File Explanation

This file is designed to provide negative teams with a generic

strategy against critical affirmatives that use the word/concept
exploration in the 1AC. Many affirmatives will defend an
exploration of something related (or unrelated) to the
oceans in order to help answer topicality violations and
framework arguments. This file contains two positions that
might be helpful against those cases:
1. A topicality violation about exploration that can be read
independently of a violation about the USFG. The
interpretation requires the affirmative to rigorously observe
and document aspects of the oceans, not just think or theorize
about the oceans.
2. A critique/concept PIC of the frontier mentality implied by
the concept and language of exploration. A concept PIC
advocates doing the aff but not endorsing a particular
concept included in the 1AC. It is not a plan inclusive
counterplan because it is usually a response to affirmatives
that dont advocate a plan, but the basic theoretical
assumptions are the same: instead of attacking the whole aff,
the neg agrees with most of the aff but disagrees about one
aspect of it. This argument can also be introduced as a dirty
word critique if students are more comfortable with that
genre of argument.
The two positions can be used together: if the affirmative
meets the negatives topicality interpretation, they link to the
critique/concept PIC. Additional impact evidence for the
critique can be found in other negative critique files; the focus
of this project was the link adding more impacts should be
easy.
This file also includes some evidence that might be helpful for
affirmatives that want to play with different meanings of the
word exploration. These cards can be used to answer the
exploration critique/concept PIC, but the best affirmative
responses will be case-specific and dependent on how the
affirmative uses the term exploration.

Important SDI Note

This file was constructed to create productive debates about
the exploration topicality and concept PIC arguments against
critical (exploration is our tie to the topic) affirmatives. It
was not intended to be a bidirectional word PIC file that
could facilitate balanced debates in other contexts (especially
as a word PIC against policy affirmatives/plans). Do not use
this argument without getting permission from your lab
leader(s).

Negative Topicality

Explanation
This is a topicality violation that teams can read in addition to
the typical TUSFG argument. If you are not reading that
topicality argument, omit the opening sentence and insert the
Steffen card about ocean literacy into the 1NC shell. This
argument is best against cases that use broad definitions of
exploration to justify saying something or doing something
related to the oceans.

1NC Topicality Exploration

Even if they beat our USFG violation, other topicality
burdens remain.
Specifically, exploration is more than just observation it
requires direct intervention in the phenomenon under study.
Cerezo 10 Jose A. Lopez Cerezo, Professor of the Methodology of Science at the University of
Oviedo (Spain), 2010 (Dimensions of Clinical Observation in the Origins of Scientific Medicine, New
Methodological Perspectives on Observation and Experimentation in Science, Edited by Wenceslao J.
Gonzlez, Published by Netbiblo, ISBN 8497455304, p. 119)

I am following common trends in philosophical literature by

differentiating observation from experimentation, and both of
these from exploration, as basic data production procedures in
science. To start, the general term, observation, as, for example, auscultation
reveals, may refer to perception of a non-visual nature. As opposed to
observation, exploration implies a certain intervention in the
phenomenon under study (as a physician does when performing an
autopsy or a geologist, when obtaining a sample of the ground).
Experimentation, in turn, implies a systematic manipulation of the
phenomenon to study a certain relation among variables and to test
the null hypothesis. See, e.g., Harre, R., Great Scientific Experiments: Twenty Experiments that
Footnote 10:

Changed Our View of the World, Phaidon Press, Oxford, 1981. Spanish translation by Luis Bou: Grandes
experimentos cientificos, Labor, Barcelona, 1986, pp. 14-16.

In the context of ocean exploration, this requires rigorous

observations and documentation of aspects of the oceans.
NOAA 13 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, last updated in 2013 (What Is Ocean
Exploration and Why Is It Important?, January 7th, Available Online at
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/backmatter/whatisexploration.html, Accessed 07-14-2014)

Ocean exploration is about making new discoveries, searching for

things that are unusual and unexpected.
Although it involves the search for things yet unknown, ocean
exploration is disciplined and systematic. It includes rigorous
observations and documentation of biological, chemical,
physical, geological, and archaeological aspects of the ocean.
Findings made through ocean exploration expand our fundamental
scientific knowledge and understanding, helping to lay the
foundation for more detailed, hypothesis-based scientific
investigations.

The affirmative violates this interpretation because they do not

rigorously observe and document biological, chemical,
physical, geological, and archaeological aspects of the oceans.
(Explain)
Prefer our interpretation and vote negative.
First, manageable limits broad definitions of exploration
not grounded in oceanography create unrealistic expectations
for research and preparation. A smaller topic with fewer cases
fosters specific neg strategies that promote in-depth clash and
argument development while giving the affirmative enough
flexibility to innovate.
Second, meaningful ground adhering to a totally unnegotiated topic after its announcement by the 1AC deprives
the neg of the opportunity to substantively engage and
productively disagree. Our interpretation ensures some level
of predictable neg ground, better challenging the aff to defend
their position.
Third, ocean literacy our interpretation of exploration
ensures it. This was impacted on the first violation.
NOAA 13 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, last updated in 2013 (What Is Ocean
Exploration and Why Is It Important?, January 7th, Available Online at
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/backmatter/whatisexploration.html, Accessed 07-14-2014)

Ocean exploration can improve ocean literacy and inspire new

generations of youth to seek careers in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics. The challenges of exploring the
deep ocean can provide the basis for problem-solving instruction in
technology and engineering that can be applied in other situations.
Exploration leaves a legacy of new knowledge that can be used by
those not yet born to answer questions not yet posed at the time of
exploration.

Interpretation Evidence
Ocean exploration requires systematic observation of all
facets of the ocean.
McNutt 1 Marcia K. McNutt, President and CEO of the Monterey Aquarium Research Institute,
Griswold Professor of Geophysics and Director of the Joint Program in Oceanography and Applied Ocean
Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, President of the American
Geophysical Union, holds a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 2001
(Ocean Exploration and Coastal Ocean Observing Systems, Prepared Statement for a Joint Oversight
Hearing before the Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, and Standards and the Subcommittee on
Research of the Committee on Science and the Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife, and
Oceans of the Committee on Resources of the United States House of Representatives, July 12 th, Available
Online at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-107hhrg73840/pdf/CHRG-107hhrg73840.pdf, Accessed 0715-2014, p. 54)
What is Ocean Exploration?

Ocean exploration is the systematic observation of all facets of

the ocean (biological, physical, chemical, geological,
archaeological, etc.) in all three dimensions of space and the
fourth dimension of time. Ocean exploration leaves a legacy of
carefully documented information for posterity, to address
questions we do not know enough to even pose at the time that the
data are collected. Ocean exploration pushes the envelope for
technology as we attempt to gain access to Earths most challenging
environments. Ocean exploration leads to great, but largely
unpredictable, rewards: cures for diseases from novel biological
compounds, untapped mineral, energy, and biological resources,
insight as to how the ocean system functions, geological and biological
vistas of unsurpassed beauty, appreciation for mankinds maritime
past. Ocean exploration captures the attention of the public and
provides engaging content for improving math and science literacy.
Ocean exploration requires curiosity-driven research of
ocean-related processes, properties, and places.
Watkins and Panetta 7 James D. Watkins, Co-Chairman of the Joint Ocean Commission
Initiative, Retired Admiral in the U.S. Navy, served as the U.S. Secretary of Energy during the George H. W.
Bush administration, and Leon E. Panetta, Co-Chairman of the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, former
member of the U.S. House of Representatives, former Director of the Office of Management and Budget
and Chief of Staff under President Bill Clinton, 2007 (Ocean Policy Priorities in the United States; and H.R.
21, Oceans Conservation, Education, and National Strategy for the 21 st Century Act, Statement Before The
Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans of the Committee on Natural Resources of the U.S. House
of Representatives, Available Online at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg34377/html/CHRG110hhrg34377.htm, 07-15-2014)

Congress should support an enhanced National Ocean Exploration

Program. A robust exploration program that coordinates, enhances, and strengthens activities across
federal agencies is a missing link in a national strategy to better understand the Earth's environment.

