The Temptation of the Unique: Part 1

My second year of competition was the first year that I had the chance to carry my own weight. In my first season, my partner had chosen and written the case, prepared the briefs, and really carried the team. However, I was determined that this second season would be different. So I started off preparation early. I was resolved that I would find my own original case, not just an improved sourcebook one like the previous year. 

I researched for hours every day for weeks on end. Finally, my partner and I decided on an original case and took it to the first tournament. The case performed decently, but not near the level that I had hoped for. After we attended the second tournament, I realized that we couldn’t keep running this case. It wasn’t convincing the judges and it wasn’t winning rounds. I semi-reluctantly looked back to the sourcebook. With a week until the biggest tournament of the year (besides nationals), I chose a sourcebook case and began prepping. This new case was different. It had incredible advocacy, a strong harm, and a defendable position. The case did exceptionally, and we chose to keep it! A couple of weeks later, we went affirmative in a finals round at another tournament. We won both the round and a prequalification to the national championship. It was then that I realized how flawed my thinking regarding mainstream (sourcebook or widely run) cases had been.

From the start, debaters are taught to not jump to conclusions. We know that we can’t just move from the claim of an argument to the impact without first giving the warrant. Yet, more often than we like to admit, we commit this grave error when picking out one of the most important tools for any debate: Our affirmative case. 

I have been in countless conversations with fellow debaters who, like myself, have disregarded cases completely because they were mainstream cases. When we hear that at face value, we are appalled. How could someone do that? And yet, in the debate community, there is prejudice against these mainstream cases. I call this phenomenon, The Temptation of the Unique. This temptation is often coupled with a burning desire to find a “unique”, “original”, and “superior” case. 

This temptation is prevalent throughout the speech and debate community. We often think of sourcebooks as only for newer debaters. We get tired of discussing cases repeatedly and begin to regard them as ridiculous. Our views and opinions around a case are oftentimes shaped before we have ever even heard it. This temptation is erroneous because it is both logically unsound and practically unwise.

It’s Logically Flawed

First, the foundational idea behind this temptation is logically flawed. In addition to being taught not to jump to conclusions, debaters are also taught about logical fallacies. One of the most common fallacies is the bandwagon fallacy. This fallacy asserts that something is true, right, or good because a multitude of people think it is true, right, or good. To a debater, picking a "mainstream" case can feel like jumping on the bandwagon and following the herd. A unique case must be better, right? 

However, there is a fundamental flaw in that reasoning. This is a misapplication of the bandwagon fallacy. While a case isn't necessarily "good" because many teams run it, a case is also not necessarily "bad" because many teams run it. The action of a majority should not govern your decision. Using uniqueness as the main criteria to decide for or against a case will result in poor reasoning on either side. When the assumption is laid out like that, the flaws become exceedingly obvious.  First, you are making the ungrounded assumption that because a case is widespread, there is something wrong with it. Second, you are placing a value on the “uniqueness” of the case, that (in most situations) really isn’t there.  If anything, the mainstream nature of a case is actually an indication of its substantial support, strong basic arguments, and likeability.

Put simply, to regard a case as unacceptable simply because it is in a sourcebook is to make a logically flawed assumption that may have serious consequences later in the season. 

It’s Practically Foolish

“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is especially applicable when it comes to choosing cases. If you judge a case by how many people are running it, you can end up hurting your chances of success on both the affirmative and negative side. 

Uniqueness is not a prerequisite for success.  Both original and mainstream cases have incredible success at the national level. It is not the originality of a case that makes it good, it is the level of work that the debaters put in that really determines its quality. Dismissing cases out of hand means you might have dismissed a golden ticket deep into elimination rounds at nationals. 

On the negative side, giving into this temptation often leads to lazy brief writing. When you offhandedly decide that a case isn’t competitive, you end up focusing on it less. Why spend time on a “novice” case? The results are that you lose to “mainstream” cases because you are out-prepped by the other teams. 

Even after the lesson that I learned in my second year of debate, I still fell prey to this temptation in the preseason before my third year of competition. Early on in my research, I found a seemingly decent case (that also happened to be in a sourcebook), but I refused to run it because it felt unoriginal and generic. However, with weeks left until the first tournament, I finally gave in and chose to run it. By the end of the season, I was almost crying to let that case go. It performed like no other case I had ever run. It was a sourcebook case, it was a popular case, and it was excessively generic, and yet, it was extremely successful. The moral: Refusing to run a case, simply because it is popular, is foolish and detrimental.

With all that being said, there is the flip side of being tempted to run a case simply because it is run by many teams. Giving into that temptation is almost as foolish. In the second part of this article, I’ll address the best strategies for picking a strong case.