Based the article, the usage of these kritiks seems to sometimes be quite damaging to productive debate:
> For example, many leftist judges will not accept a response to a Marxism kritik that argues that capitalism is good. Instead, debaters have to concede that capitalism is a bad system and make other leftist arguments like, “it’s capitalistic to fail to argue for the topic” and “Marxism isn’t the most effective response to capitalism; instead we need to look to other critical theories"
> Kritiks are often (although not always) strategically employed by students from big, well-funded debate programs. Their opponents—who often attend schools with fewer coaches and resources—may not be familiar with the dense philosophical arguments.
Also, I disagree with the premise that "reform is hopeless and the only solution is to burn it all down", so I guess I won't quite see eye to eye with these people.
> Based the article, the usage of these kritiks seems to sometimes be quite damaging to productive debate
There is a very valid discussion that the community itself is having about K-Aff *solvency thresholds*, but that is not what this bad-faith author is talking about.
I live in the Bay Area, and no one in even the hyper-liberal debate circuits here would blank and eye, much less automatically vote against you, if you ran Cap-good.
Most people outside of the debate community are probably unaware of the specific round that sparked off all these right-wing "debate is indoctrinating kids with leftist ideas!" articles, but this reaction is hilariously proving the point of many Critical arguments.
That said I am not sure the handwringing in this article is justified. So what if someone uses critical theory as a response to a topic? Criticizing and understanding the world is important. I think young people who care about the world is important. And us older people will always view what the younger generation does as too wild and weird as we become more conservative with age.
Young people experimenting and trying new ways of working with the world and ideas is important to the vitality of society. Shutting them down because they are changing things will ossify us.