Exploration focuses on curiosity-driven research of ocean-related

processes, properties, and places that are poorly known or
understood. Put into context, more than 1,500 people have climbed to the summit of Mount Everest,
more than 300 have journeyed into space, and 12 have walked on the moon, but only 2 people have
descended and returned in a single dive to the deepest part of the ocean, spending less than 30 minutes
on the ocean bottom, 95 percent of which remains unexplored.

Violation Evidence
Ocean exploration is distinct from research. Even if the affs
research is related to the oceans, they arent ocean
exploration.
McNutt 1 Marcia K. McNutt, President and CEO of the Monterey Aquarium Research Institute,
Griswold Professor of Geophysics and Director of the Joint Program in Oceanography and Applied Ocean
Science and Engineering at the Massachussets Institute of Technology, President of the American
Geophysical Union, holds a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 2001
(Ocean Exploration and Coastal Ocean Observing Systems, Prepared Statement for a Joint Oversight
Hearing before the Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, and Standards and the Subcommittee on
Research of the Committee on Science and the Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife, and
Oceans of the Committee on Resources of the United States House of Representatives, July 12 th, Available
Online at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-107hhrg73840/pdf/CHRG-107hhrg73840.pdf, Accessed 0715-2014, p. 54)
Why does the U.S. need a program in ocean exploration?

The ocean is essential to life on Earth. The ocean is Earths

largest living space and contains most of its biomass. Eighty percent of all
known phyla are found only in the ocean, and most photosynthesis occurs there. The ocean
moderates our climate to keep Earth habitable, and it processes our
wastes. The ocean provides an inexpensive source of protein to feed the global population. Yet 95%
of the ocean is unknown and unexplored. How could that have happened? During the
It is very simple.

great era of exploration from the 15th through the 18th centuries, the target was unknown lands: the New
World, the Dark Continent, Terra Incognita. Many of the explorers of that era were indeed superb mariners
Columbus, Magellan, Drake, Cookbut the ocean itself was not the target of their journeys. It was
merely a barrier that needed to be crossed in order to claim new lands and discover new riches. The

By the time we
developed the platforms and instruments that could explore the ocean
and its depths, exploration had gone out of favor as most of the land surface had
already been catalogued, and the vast resources of the oceans were
unappreciated. To be sure, much has been learned about the oceans
through research programs supported by Federal agencies, primarily NSF, the Navy, and
NOAA. But research is distinct from exploration. Exploration leads to
questions. Research finds answers. Every day Congress and other
legislative bodies are asked to make policy decisions concerning the
oceans, based on the best scientific answers to those posed questions.
But what if we dont know enough to ask the right questions? For
technology did not even exist at that time to explore the ocean itself.

example, some are now proposing direct sequestration of carbon dioxide in the ocean, below 3 km depth,
as a way to circumvent the atmospheric release that leads to global warming. But how can we assess the
biological impact of ocean sequestration when we dont know all of the creatures that live in those regions,
much less the role they play in the over- all health of the ocean ecosystem? As another example, my
institutions ocean observatories documented a 25% drop in ocean productivity in Monterey Bay in the
decade of the 1990s caused by a 1 degree Fahrenheit rise in ocean surface tempera- ture. This extreme
effect was not predicted by the sophisticated computer models because we have not explored the ocean

In order to know the

right questions to even ask, the U.S. needs a program in ocean
exploration.
sufficiently in the time domain to ask the right questions of the models.

Ocean exploration is distinct from general oceanography

it requires research aimed at better utilizing the ocean and its
resources. The affirmative violates this interpretation because
they dont lead to better utilization of the oceans.
NRC 69 Committee on Oceanography of the National Research Council in the National Academy of
Sciences and the Committee on Ocean Engineering of the National Academy of Engineering, 1969 (The
International Decade of Ocean Exploration, Report by the National Academy of Sciences, Available Online
at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CZIC-gc11-o25-1969/html/CZIC-gc11-o25-1969.htm, Accessed 07-152014)

The term International Decade of Ocean Exploration can be

interpreted very broadly. Thus the Steering Committee gave early
consideration to the features that could serve to distinguish programs
of the Decade from the whole of ocean science and engineering.
A broad statement of the basic objectives of the Decade was
developed, as follows:
To achieve more comprehensive knowledge of ocean characteristics
and their changes and more profound understanding of oceanic
processes for the purpose of more effective utilization of the
ocean and its resources.
The emphasis on utilization was considered of primary importance. In
contrast to the total spectrum of oceanography and ocean engineering,
the principal focus of Decade activities would be on exploration effort
in support of such objectives as (a) increased net yield from ocean
resources, [end page 2] (b) prediction and enhanced control of natural
phenomena, and (c) improved quality of the marine environment. Thus
Decade investigations should be identifiably relevant to some aspect of
ocean utilization.
The word "exploration" has a number of meanings, extending from
broad reconnaissance to detailed prospecting. Exploration effort of the
IDOE should include the scientific and engineering research and
development required to improve the description of the ocean, its
boundaries, and its contents, and to understand the processes that
have led to the observed conditions and that may cause further
changes in those conditions.

Impact Evidence
Ocean exploration is important it offers tangible benefits to
everyone.
NOAA 13 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, last updated in 2013 (What Is Ocean
Exploration and Why Is It Important?, January 7th, Available Online at
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/backmatter/whatisexploration.html, Accessed 07-14-2014)

information from ocean

exploration is important to everyone. Unlocking the mysteries of
deep-sea ecosystems can reveal new sources for medical drugs,
food, energy resources, and other products. Information from deepocean exploration can help predict earthquakes and tsunamis and
help us understand how we are affecting and being affected by
changes in Earths climate and atmosphere. Expeditions to the
unexplored ocean can help focus research into critical geographic
and subject areas that are likely to produce tangible benefits.
While new discoveries are always exciting to scientists,

Incorporating ocean literacy into the debate curriculum is vital

to solve our impacts.
Cava et al. 5 Francesca Cava, Ocean Literacy Project Manager at the National Geographic
Society, holds an M.P.A. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, et al., with Sarah
Schoedinger, Senior Education Program Manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
holds an M.S. in Marine Sciences from the University of Delaware, Craig Strang, Associate Director of
Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California-Berkeley, and Peter Tuddenham, Co-Founder of the
College of Exploration, 2005 (Science Content and Standards for Ocean Literacy: A Report on Ocean
Literacy, November, Available Online at http://www.cosee-se.org/files/coseeca/OLit04-05FinalReport.pdf,
Accessed 07-15-2014, p. 4)

The need for ocean literacy is simple. The most dominant feature on
Earth is the ocean. Understanding the ocean is integral to
understanding the planet on which we live. This understanding is
essential to sustaining our planet and our own well-being.
However, for many years core curricula for grades K-12 have not included
ocean topics. In fact, in some cases, the ocean has been completely
ignored in formal K-12 education. The challenge facing ocean literacy
proponents has been how to incorporate concepts about the ocean into
accepted curricula. In the last several years, several institutions have grappled with this
challenge in a variety of ways.

