The classic example of this that will always register in my mind is I once debated a team that said "you enshrine anthropocentrism in the law", to which we said "Um, no we don't" . They then responded "Exactly, you DON'T enshrine it in the law, and thats the link!" Trying to rap my head around how the exact opposite actions could still both link almost made it explode.
In seeing the way certain kritiks are deployed, I think "no link" can in fact be a offense by adding a small twist- hopefully some of you reading this can contribute to flushing this argument out more fully. ***
The basic premise is this: against kritiks that endorse some kind of either pluralism (there are more than one way to do/know ) or are basically plan plus (positive peace) then a well constructed affirmative can say that not only do they not link, but that the neg's paranoid attempts to force a contrived link in fact links the neg back into their own impact claims. Here is an example:
The aff says in the 1AC
-Temperature data proves warming is occuring
-warming is bad- kills fish or something
The neg says in the 1NC
-Science isn't objective
-claimed objectivity causes eradication of other ways of knowing
Normally the aff would say something like "we never claimed science was objective or the only way to know the world" and the neg would respond with a line of BS like "silence is violence" "science isn't value neutral" or "endorsing science in limited instances makes it legitimate in all instances" and then something like "our impact is extinction- the scientific approach to the world reduces us all to objects that can be eliminated" etc. etc.
A fundamental premise of the negs arg in most of these instances boils down to "bullying bad". Its bad when science bullies non scientific approaches to the world, when realism bullies feminists, when normative legal thought bullies descriptive or illustrative forms of thinking, when calculative thought bullies medatative thought etc. The idea here is that it is dangerous one one way of thinking/knowing/being/doing monopolizes the scen and pushes out other ways of knowing.
So I think the team arguing "no link" can sophisticate up thier arg by pointing out that the way the neg stretches the logic of their argument force a link is in fact the same kind of bullying their approach is indicting. It would go something like this
"No link- we never claimed science was objective, we merely said science is a way of showing that global warming is occuring, not that it is the only way. Thier paranoid search for a scientific bogeyman replicates the logic that scientific technocats use to exclude alternative perspectives- not only is science not the only way, it is not even an acceptable PART of the discussion of global warming. Voting affirmative best represents the middle ground their evidence endorses- we can agree that other forms of knoweldge are relevant while the negative will never allow even limited scientific insight a seat at the table".
Now, to make this argument go from being just good to being the bee's knees we need some kind of evidence to suppor it. And this is where you come in- maybe someone reading this can think of a good one and post it in the comments. I basically had 2 ideas for cards that could support this
-Bruckner Tears of the White Man part of this book argues that critics of the west replicate the failed logic of western superiority just in reverse- instead of the west being the light/all that is good in the world, the west is the root of all that is evil. This thought doesn't challenge the west's primacy in our conceptions of the world- it just changes the paint color.
-Zizke/Ideology- was my second idea. But that brings a lot of baggage with it/possibly links to the aff. So the best non zizek card I could think of for this is as follows
David Gray Carlson Professor of Law,
Paranoia is a strategy the subject adopts to ward off breakdown. The paranoid vision holds together the symbolic order itself and thereby prevents the subject from slipping into the psychotic state in which "the concrete 'I' loses its absolute power over the entire system of its determinations." n281 This of course means - and here is the deep irony of paraonia - that bureaucracy is the very savior of romantic metaphysics. If the romantic program were ever fulfilled - if the bureaucracy were to fold up shop and let the natural side of the subject have its way - subjectivity would soon be enveloped, smothered, and killed in the night of psychosis. n282 Paranoid ambivalence toward bureaucracy (or whatever other fantasy may be substituted for it) is very commonly observed. Most recently, conservatives "organized their enjoyment" by opposing communism. n283 By confronting and resisting an all-encompassing, sinister power, the subject confirms his existence as that which sees and resists the power. n284 As long as communism existed, conservatism could be perceived. When communism disappeared, conservatives felt "anxiety" n285 - a lack of purpose. Although they publicly opposed communism, they secretly regretted its disappearance. Within a short time, a new enemy was found to organize conservative jouissance - the cultural left. (On the left, a similar story could be told about the organizing function of racism and sexism, which, of course, have not yet disappeared.) These humble examples show that the romantic yearning for wholeness is always the opposite of [*1948] what it appears to be. n286 We paranoids need our enemies to organize our enjoyment. Paranoid construction is, in the end, a philosophical interpretation, even in the clinical cases. n287 As Schlag has perceived, the symbolic order of law is artificial. It only exists because we insist it does. We all fear that the house of cards may come crashing down. Paradoxically, it is this very "anxiety" that shores up the symbolic. The normal person knows he must keep insisting that the symbolic order exists precisely because the person knows it is a fiction. n288 The paranoid, however, assigns this role to the bureaucracy (and thereby absolves himself from the responsibility). Thus, paranoid delusion allows for the maintenance of a "cynical" distance between the paranoid subject and the realm of mad psychosis. n289 In truth, cynicism toward bureaucracy shows nothing but the unconfronted depth to which the cynic is actually committed to what ought to be abolished.
Neither of these 2 cards is quite perfect for this argument, but are the best I could think of, but you get the basic idea.
Now, the negative will clearly respond to this by saying something like "we don't stretch the link and here is some BS explanation of why you really link" so to effectively deploy this strategy you will need to be able to critically think about the things the negative has said and answer them with thought out analytic arguments instead of reading more realism inevitable cards... which means I've probably lost a lot of you.
***It should be noted that anything clear/clever/insightful in this post most likely came from John Turner with myself adding the bad jokes and obfuscating explanation.
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