations as they evolve and change. In a sense, this lesson extends Gordon Mitchell’s (1998, 57) claim that “with greater room to maneuver for inventing strategies for action, taking risks, making mistakes and affecting change, scholars can begin to envision how to do things with arguments not only in the cozy confines of contest round competition, but in the world beyond as well.” These are skills that are quite beneficial in everyday life, as everyone must learn to adapt to situations as they morph in unpredictable ways; my suggestion has been that debate’s messiness is necessary for inculcating these important skills. Second, I have suggested that all models of debate are imperfect. There will always be concerns about accessibility, dogmatism, exclusion, fairness, and portable skills associated with each proposed model of debate. Rather than either giving up on debates about debate or trying to find the ideal version of debate, my suggestion has been that it is in the very inability to find perfection that we might isolate the educational value of encouraging our students to engage in debates about debate. In other words, much like aporia itself, debates about debate are stuck—but in a productive and generative manner. My position thus diverges from other debate educators who suggest that our goal ought to be to “resolve old disagreements about the paradigms and pedagogies of educational debate” (Hogan and Kurr 2017, 87). Instead, my suggestion is that it is from within the very inability to find resolution for the disagreements between and among debates about debate that we may advance conversations about the intellectual and argumentative value of continuing to engage in these kinds of debates. The college policy debate community is split over what constraints are acceptable and which are not; my suggestion is that we may mine that irresolvable division to find the educational value of debating about debate. And it is particularly important for debaters, educators, and coaches to advance conversations about the benefits of debate now, in the wake of recent conservative attacks on our activity. In a variety of places, Derrida (1992, 41) reminds us that “ethics, politics, and responsibility, if there are any, will only ever have begun with the experience and experiment of the aporia” (See also Derrida 1993; Derrida 1995; Derrida 2001). Derrida (1992, 41) continues by stating that “when the path is clear and given, when a certain knowledge opens up the way in advance, the decision is already made, it might as well be said that there is none to make: irresponsibly, and in good conscience, one simply applies or implements a program.” If we already know what must be done, then we are not making a decision; we have not really been faced with a choice to make. Instead, making a decision, as one must when considering ethics, politics, and responsibility, necessitates insurmountable indeterminacy, uncertainty, and doubt. Much like ethics, politics, and responsibility, queering debate necessitates an overwhelming and irresolvable level of perplexity and messiness. But approaching that mess from a position of radical openness makes possible a different way of considering the value of debates about debate. While we may not ever be certain what the correct model of debate is, we can turn to aporia for an idea of what to do in the face of that uncertainty. Ethics, politics, and responsibility—every debate, in some way, addresses these three topics. Can we remain open to their irresolvable possibilities?