There is a clear scholarly consensus about what constitutes

ocean literacy. This should guide our curriculum.
Cava et al. 5 Francesca Cava, Ocean Literacy Project Manager at the National Geographic
Society, holds an M.P.A. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, et al., with Sarah
Schoedinger, Senior Education Program Manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
holds an M.S. in Marine Sciences from the University of Delaware, Craig Strang, Associate Director of
Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California-Berkeley, and Peter Tuddenham, Co-Founder of the
College of Exploration, 2005 (Science Content and Standards for Ocean Literacy: A Report on Ocean
Literacy, November, Available Online at http://www.cosee-se.org/files/coseeca/OLit04-05FinalReport.pdf,
Accessed 07-15-2014, p. 4-5)
Conclusions and Next Steps

This report represents the completion and documentation of the multiphase, national effort to improve ocean literacy. The ocean sciences
and education communities were able to come to consensus about

what every person should know about the ocean in order to make
wise and informed decisions about it and about our future. In so
doing, the two communities have taken great and unprecedented
strides toward becoming a single, more unified community. Though we are
not nave about the different worlds and cultures in which scientists and educators live, we are heartened
that so many have [end page 5] worked together so effectively on this important issue. We also recognize
that the inclusion of scientists in development of educational policy and resources is one that must
continue.

Now that agreement has been reached on what must be taught

and learned regarding the ocean, we can turn our attention to how to
convey this information to a variety of learners, audiences and
interest groups that include teachers and teacher leaders, school and district administrators, preservice educators, professional developers, standards committees, instructional materials developers,
assessment specialists, textbook writers and publishers, exhibit designers and informal/free-choice
educators.

Heres evidence describing an ocean literate person. The

affirmative doesnt help anyone better understand any of the
seven essential principles.
Cava et al. 5 Francesca Cava, Ocean Literacy Project Manager at the National Geographic
Society, holds an M.P.A. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, et al., with Sarah
Schoedinger, Senior Education Program Manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
holds an M.S. in Marine Sciences from the University of Delaware, Craig Strang, Associate Director of
Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California-Berkeley, and Peter Tuddenham, Co-Founder of the
College of Exploration, 2005 (Science Content and Standards for Ocean Literacy: A Report on Ocean
Literacy, November, Available Online at http://www.cosee-se.org/files/coseeca/OLit04-05FinalReport.pdf,
Accessed 07-15-2014, p. 9)
Definition of Ocean Literacy

Ocean literacy is an understanding of the oceans influence on you and

your influence on the ocean. An ocean-literate person understands the
fundamental concepts about the functioning of the ocean, can
communicate about the ocean in a meaningful way, and is able to
make informed and responsible decisions regarding the ocean and its
resources.
Essential Principles

Every ocean literate person should know these essential principles:

1. The Earth has one big ocean with many features.
2. The ocean and life in the ocean shape the features of the Earth .
3. The ocean is a major influence on weather and climate.
4. The ocean makes the Earth habitable.
5. The ocean supports a great diversity of life and ecosystems .
6. The ocean and humans are inextricably interconnected .
7. The ocean is largely unexplored.

Negative Concept PIC/Critique

1NC Exploration Critique/Concept PIC

(We agree with the 1AC, but we disagree with the way that its
content was connected to the topic via the concept of
exploration.)
First, ocean exploration rests on a frontier mentality that
valorizes conquest of unknown territory. Even if this isnt the
affirmatives intended meaning, the concept of exploration
is inextricably bound up in frontier assumptions.
Rozwadowski 12 Helen M. Rozwadowski, Associate Professor of History and Maritime Studies
at the University of Connecticut-Avery Point, 2012 (Arthur C. Clarke and the Limitations of the Ocean as a
Frontier, Environmental History, Volume 17, Issue 3, July, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via
Oxford Journals, p. 3-5)

Shortly before the 1960s, scientists, explorers, and writers had begun
to characterize the ocean, particularly the undersea world, as a [end page 3] frontier.
Many who were involved in ocean exploration associated the sea
with outer space, sometimes pointing to similarities and sometimes to contrasts between these
two forbidding, yet promising, environments. As an example, consider how the engineer
and popular author Seabrook Hull characterized the sea in 1964:
Of the two great frontiers, space and the ocean, being opened up
in the 20th Century, only the ocean is close, tangible, and of direct
personal significance to every man, woman, and child on the
face of the globe. Another war might be won or lost in its depths,
rather than in outer space. It is a cornucopia of raw materials for
mans industries, food for his stomach, health for his body,
challenges to his mind, and inspiration to his soul.4
Hull labeled both the sea and space as frontiers, and then he
enumerated some of the reasons why champions of ocean exploration
believed it might prove more pressing, and also more rewarding, to
concentrate on the ocean. Reference to the provision of food and the
potential for creating wealth echoed cultural assumptions about
what the American West offered as a frontier. In addition, the
suggestion that the sea promised strength and spiritual sustenance
likewise evoked associations between the western frontier and
American individualism and democracy.5
As Hulls quote makes clear, promoters of underwater exploration felt it held more immediate potential
compared with space exploration. This was especially the case during the 1950s before Sputnik and the
race for the moon. A single invention, the Aqualung, was most responsible for opening the undersea world,
not only to experts but to ordinary people as well. In 1949 Jacques Cousteau and a colleague invented the
Aqualung, the first free-swimming underwater breathing set.6 Previous underwater breathing gear
included helmeted diving suits and wartime innovations such as re-breathers that used carbon dioxide
scrubbers to avoid the escape of air bubbles that might reveal the diver below. Such equipment required
significant expertise and was dangerous to use even for professional divers. The Aqualung or, as
subsequent generations of the technology were called, Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, or
SCUBA, was eagerly embraced by skin divers and spear fishers, and also by newcomers to the sport,
including recreationalists, scientists, filmmakers, and others.7
Among the early users of the Aqualung was Arthur C. Clarke. Relative to his fame for science fiction and
space prognostication, Clarke is less well known for his early and enthusiastic pursuit of diving, spear
fishing, underwater photography and treasure hunting; for his promotion of undersea exploration; and for
his predictions of [end page 4] futuristic ocean industries, technologies, and uses of the sea. He dove and
wrote about the oceans in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the ideas and preoccupations found in his

ocean writings appear and re- appear in popular and scientific works throughout the 1960s.8 Although
many of Clarkes expectations and predictions regarding the ocean were not fulfilled, they fell firmly within
the range of what ocean scientists and engineers also anticipated.

in the minds of a generation of scientists,

diver/explorers, engineers, and entrepreneurs, the ocean promised to
become the premier outlet for their economic, intellectual, cultural,
and social ambitions. Their embrace of the frontier analogy
signaled their belief that the ocean might provide not only resources
but also necessary challenges. Clarke and some of his contemporaries believed that an
In Clarkes words and deeds, and also

emerging relationship with the ocean formed part of what they considered an evolutionary trajectory for
humanity. In a very concrete sense, the oceans resources would in the near future prove essential for the
survival of the growing population. But the relationship with the ocean had another dimension as well
because Clarke believed that humanity required new challenges in order to survive. People had evolved
from the sea, and now the oceans depths were expected to serve as the testing ground for both the
technology and the spirit that would be required for humans to break free of the earth to explore space.
Clarkes writings and biography, then, offer a window into how the ocean was perceived, how experts
expected to be able to use it and its resources, and even how the ocean might figure in world history.

