Problem and actor identification: road-mapping a win before you elaborate

There is always a myriad of arguments you can run for a motion. But the question is, which ones will win you the round? Before even starting to elaborate your arguments, you want to make sure that the arguments you’ll elaborate are the ones that will lead you to victory. If you don’t see them making you win, you should probably look for other arguments.

Picking the most important problems

You want the problems you talk about in your speech to be a significant issue in the round. Otherwise, your opponent can win even without much response to your case, just because the problems they talk about are more important. Let’s navigate through the motion This House regrets the mass commercialisation of sports.

Don’t rush for harms and benefits during prep time

I think the best way to explain how to do this is by starting with what not to do. When you see a motion, it may be easy to see what benefits or harms may arise from that motion. But listing out impacts in a speech, when it’s not central to a debate, will not do you any good. In the motion above, an Opposition can list 10 benefits of sports, but those benefits probably don’t go away because people still do sports in the Gov world, it’s just that sports isn’t largely commercialised.

Find out why the motion is being debated

Motions are usually made to respond to specific problems in our current society. Unfortunately, debaters are not policymakers who find the problem first and then make the motion after. Since you’re given the motion before you know the context, your job during prep time is to put yourself in the shoes of the House. You should push away your personal opinions and see this from a bird’s eye view. What is a problem that is inherent to the mass commercialisation of sports? You can look at massive sporting events and the problems that arise: large national spending, displacement and worker exploitation for stadiums, sportswashing, etc. You can look at investors pooling their money in sports teams and analyse the monopoly of big clubs. If this seems confusing, try seeing how Beyond Debating explains it.

Check for relevance, likelihood, exclusivity, and importance

A Gov team can try to run the idea that a lot of professional athletes get hurt. That statement is true, but it might not be relevant to the motion since we’re talking about whether to commercialise the sports to a massive degree or to a sufficient degree only. Perhaps it’s not likely a problem because there are lots of preventive and curative preparations in case an athlete gets hurt. It’s not an exclusive problem because there will still be professional athletes in the Gov world, and getting hurt is a general risk of sports. It’s probably not important because athletes rarely get hurt to an unexpected degree; they know the risks and they’re prepared for it.

Even when you’ve gotten enough experience to not make a mistake like the example above, trust me when I say there are more complex and subtle scenarios where you can miss out on either relevance, likelihood, exclusivity, or importance. It’s good to check every time!

If you’re confused, first principles are always your friend

First principles are issues that’ll almost always be central in debates. For example, in sports motions, you will almost always find yourself talking about athletes and fans. If you look at how athletes are possibly impacted by mass commercialisation, you’ll probably notice that the most famous athletes snatch the spotlight while the ones that aren’t prominent hardly have a chance. If you look at fans, ticket prices and merchandise are more expensive for large sporting events that are commercialised. Learn more about first principles here.

How to respond to your opponent’s problem identification

There are three ways to reduce the significance of your opponent’s problem:

• Your problem does not exist
• My problem is more important than your problem
• Your proposal worsens the problem/my proposal solves your problem better

Practice motions

Try identifying the problems for these motions. When you’ve done that, you can click the motion to reveal the answer.

This House prefers leaderless social movements – Gov

Problems: Social movements with clear leaders are likely to revolve around the leaders’ beliefs (peace/violence, courts/protests, celebration/anger, etc), thus excluding people who want to support the movement but have different beliefs. This will also make the movement inflexible in the way it operates; sometimes it’s indeed more effective for you to be violent, sometimes it can be better to be peaceful.

This House would make the majority of a company’s Board of Directors elected by its employees – Opp

Problems: If you make Board of Directors candidates compete with each other, this will harm good relations and cooperation in the company. Apart from that, because all these candidates want to do is get elected and take the seat for a few years, it will probably result in short-termist policies like overly generous salaries, which are bad for the company in the long run.

Picking the most vulnerable actor

If you’ve debated for a while, you’ll find a frequently used jargon called the “most vulnerable actor”. Ideally, you always want to find this gem during casebuild. If you clearly say how this actor is harmed by your opponent’s side, they’ll have a hard time trying to defend their case while sacrificing this actor. There are usually two keywords you can keep in mind to find this actor: minority and victim. To outweigh your opponent’s importance, always be clear on who is the actor you want to protect.

Let’s deconstruct the motion This House believes that “I was only following orders” is a justified defense for war crimes.

Identify which actor is sacrificed by your opponent’s proposal

In this motion, there are roughly four actors that are involved: victims, soldiers, generals, and the justice system. As a Gov, it’s fairly easy to see that you’re going to protect soldiers, because you’re going to give them an accepted defense for war crimes. As an Opp, you look at the people that are sacrificed when these soldiers are protected. Surely it’s the victims of these war crimes, because these two actors are in opposite ends when a war crime happens.

All you have to do now is explain in your arguments how they’re vulnerable. If you’re defending the soldiers, you can talk about how they’re usually threatened to follow orders, be it direct physical threat, the threat of downgrading their rank, or the accusation that they betrayed their nation. If you’re defending the victims, you talk about how they are the people who know the least in a war and have the least protection, meaning they are unable to even exercise self-defense.

How to respond to your opponent’s vulnerable actor identification:

Same pattern, three ways to reduce the significance of your opponent’s vulnerable actor:

• Your actor is not vulnerable
• My actor is more vulnerable than your actor
• Your actor is better protected under my side

Practice motions

Try finding the most vulnerable actor for these motions. When you’ve done that, you can click the motion to reveal the answer.

This House regrets the dominant belief that the customers’ needs and desires should always come first – Gov

Most vulnerable actor: Workers. When the customer is always the priority, workers are usually forced to follow very high standards and can rarely defend themselves against a customer that may not even be behaving well. This is terrible when these workers are usually lower class workers that don’t get the fair amount of compensation for their work.

As the feminist movement, THW criticise choices of women that emboldens patriarchal norms – Opp

Most vulnerable actor: Women who are trapped in patriarchal structures (housewives, service workers, etc). When the feminist movement’s stance is to criticise them, these women are less able to seek protection and support from the movement. Instead, they’ll be blamed for taking the choices they take and be told they should’ve chosen another path. This is terrible when these women are the ones that are usually most susceptible to harassment and violence.

What this means for you

When you know the most important problems and actors in the round, these will make great foundations for your arguments. All you need to prove, then, is how you solve those problems better on your side, and how you protect those actors better on your side.

During the debate, I suggest that you actively track how your problem and actor identification are responded to by your opponent. These strategies are great to optimise casebuilding, but you might still lose if your arguments are rebutted well by your opponents. Keep defending them until the very end and coordinate with your team, so that you appear consistent and judges can see how you’re going to win the debate!