Affirming vs. the Kritik

The Basics

This guide will teach you how to answer the negative kritik from the perspective of a policy affirmative. There are a few different types of kritiks, and each has a different strategy against a plan. It is recommended that you know the basics about a kritik and the different types of kritiks before reading this guide.

First, there are Ks that derive offense from the consequences of the plan’s implementation. You can think of these like a DA with a really utopian framework. Some good examples of these Ks include the capitalism K, security K, and environmental managerialism K. 

The second type of K is the framework K. These Ks usually derive links from the “representations” of the affirmative, and will usually attack the performance of the 1AC. As per the title, these Ks will include a heavy K framework debate. Some good examples of these Ks include identity Ks, the death K, and the fiat K. 

Most Important Responses

The most important acronym to remember when affirming vs the kritik is FPOSTAL. This stands for:

Framework

Permutations

Offense

Solvency Deficit

Theory

Alt Responses

Link turn/No Link

Oftentimes, the time-crunched 1AR will not have time to fully develop each one of these arguments. It is important to know what part of the K to attack the most. For example, framework Ks will require a very heavy 1AR framework push, while a consequentialist K like the capitalism K will require very heavy work on the alt and offense on the theory of power. However, you should try and shotgun many different types of response just to make the 2NR spend time on them.

It is also important to line-by-line any 1NC preempts. The 1NC K will often have framework justifications or reasons to reject certain 1AR arguments (i.e. no perms), so you will have to watch out for these.

Framework

Much like theory, K framework is a debate about how the negative can derive offense against the AFF. In regular policy debates, it is assumed that the negative negates the plan with disadvantages, which are negative consequences of the plan. However, a kritik-focused framework argues that the negative should be able to kritik the rhetoric or representations of the affirmative, thus moving beyond the consequentialist plan-focused framework in policy debates.

When affirming vs the kritik, the 1AR should always argue that the negative should only be able to derive offense off of the consequences of the plan. This should be a generic overview that is read vs every K before engaging with the 1NC proper. 

The most common justifications for plan-focus are limits (there are infinite ways to attack our representations), predictability (the affirmative cannot prepare for a debate about infinite representations), and moots the AFF (the K shifts the debate completely away from the topic of the 1AC, forcing the 1AR to restart). 

The affirmative must also justify why these things are good, which usually boils down to fairness and clash. Common justifications for fairness are game theory (debate is a game that no one would play if the negative could auto-win every round) and the fairness paradox (every argument made in debate assumes fair evaluation, even if you ask the judge to be unfair). Common justifications for clash are testing (if we can’t clash over your alt then we have no way to know if it is good or not) and advocacy skills (advocates must be prepared to defend real policies in the courtroom which is impossible in an unplayable game). 

Here is a sample 1AR framework overview.

Permutations

These work just like a perm in a plan/counterplan debate, except on the alt. Here are a few common perms that are important:

• Perm double bind: either the alt is so powerful it can resolve the links, or it is so weak that it cannot solve the overarching problems of the K. 

• Perm do the AFF in the mindset of the alt: pretty cheaty, but can solve in some cases if the plan can be compatible with the alt.

• Perm do the alt: just like perm do the CP, claims the alt is the same as the AFF.

Offense

This is usually written as an impact turn to the theory of power. Note that you should NEVER impact turn identity Ks or Ks that impact out to racism/sexism/xenophobia. However, they are very good vs Ks that have material impacts like the capitalism K (going for capitalism is good) or the security K (going for securitizing representations are good).

Solvency Deficit

This is a defensive argument that the alt cannot solve the links. This is good vs the kritik if the alt is something immaterial, like rejecting the reading of the affirmative. 

If the K alt is pre-fiat like rejecting the affirmative, you can also make a theoretical solvency argument that voting for the K cannot resolve the racism that already occurred in the round. This is called ballot solvency. The warrant is just that the research (ie the cards) have already been published, read, etc, so rejecting the affirmative cannot undo any racism in debate.

Another argument that is important is subject formation. The negative will argue that voting against the AFF will make them change their harmful actions. A common solvency deficit against this is double down, which is the argument that when critiqued, affirmatives will not change their minds, but only get better at defending their problematic behavior, which worsens violence in debate.

Here is a sample subject formation argument and a card that warrants double down.

Theory

Theoretical arguments are also very strong vs the kritik, especially when the alt is something extremely unbeatable (ie fiating the whole world shifts to communism). The most common theoretical arguments violations are:

• Private actor fiat (ie ordinary people, not the government, do the alt)

• Utopian fiat (the alt would never be implemented as a policy)

These arguments often impact out to fairness and clash, but they operate differently than framework because they claim that the K can be fair, but the proposition of the alternative is abusive because it is impossible to enact or impossible to negate. 

Alt Responses

Besides solvency deficits, you should put offense on the alt by reading turns to the alt. If the alt would cause more harm than good, that can be an offensive reason to vote against the negative. 

Link Turn/Link Defense

This is also an extremely important response, because a K without a link has no offense. Link defense should be put on every link, even if very blippy and short. This establishes some risk that the plan does not link, because you should never leave any links untouched. 

You can also argue that the plan prevents the harm of the K, which is called a link turn. This can become offense for the affirmative and a justification for the permutation.

Other Important Arguments

Besides FPOSTAL, there are other ways to respond to a K, like saying that the impacts of the AFF outweigh the impacts of the K. This would obviously require winning a framework that allows the plan to be weighed. It's also important to be careful when making this argument, as saying that a big-stick impact like extinction outweighs an impact like racism can be a new link. 

More specific ways to respond to Ks both when running a policy AFF and when running a completely different AC will be covered in future advanced guides, so keep an eye out for those!