Second, this frontier mentality sanctions capitalist

imperialism. Historically, this has resulted in massive violence.
Marshall 95 Alan Marshall, holds an M.Phil from the Institute of Development Studies at Massey
University (New Zealand), 1995 (Development and Imperialism in Space, Space Policy, Volume 11,
Number 1, February, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via ScienceDirect, p. 46-47)

Frontierism, however, is not so much a social or psychological concept as

an economic philosophy. It emerges from the individualism so
entrenched in American political and economic thought (which serves to secure
the operation of laisser faire-ism as sacrosanct). Frontierism involves a belief in the
individual to surmount the challenges of a new situation, a new
territory or a new environment and carve out an existence. Once the
individual has done this they deservedly call that territory or
environment their own. By this process the frontier grows larger and
carves out an extended base for economic and demographic
expansion, so contributing to the wealth of the nation (or more accurately to the
wealth of the bourgeoisie) by turning unproductive land into an economic
resource. In US history, as in the history of some of the other New World nations,
frontierism was an economic policy designed to tame the wilderness
and present it in economic terms as soon as possible.
In reality frontierism is a more accepted and socially-sensitive
word for capitalist imperialism, since (just as in capitalist imperialism) it
involves the appropriation of economic resources that are considered
previously unowned. Like capitalist imperialism, frontierism perceives nothing
of value in the frontier lands except what can be scraped from it
economically and converted into capital. In nineteenth-century USA,
the value of native peoples and the value of the landscape was
arrogantly ignored as the West was made to succumb to the
utilitarianism of the imperialistic capitalists. Such is also the outlook of
those who advocate pioneering the Final Frontier. Frontierists views that the planets and moons of the
solar system are valueless hunks of rock until acted upon by humans to produce economic value and
contribute to capital accumulation. Space frontierists such as Wernher von Braun, Arthur C Clark, Kraft
Ehrick, William Hartmann and Gerard ONeill feel that imperialism can be excised from their frontierism by
appealing to the innate curiosity in our personal consciousness. To them, frontierism in space will amply
channel the human propensity to explore and expand in a constructive and benevolent way. These
rationales for space expansion must, however, stand up for themselves, since they are ultimately separate

from the frontierism experienced in history. The fact that there is confusion between these sociopsychological elements and the actual economic nature of fronterism in modern day calls for space
development gives credit to the nineteenth century idealogues who so convincingly tied bourgeois
economic policy with populist ideology that it continues to fool so many into believing fronterism is a
worthy nationalist (even universalist) ideal.
Because frontierism is ultimately an economic philosophy its success as a rationale for extraterrestrial
development relies on economic forces. As such, it is as doomed a rationale as the other economic [end
page 46] models of space development discussed earlier. But what of the socio-psychological and sociobiological aspects inherent in modern frontierist thought. Might they offer a convincing rationale for Solar
System development?

They Say: Case Outweighs/Concept PIC

Doesnt Solve Case
We also advocate the aff, but we dont tie it to the topic with
the word (and concept of) exploration. This solves the case
but avoids our critique of frontierism. Even if we only win a
small risk of the critique, theres no solvency deficit none of
the benefits of the 1AC require the use of the term
exploration.

They Say: Not Our Exploration We Mean

Something Else
Frontierism is a bedrock assumption of ocean exploration.
There is a necessary connection between exploration and
exploitation. Reject the concept of exploration to avoid
repeating the violence of the American West and the
destruction of the Earths oceans.
Rozwadowski 12 Helen M. Rozwadowski, Associate Professor of History and Maritime Studies
at the University of Connecticut-Avery Point, 2012 (Arthur C. Clarke and the Limitations of the Ocean as a
Frontier, Environmental History, Volume 17, Issue 3, July, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via
Oxford Journals, p. 18-20)

Clarke had bold

and ambitious expectations for human use of the sea and its resources.
His writings reveal attitudes toward the ocean that influenced how its
resources were perceived and used. His language and the content of
his writings depicted an ocean that strongly resembled the western
frontier as described by Turner and others since, complete with seemingly unlimited
economic potential and great social and cultural power. Clarke conveyed
Notwithstanding the limitations he assigned to the ocean relative to outer space,

breathtaking optimism about the expected scale and extent of new uses for the ocean and, predictably for
his time, exhibited blindness about what groups of people would and would not be involved in or benefit

Embedded in his view of the

ocean as a frontier was the bedrock assumption that the sea
should be systematically and maximally exploited, just as the
resources of the American West had been.
Science and technology would, to Clarke and contemporary ocean
enthusiasts, enable new and intensified uses of the sea and marine
resources. Oceanography existed not simply to increase
understanding of the ocean and its contents and processes, but to
facilitate exploitation. In the late 1960s, ocean scientists and engineers who planned [end
from a deepening human relationship with the ocean.61

page 18] for the proposed International Decade of Ocean Exploration reflected this view. The overall goal
articulated for the Decade was To achieve more comprehensive knowledge of ocean characteristics and
their changes and more profound understanding of oceanic processes for the purpose of more effective
utilization of the ocean and its resources [italics in original]. The sentence immediately following this goal
in the Steering Committee report pressed the point: The

emphasis on utilization was

considered of primary importance.62
Clarke and his contemporaries had plans for using the ocean that
reflected more accurately their desires than anything inherent about
the ocean environment itself. The sea, like other elements of the natural world, did not

simply bend to the will of the engineers and entrepreneurs of the 1950s and 1960s, however much they
expected it to do so. The technologies, industries, and capabilities that Clarke and others predictedsuch
as atomic submarine engines transporting cargo underwater in giant rubber bags, massive-scale farming
of plank- ton or ranching of whales, profitable mining of a host of minerals and metals from seawater, or
the possibility of communication with whales and dolphinsdid not come to fruition. While the offshore oil
and gas industry did emerge, other undersea industries involving workers operating, even living, deep
under water did not. In 1969 the experimental saturation diving program, SEALAB III, was terminated after
the death of diver Barry Cannon during emplacement of the habitat. Two years earlier, the Apollo program
continued after the fiery death of three astronauts on the launch pad. There are many reasons for the
failure of the dreams for using the ocean harbored by the likes of Clarke and his contemporariesand for
the continuation of space exploration when it seemed, to ocean enthusiasts, that the promise represented
by Trieste and SEALAB went regrettably unfulfilled.

