Alex McVey

How to Run a Kritik Affirmative

K affs Cheating?!
May or may not be cheating
Which may or may not be
OK the rules of debate are
up for debate!
No one kritik is alike
Kritiks on the aff may or may
not be related to the topic,
they may or may not have a
plan
Debate is a persuasive
activity. There are some
persuasive reasons why you
should have to have a
topical, fiated, USFG plan,
but there are also some
persuasive reasons why you
may not need one.
Flavors of K affs
Topical, Fiated, USFG plantext with critical advantage
areas
Has a plantext, but may not defend its literal
impelmentation
Resolution as a metaphor
Passive voice
No plantext, but related to the resolution
No plantext, not related to the resolution
Performance
High Theory
A mix of the two
How close you are to the resolution helps determine
how you will answer framework
Go all in
Usually, teams who try to play the middle of the
road have a hard time:
Plans can be easily defeated on a slew of new/tiny
counterplans with small but substantial net benefits.
Or teams will go the other way and use the K
literature you read against you, PICS out of the
plan, floating PIKs etc
Inconsistent literature bases
If you have a K aff with a plan, you have to get in
depth on the plans function
If youre going to cheat, cheat!

Make an argument*
Remember people like debate because it is an
activity that engages in controversial political
questions with argumentative insight and pointed
analysis.
Avoid obfuscation for obfuscations sake.
Note: Frequently, K affs will avoid telling the
entire story of their argument in the 1ac.
(Deferral) This is not the same as not making an
argument. Enthymeme is an argument with an
unstated premise.
The Stock Issues
Good critical affirmatives will usually fall under the
basic argumentative norms of the stock issues
paradigm.
Inherency: Prove that there is currently a certain
assumption, discourse, debate practice, cultural text,
norm, way of interpreting the resolution, etc that is
problematic
Harms: Explain why it is problematic
Solvency: Propose a critical method of
analysis/evaluation/performance that resolves, moves
beyond, challenges, or critiques the assumption that
you find to be problematic.
Role of the ballot
A good critical aff will tell the judge what the role
of their ballot is,
The role of the ballot shapes how you respond to
/ how the judge should interpret every argument
A good role of the ballot should deal with both
questions of method and questions of impacts.
A good role of the ballot should tell the judge what
matters, and what does not matter.
You must be prepared to weigh between/against
competing roles of the ballot
80 % of your prelim debates
T/Framework
Cap
How to debate against framework
Will depend on your relationship to the resolution
If you defend a topical plan, make framework a T
question and apply your Ks as reasons to prefer.
If you dont have a plan but are related to the
resolution, you may want to try to play some defense
to their topic education claims.
If you are entirely unrelated to the resolution, you
probably want to impact turn their topic education
claims
Kritik their specific standards/evidence have a
diverse set of 2ac FW kritiks so you can adapt to
diverse flavors of FW.
How to debate against FW part 2
You should probably have either
a compelling list of things they can say against your aff
A compelling impact turn to the idea of predictability and
ground
Your framework should be intimately tied to your role
of the ballot.
Debate framework like a disad/counterplan what are
the relative impact/solvency claims for each teams
framework?
Be prepared to invest substantial time in the
framework debate remember, usually if you win your
role of the ballot you will tend to win the debate.

The Debate about Debate
Debate as an activity has serious diversity issues:
underrepresentation of women and people of color
both as debaters and as coaches/judges.
The kritik of universality / the view from nowhere
Debates about inclusion/accessibility in the debate
space
Debates about the performativity/style of debate
Debates about identity
Race
Sex
Gender
Class
Intersections
Know your stuff
Defending a critical aff will require an immense
depth of knowledge of the literature base
surrounding your argument/philosophy
You should be constantly reading new journal
articles about your argument
Nothing is worse than someone who doesnt
know what theyre talking about trying to BS
about critical literature youll sound ignorant and
will probably double turn yourself.
Know the literature know the critiques of your
theory and your theorys deep application.
Practice CX
Especially when first developing a critical aff, it is
important to practice CX
30 minute CX drills with a coach are a good idea,
especially if that coach isnt familiar with critical
literature.
Have an answer to the question why vote
affirmative
Be prepared to give examples



Bring your voice to the debate
The best critical affs are ones that the debaters
care deeply about
Dive in! There is an immense amount of
critical/cultural literature out there to learn from.
Start your journey and you never know where
youll end up.
Be passionate. We kritik because it matters.
Be open to learning.
Some random ideas for critical aff
areas specific topic
Guantanamo Bay
Ciudad Juarez
Cartography/Borders K (Michael J. Shapiro, Gregory
Tuathail, Derek Gregory)
Cuban embargo
State of Exception (Agamben)
Imperialism
as a metaphor for gated communities / Segregation
Antiblackness (Wilderson, Sexton) Cuban Slavery
Chicana Cultural Theory (Anzaldua)
Decoloniality
Communism
War on Drugs
Debating Against Kritikal Affs When
to run framework
Do they have a plan? If so you better have a
specific T argument before getting into a framework
debate.
If they dont have a plan, and you dont have a stock
kritik to go for against their aff, framework is a good
option for the 1nc.
If you have a kritik or a case argument to make
against the aff, most judges would prefer to hear that
over a framework debate
But dont run away from framework use it
strategically
Use framework to get strategic concessions for
arguments on other flows
Debating FW against a K aff
Establish a clear violation and a clear interpretation of
your role of the ballot.
Make the standards turn the case (stasis, agonism,
democracy/deliberation/dialogue key to check abusive
power of state/capitalism)
Substantiate the impact to fairness and education
Testability, portable skills, limits, switch side debate.
Either
A. Theres a Topical version of the aff
B. You can do it on the neg.
Think of these like counterplans that solve their offense to
framework.

Have a stock Kritik vs K affs
Cap (Historical
Materialism)
Anthropocentrism
Baudrillard
Nietzsche
Ks of impacts
Method/Performance
Ks
Either go One Off or
make sure you have an
explanation for any
contradictions.

Have a big case debate
Should include: Impact turns, impact framing arguments,
author/philosophy indicts
Impact turns they say cap bad, you say cap good.
Usually not wise with identity based arguments, i/e DONT
SAY RACISM/SEXISM GOOD!
However, it IS ok to say that identity politics, personal politics,
body politics, etc are all bad.
Impact framing Always Value to Life, Extinction impacts
first, Util good, Predictions good, Security good
Indicts criticisms of the affs author or branch of
philosophy frequently can be found in book reviews!
It is hard for K affs to answer a diverse 1nc with a big case
debate. Chances are they will either undercover framework
or drop something important on case.