Because the space frontier overshadowed the ocean frontier in the decades after the Second World War, it
is essential to examine these frontiers relative to one another. The ocean possessed characteristics
recognized as associated with Turners frontier: resources to fuel economic development and increase
standard of living as well as the setting for the outlet of human energy and the progressive development of
human culture. At times the space and ocean frontiers seemed similar, but analysis of the writings and life
of Arthur C. Clarke, who immersed himself in both of these realms, reveal a crucial difference. The value of
the ocean frontier rested in the vastness of its potential economic resources. Space, however, was
ultimately judged a better frontier because of its potential to serve human spiritual and cultural needs
endlessly into the future.
Articulation of this difference offers insight into current ocean issues. It illuminates the frustration
expressed by ocean boosters from the postwar period to the present that ocean exploration is [end page
19] wrongly neglected relative to exploration of outer space. Boosters of ocean exploration apparently
have a hard time arguing that earthbound exploration is not simply a mopping-up operation. The cultural
promise offered by the infinite extent of space came to resonate more strongly, by the end of the 1960s,

The
stubborn persistence in viewing the ocean in terms of its economic
resources has contributed to massive global overfishing, depletion of
other marine resources, and cascades of unintended ecosystem
effects. While concepts of conservation and preservation were applied to land at the turn of the
than the fading dreams of the fabulous wealth to be derived from the oceans depths.

twentieth century, and Aldo Leopold articulated the need for a land ethic at midcentury, recognition of the
ocean as an environment in need of protection and ethical treatment has emerged slowly and recently.63

The enthusiastic identification of the ocean as frontier created a legacy

for human use and understanding of the sea and its resources that
remains with us to the present.
Ocean exploration is rooted in frontier assumptions about
conquering the uncharted wilderness. There is a necessary
connection between exploration and exploitation.
Ballard 1 Robert D. Ballard, President of the Institute for Exploration, holds a Ph.D. in Geology and
Geophysics from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Research Institute, 2001 (Ocean Exploration and Coastal
Ocean Observing Systems, Prepared Statement for a Joint Oversight Hearing before the Subcommittee on
Environment, Technology, and Standards and the Subcommittee on Research of the Committee on Science
and the Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife, and Oceans of the Committee on Resources of
the United States House of Representatives, July 12th, Available Online at
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-107hhrg73840/pdf/CHRG-107hhrg73840.pdf, Accessed 07-15-2014, p.
58)

Resources and Science as separate categories, yet in my field, at least

ocean explorationthey are very closely related. It is appropriate to hold this as a
Many people perceive

joint hearing, as we begin to refine our policy for ocean exploration so we move forward into the new
millennium with a blueprint for the future.

For years now, we have referred to space as the last frontier and in the
words of Star Trek, felt we must go where no one has gone before. I
strongly believe America must maintain its lead in space exploration but it is by no means the last
frontier.

Ironically, we now have better maps of the far side of the moon that
has never faced Earth than we do of Earth itself. We have better maps
of Mars and Venus than of Earth.
Most people do not know that Neil Armstrong TOOK that giant leap for
mankind on the surface of the moon BEFORE earthbound explorers
using tiny deep diving submersibles entered the largest mountain
range on our own home planet. We had to wait until 1973 for that, four year after
Armstrongs giant leap.

Today we have explored only a fraction of the worlds oceans, which cover
more than 71% of the Earth. This is particularly true in the Southern Hemisphere, where the oceans occupy
81% of the planets surface area.
Going back in time, you will find that, during the 18th and 19th centuries, England commonly had more
survey ships in the Southern Hemisphere of Earth than America had in the 20th century.

Why explore? Because exploration has always preceded

exploitation of the natural resources of our planet. Before we
discovered the vast oil, gas, and coal deposits of the west, before there
was Yellowstone National Park, before there was an Anaconda Copper
Mine, there was a Lewis and Clark Expedition. The vast majority of our
planet has never had a Lewis and Clark Expedition pass through its
uncharted wilderness.
What better Nation to lead the world in a new wave of exploration than
our nation, a nation founded and explored by pioneers?
But future explorers of Earth need to develop the technology necessary to explore the vast and remote
regions that lie beneath the sea. We need a new class of exploratory vehicles known as AUVs: autonomous
undersea vehicles that can accelerate our rate of exploration.

while this exploration is underway, we need to begin developing

how we can better farm the sea. Our use of the sea is still primitive.
Just as the farmers and ranchers came to America to plant their crops
and tend their herds, significantly increasing the productivity of the
Great Plains and eventually feeding the world, we need to stop being
hunters and gatherers of the sea and become their shepherds. To do that,
And

we need to develop the technology future farmers and ranchers of the sea will need.

Besides exploring, exploiting, farming, and herding the sea, we

also need to protect its natural beauty and cultural history for the enjoyment
of countless generations to come. Just as we have set aside wildernesses and national parks and preserves
on land, we need to do the same in the sea.

Frontier assumptions are programmed into the concept of

ocean exploration. The baggage cant be avoided.
Malahoff 1 Alexander Malahoff, Professor of Oceanography, Director of the Hawaii Undersea
Research Laboratory, and Director of the Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center at the University of
Hawaii at Manoa, 2001 (Ocean Exploration and Coastal Ocean Observing Systems, Prepared Statement
for a Joint Oversight Hearing before the Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, and Standards and the
Subcommittee on Research of the Committee on Science and the Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation,
Wildlife, and Oceans of the Committee on Resources of the United States House of Representatives, July
12th, Available Online at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-107hhrg73840/pdf/CHRG-107hhrg73840.pdf,
Accessed 07-15-2014, p. 92-93)
The United States of America is surrounded by the oceans. Our country has the worlds largest exclusive
economic zone. We have the largest Navy, the largest research fleet, and yet, the smallest merchant
marine. The oceans are an essential resource to us in our fisheries, oil resources and coastal resources.
Yet, this vast environment of the oceans is also our frontline defense against any adversary. Today, the
oceans are much more to us than the traditional area of interest that I have just described. The oceans are
the source of our weather and climate. The oceans are the habitats for a spectacular spectrum of life
ranging in size and complexity from microorganisms to whales. The oceans are the homes for coral reefs,
soft corals, and other complex sessile organisms inhabiting the ocean floor. Submarine volcanoes and midocean ridges form the habitats for exotic life assemblages around hydrothermal vents and homes for
microorganisms known as extremophiles. These environments on the ocean floor or lying just below the
sea-surface represent sites where life began and then grew into the complex diverse system we know of
today. This is a complex interlocking system of life, ranging from the ocean floor and the water above, to
the atmosphere above that.
The oceans will continue providing us with food and energy and with the resources for a range of entirely
new industries, specializing in marine bioproducts, pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals derived from exotic
micro-organisms, such as extremophiles living around hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. We are a
great and resourceful nation and our future rests upon our competitive advantage in the world based upon
our out-of-the-box thinking.
In order to have a meaningful knowledge of this complex system and its potential role in the future well
being of the United States and its people, a meaningful plan that has a global perspective of this earth
system needed to be put in place. The plan would include a full survey and assessment of the ocean life
systems, the effect of ocean chemistry and climate on these systems, and the vast array of habitats on the
ocean floor, all viewed from an integrated perspective.

The plan designed to achieve our meaningful knowledge of the oceans

came to us in the form of the report issued under the direction of the President entitled,
Discovering the Earths Final Frontier: A U.S. Strategy for Ocean
Exploration. The recommendations stemming from the report focus around
ocean explorationexploration [end page 92] with clearly identified goals,
objectives and potential benefits. This is an exciting interdisciplinary,
inter-cultural, inter-agency program. It lays the groundwork for understanding the whole
diverse ocean system and our intimate relationship to this system. In this program, we will look at this
system from human habitation on the coasts and islands of the oceans to the hydrothermal vents on the

In order to accomplish this, we must systematically map the

complete environment. We must establish multi-sensor observatories that will read all
environmental data from the coastline to the deep ocean floor. This includes the biology,
geology, physical oceanography, and water chemistry of the oceans . We
ocean floor.

must understand the role, history and impact of humans upon the ocean from pollution to historic wrecks
and structures on the ocean floor. We must make this information readily available to educators and
environmental, political, industrial and research leaders, so that effective plans for new aquaculture, new
ocean industries, and new ocean conservation initiatives can be laid.

These challenges in our Ocean Exploration Program open up wide,

avenues for advancement to all sectors of our society with interest and
investment in the oceans. First of all, it invigorates the vision of a new
presence for the American society in the oceans. Secondly, the program
offers an opportunity for a different presence in the oceans for
America. With new tools, systems, observatories, vehicles, and sensors applied to these programs,
new industries will flourish and a new ocean systems industrial niche will develop. Our paucity in
the international maritime transportation industry will be balanced by
our leadership in the ocean exploration industry. The exciting aspect of the Ocean
Exploration Initiative will be the challenge of partnerships that would envelope the diverse interests
described.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has taken an effective lead by
creating the Office of Ocean Exploration. This has been a bold move towards this new
interdisciplinary, inter-cultural and inter-agency arena. This is a fresh start and a catalyst that will enable
our nation to take a lead in the wholistic understanding of our oceans. This is a critical step for our nation
to take and everyone should be behind it.

It is and exciting step because it challenges us to think along a broad

intellectual front, yet focus on frontier problems. These could be the survival of
coral reefs, or the range in the diversity of microorganisms, or the challenge of open ocean pelagic fishery
aquaculture, or the extraction of new pharmaceuticals from organisms living in the hydrothermal vents, or

This broad thinking will lead to a

revival of global expeditions with airplanes, ships, submersibles, satellites, robotic
the impact of human presence on our coastlines.

miniaturized underwater vehicles, autonomous observatories, and in situ robotic laboratories. This U.S.-led
Ocean Exploration Program will also attract international partners with a dazzling array of ocean
observational systems spanning the globe.

America must take the bold, necessary step to regain

the U.S. lead on all fronts of maritime technology. The challenge of
this new Ocean Exploration is monumental. In our own Hawaiian Island chain,
Ladies and gentlemen,

stretching the length of over 1,200 miles, a home for most of Americas tropical coral mass, very little is
known about the nature and life of the ocean floor north of the inhabited windward islands. The Hawaiian
Islands are strategically located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a physical and cultural presence of the
United States in the middle of the worlds largest ocean.

Frontierism is an underlying assumption of ocean exploration

even when not explicitly acknowledged.
Rozwadowski 12 Helen M. Rozwadowski, Associate Professor of History and Maritime Studies
at the University of Connecticut-Avery Point, 2012 (Arthur C. Clarke and the Limitations of the Ocean as a
Frontier, Environmental History, Volume 17, Issue 3, July, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via
Oxford Journals, p. 12-13)

The frontier analogy was particularly important for Clarke, who was among the
first writers to elaborate on it to make sense of human interaction with both oceans and space. Clarkes
vision of the frontier derived from that made popular by the historian Frederick Jackson Turner who
theorized that the western frontier had forged a distinct, democratic American culture and provided an
outlet for the restless energy of its people. Turner first articulated his argument about the influence of the
frontier in American history in 1893, at the very moment that the U.S. Census Bureau declared the western
frontier to be closed. To politicians and others, the obvious problem emerged of finding new outlets for
expansion; solutions included overseas territories, Alaska, polar regions, and even the frontier of new
knowledge, especially discoveries in the natural sciences.

By the mid-1950s, the ocean, too, had acquired the status of frontier,
as observers including Clarke expected the sea soon to provide food to
feed a growing population as well as mineral and other critical
resources including fresh water. In November 1953, the American Association for the
Advancement of Science included at its annual meeting a special session on The Sea Frontier, which
included topics ranging from the geology of ocean basins to the productivity [end page 12] and biological
resources of the sea, to the potential for extracting resources such as fresh water or minerals.35 A 1954
advertisement in Life magazine placed by the American Petroleum Institute declared, In the open waters
of the Gulf of Mexico, against every hazard of wind, wave, and sudden storm, sea-going oilmen are

Even when the word frontier was not

invoked, its associations were. This wet world, as many is belatedly beginning to realize,
opening up a new American frontier.36

may hold the key to his survival on this planetnot only in terms of attack and defense but in terms of
minerals, chemicals and food . . . . Beneath the sea, man is still a tentative intruder, just learning how to
farm and mine its depths. This characterization of the ocean appeared in a 1962 Life magazine article
describing a novel 300-foot instrument-vehicle for ocean exploration, the Floating Instrument Platform, or
FLIP, designed by and built for researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.37 While FLIP was mainly
intended as a stable platform for performing delicate acoustic measurements, work with explicit military
applications, the enthusiasm surrounding such new technological means for probing the sea frequently
used the frontier analogy.

Futurists believed that, like the western frontier, the sea would be
the site of dramatic innovation in transportation, communication, and
other technologies. As with all his work, Clarkes ocean-focused writing rested on his knowledge
of contemporary science and technology. As he did for space (famously predicting earth-orbiting satellites
for telecommunication), he envisaged uses that people would soon make of the sea and its resources.
Stories from Tales from the White Hart, dating from the days when Clarke first met Wilson, included two
works that evoked anticipated new uses of the ocean. The Man Who Ploughed the Sea revolved around a
plan to extract minerals from seawater, and Cold War revealed a scheme by California to destroy
Floridas appeal to tourists by landing icebergs on Miami Beach. Both proposals, although presented by
Clarke in the context of Harry Purviss tall tales, were believed by experts to be firmly within reach or
nearly so by the late 1950s and early 1960s.38 The communication with dolphins depicted in Dolphin
Island reflected the work of physician and neurophysiologist John C. Lilly.39 Farming the sea, as outlined in
The Deep Range, likewise seemed an obvious and achievable goal to scientists and engineers.40

Even if the affs personal exploration avoids our critique, the

tie to the topic remains dangerous because it takes on frontier
baggage associated with collective, societal exploration.
Spudis 10 Paul D. Spudis, Senior Staff Scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, 2010 (Have
We Forgotten What Exploration Means?, Air & Space Magazine, January 25th, Available Online at
http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/have-we-forgotten-what-exploration-means-154597769/,
Accessed 07-15-2014)
As long as we are navel-gazing during this policy hiatus, I want to examine a topic that many think is selfevident: what activities do we mean by the word exploration? NASA describes itself as a space
exploration agency; we had the Vision for Space Exploration. The department within the agency
developing the new Orion spacecraft and Ares launch vehicle is the Exploration Systems Mission

Directorate. So clearly, the term is tightly woven into the fabric of the space program. But exactly what
does exploration encompass?

Exploration can have very personal meanings, such as your own

exploration of a new town, or a new and unknown field of knowledge.
Here, I speak of the collective, societal exploration exemplified by
our national space program. This exploration began in 1957, when the launch of Sputnik by
the Soviet Union initiated a decade-long space race of geopolitical dimensions with the United States.
That race culminated with our first trips to the Moon. Once its primary geopolitical rationale had been
served, Moon exploration was terminated. Since then, the space program has been astonishingly
unfocused drifting from a quest to develop a reusable spacecraft to building orbiting space stations and
despite numerous studies affirming needed direction, unfulfilled plans to send humans back to the Moon
and eventually on to Mars.

When the race to the Moon began 50 years ago, space was considered
just another field of exploration, similar to Earth-bound exploration of
the oceans, Antarctica, and even more abstract fields such as medical
research and technology development. Moreover, many used the term
frontier when speaking about space, touching a very familiar
chord in our national psyche by drawing an analogy with the
westward movement in American history. What better way to
motivate a nation shaped by the development of the western frontier
than by enticing it with the prospect of a new (and boundless) frontier
to explore? After all, we are descended from immigrants and
explorers. Over time however, few recognized that there had been a
shift in the definition and understanding of just what exploration
represented.
Starting around the turn of the last century, while still retaining its
geopolitical context, exploration became closely associated with
science. Although first detectable in the 19th Century exploration of America and Africa, the
tendency to use science as the rationale for geopolitical exploration reached its acme during the heroic
age of polar exploration. Amundsen, Nansen, Cook, Peary, Scott and Shackleton all had personal
motivations to spend years of their lives in the polar regions, but all of them cloaked their ego-driven

After all, the quest for new

knowledge sounds much nobler than self-gratification, global power
projection or land grabbing.
imperatives in the mantle of scientific research.

Science has been part of the space program from the beginning and has served as both an activity and a
rationale. The more scientists got, the more they wanted. They realized that their access to space
depended upon the appropriation of enormous amounts of public money and hence, supported the non-

Because science
occurs on the cutting edge of human knowledge, its conflation with
exploration is understandable. But originally, exploration was a much
broader and richer term. Which brings us back to the analogy with
the westward movement in American history and the changed
meaning of the word exploration. A true frontier has explorers and
scientists, but it also has miners, transportation builders, settlers and
entrepreneurs. Many are perfectly satisfied to limit space access to
only the former.
scientific aspects of the space program (although not without some resentment).

They Say: Permute Do The CP/Alt

1. This severs the term exploration. Our concept PIC is
mutually exclusive because it critiques the affirmatives tie to
the topic.
2. Reject severance permutations they evade clash and let
the affirmative off the hook for important choices about
language and framing. Requiring a stable advocacy protects
neg ground and creates more productive debates. They gained
a strategic benefit by using the language of exploration
our critique is the reciprocal strategic cost.
3. Net-Benefit still outweighs even if they win the
permutation, our net-benefit functions as a critique of the 1AC.
We dont need to win the concept PIC to win the debate.

They Say: Permute Do Both

1. Cant do both the concept PIC is less than the aff, so
the perm is just the af.
2. This still links to the net-benefit because it includes the
term exploration. It doesnt shield the link: exploration
has frontierist baggage that justifies capitalist imperialism.
3. No net-benefit theres no reason to tie the content of the
1AC to the word exploration. Err neg dont risk endorsing
problematic language when the counterplan alone is sufficient
to solve.

They Say: Concept PICs Bad

1. Aff burden the affirmative should be responsible for
defending their word choices and speech act. This is the only
non-arbitrary standard. Allowing the aff to interpret what
they meant prevents effective pre-round preparation and
strategy development, unfairly skewing the debate in their
favor. Theres no infinite regression because they have
editorial control over their 1AC.
2. Specificity key evidence should determine whether
language choices matter, not debate theory. Weve read
specific evidence that the term exploration should be
rejected in the context of oceans. Evidence prevents a race to
the bottom. Case-by-case judgment is better than universal
condemnation.
3. Topic concept PICs uniquely justified even if some concept
PICs are bad, this concept PIC is good because it contests a
word in the topic. Non-traditional methods of affirmation
necessitate non-traditional methods of negation: do the af
but dont tie it to the topic is core neg ground.
4. Language shapes reality its impossible to separate
language from real world policy.
Chernus 6 Ira Chernus, Professor of Religious Studies and Co-Director of the Peace and Conflict
Studies Program at the University of Colorado-Boulder, 2006 (Monsters to Destroy: The Neoconservative
War on Terror and Sin, Published by Paradigm Publishers, ISBN 1594512752, p. 7-8)
But their ideals and values do make sense within their own ideological stories. And the logic of those
stories (however perverse) holds a key to understanding why America grows less secure every day. The

words they [end page 7] use have real effects. Words initiate, interpret,
frame, legitimate, debate, evaluate, explain, justify and
rationalize public policies. Words, just as much as policies, can cause
death and suffering. The words may not accurately portray the speakers or writers motives
and ideals. Indeed, the words are often laced with large doses of fiction. They treat real people as if they

the people who

suffer and die are absolutely real. Thats why the words and the
ideology they express must be studied.
were characters in a fictional storymonsters who must be destroyed. But

[This argument depends on the 1AC.] 5. Aff Args Justify

theyve introduced the claim that discourse and
representations matter. (Theyve also noted that they disagree
with problematic language in their evidence.) They cant have
it both ways; if language matters, it should be a legitimate
basis for competition.

They Say: Rejecting Language Bad General

1. Not responsive our concept PIC is debating, not
censorship. The reason that speech codes are bad is because
they prevent important discussions, but the counterplan
facilitates an important discussion about exploration and
frontierism.
2. Links more to the aff the term exploration shuts down
debate by inscribing American values and mythologies into the
discussion of the oceans. If we win our critique, this inscription
is a justification for violent imperialism.
3. Prefer specific evidence context matters. Even if their
censorship thesis is generally true, challenging the language
of exploration is particularly important.

They Say: Rejecting Language Bad Butler

1. Not Responsive Butlers argument is that speech codes
are bad, not that we shouldnt debate about language in an
academic forum. Our concept PIC is debating, not censorship.
2. Harm Justifies Butler concedes that speech codes are
sometimes justified when there is a clear harm.
Fleche 99 Anne Fleche, Lecturer in Literature at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1999
(Book Review: Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, Theatre Journal, Volume 51, Issue 3,
October, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Project MUSE)

Rather than offer prescriptions, Butler uses her own writing to illustrate
the power of resignification. In her rhetorical readings of Supreme Court decisions, for
example, the justices' words become surprisingly rich and suggestive. She is herself an expert resignifier.

Resignifying words, Butler acknowledges, does not take away their

hurt. She does think that sometimes people should be prosecuted for
injurious speech and that universities might need to regulate speech
but should do so only when they have "a story to tell" about its
harmful effects. She is not opposed to all speech regulation. But Excitable
Speech asks whether regulation makes it easier or harder to reappropriate speech, and why we fear to
take the exciting risk of language, where a threat might also be a promise.

3. Links more to the aff the term exploration shuts down

debate by inscribing American values and mythologies into the
discussion of the oceans. If we win our critique, this inscription
is a justification for violent imperialism.
4. Prefer specific evidence context matters. Even if their
censorship thesis is generally true, challenging the language
of exploration is particularly important.

Affirmative Helpful Cards

Exploration doesnt entail end it includes theorizing.
Kim 2 Sang Ho Kim, Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Oklahoma, 2002 (Embodiment, Technology
and Communication: A Phenomenological Exploration of Communication in the Technological Milieu, Ph.D.
Dissertation at the University of Oklahoma, Available Online at
https://shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11244/457/3045835.PDF?sequence=1, Accessed 07-07-2014, p. 12)

Central to this study is the exploration of how we are to live with and in
the technological society without becoming another component in its
machinery. However, theorizing about communication will never be
more than an exploration, in the sense that exploration does not
entail end. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is not to provide a
solution but rather to question the meaning of communication and
its technology in this technological milieu, because, as Heidegger (1977)
suggests, questioning builds a way (p. 4).
Exploration includes theorizing it doesnt entail end.
Chang 7 Briankle G. Chang, Associate Professor of Communication at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst, 2007 (Deconstructing Communication, Theorizing Communication: Readings
Across Traditions, Edited by Robert T. Craig and Heidi L. Muller, Published by SAGE, ISBN 1412952379, p.
255)
Seen in this light, we, as communicating subjects, can no longer be regarded as free agents who choose
(or choose not) to communicate. For the exoteric autonomy of the subjects in communication, of my
visitors and me, and of everyone else, too, is in effect a conditioned freedom bestowed on us by a prior
contract. Agency, as the freedom to exchange, therefore means the university responsibility to honor a
contract delivered to us by we-know-not-what and from we-know-not-where. It is by obeying this
imperative that we, as communicators, can be free to communicate as well as not to communicate.
Communication cannot not take place. This is the paradoxical freedom of communication, the unbearable
freedom that one cannot not communicate, even if one chooses not to do so. One cannot not
communicate; communication cannot be avoided even when the void of communication, its negativity, is
communicated.8 This is the agony of communication, the ordeal of the autonomos of the communicating
subjects, caused by what I called earlier the postal paradox of communication. This agony, this ordeal,
accompanies communication at every turn. As a result, we, the communicating subjects, are both
autonomous and other-dependentfree to receive as well as to reject the other and yet bound to play this
double role by the contractual force of an an-archic imperative. By the same token, communication
theorists, to the extent that their metareflective statements say somethingintelligible or notabout
communication, are destined to reenact the same double play, exhibiting, in their very enunciations, the
kind of duplicity that cannot not take place whenever one meets and says something to the other. That

theorizing, particularly theorizing about communication, will never be more

than an exploration. I choose the word exploration purposefully.
Exploration does not entail end; it does not guarantee any final
discovery any more than it predicts the attainability of some
ultimate truth. Always liminal, that is, always transitional, communication theories, like any
being the case,

conversation worth its name, will never be able to have the last word on the subject matter they choose to
address; their ostensive endingwhether it is caused by the addressers avoidance of being
communicative, by the addressees stupid noncomprehension, or by the messages own vacuousnessis
but a promise that another ending will come.

Exploration is open-ended.
Pace 72 C. Robert Pace, Professor of Education at the University of California-Los Angeles, 1972
(Thoughts on Evaluation in Higher Education, Thoughts on Evaluation in Higher Education, Published by
the American College Testing Program, Available Online at http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED066132.pdf,
Accessed 07-07-2014, p. 2)

The second necessary element in a new model is one which relates to the
appropriate style of inquiry. An apt term for this is "exploration."

Traditionally, the style of inquiry has been characterized by the words

"control" and "focus." Exploration is a freer styleone which
encourages hunches, is uncommitted, and seeks discovery. If the
program one hopes to evaluate is continually changing in methods, materials, personnel, and subjects, this
does not mean that it cannot be evaluated. On the contrary, one may discover that programs that are
being modified continually are more effective than programs that remain relatively static.

The spirit

of the evaluator should be adventurous. If only that which could be controlled or

focused were evaluated, then a great many important educational and social developments would never

To suggest that the style

of the controlled experiment needs to be replaced by an exploratory
style does not mean that one's approach should be any less careful or
rigorous. Exploration involves searching, probing, and testing
alternatives and interactions. It can be tough-minded and theorybased. But the word exploration also connotes a freedom to look
around, to seek new measures and methods, and to value
ingenuity and curiosity.
be evaluatedat least not by "evaluators"; and that would be a pity.

Exploration is just a starting point.

Burgess 10 Amy Burgess, Researcher in the Department of Educational Research and the
Literacy Research Centre at the University of Lancaster, holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Lancaster
University, 2010 (Doing time: an exploration of timescapes in literacy learning and research, Language
and Education, Volume 24, Issue 5, September, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Taylor &
Francis Online, p. 354)

The word exploration in the title is intended to signal that I am not

attempting to present a fully formed theory of literacy learning and time, but
rather to suggest a starting point and possibilities for future
research by beginning to move Adam's theoretical work into the practical domain of classroom

research. I offer discussion of two data extracts, a short text written by a student and an extract from field
notes. A key feature of ethnographic research is that it aims to weave together different types of data in
order to understand a particular phenomenon (Lillis 2008). For this reason an ethnographer would not
normally isolate data extracts as I do here. However, I have chosen to do so because it enables me to
focus on discussing the concept of timescapes and demonstrating its relevance to ethnographic studies of
literacy. Findings and insights generated by the study are reported elsewhere (Burgess 2008, forthcoming).

Exploration is never-ending.
Blanchot 2k Maurice Blanchot, French poststructuralist philosopher and literary critic, 2000
(The Task of Criticism Today, Oxford Literary Review, Volume 22, Issue 1, July, Available Online to
Subscribing Institutions via Edinburgh University Press, p. 22-23)
This, if you will, is one ultimate consequence (and a strange manifestation) of the movement of selfeffacement which is one of the senses of the presence of criticism: by dint of its disappearance before the
work, criticism recovers itself in the work as one of the work's essential moments. Here, we find ourselves
rediscovering a process that the present time has seen develop in many different ways. [end page 22]
Criticism is no longer a form of external judgement which confers value on the literary work and, after the
event, pronounces on its value. It has become inseparable from the inner workings of the text, it belongs
to the movement by which the work comes to itself, searches for itself, and experiences its own possibility.
However (to prevent any misunderstanding), this is no longer criticism in the limited sense given to the
term by Valery when he describes it as part of the intellect, or a response to the kind of creative work
which is deemed valid only when produced in the clear light of reflective thought. 'Criticism', in the sense
intended here, might be said to be closer (though the comparison is misleading) to critique in the Kantian
sense: in the same way that critical reason in Kant is a questioning of the conditions of possibility of
scientific experimentation, so criticism, or critique in the sense I am using it here, is inseparable from an

exploration here is however not purely

theoretical, it is the way in which literary experience is constituted, and
constituted in the act of challenging and testing out its own
possibility in the process of creation itself. The word exploration is a
word which should not be taken in its intellectual meaning, but
exploration of the possibility of literary experience;

rather as action within and towards the space of creation. It is

Holderlin, once again, who speaks of the priests of Dionysus 4in holy Night roam[ing] from one place to the

To embark upon the quest for creative criticism is to follow the

same wandering movement, the same labour of exploration that opens up the
darkness and is the advancing force of mediation, but which is also
liable to be the endless rebeginning that ruins all dialectics,
achieving only failure and finding in failure neither its measure nor its
resting place.
next'. 2