Pessimistic Ks

What is pessimism?

This guide will be covering the pessimism from the perspective of identity theorists, specifically from the perspectives of afro and queer pessimists. In this context, pessimism makes a claim about how the world is structured in a way that inherently does not allow for certain people to enter society. These claims say that there are ontological structures that exist ahistorically in a way that constructs the being or lack there of of people who are black or people who are queered in a negative way in relation to society.

Why run a pessism K?

Pessimism Ks can be highly strategic in debate due to the specific way that they make claims about the way the world is inherently structured. This is useful, especially against policy affs because of the way that much of pessimistic critique is about how the desire to reproduce common society 

Links/ Theory of Power

Links on pessimism critiques can often describe different things, but they eventually collapse to one of a few more basic categories. In the context of queerpessimism, the link debate will most often stem from Edelman’s idea of reproductive futurism. Reproductive futurism says that the aff is based upon a desire for the future, which systematically excludes queerness because non-reproductive sex is viewed as something that must be destroyed to protect the Child. Edelman also talks about intelligibility where he figures queerness as a positionality of catachresis, a place without a name or meaning that exists in and through negativity, but it is through society’s desire to give queerness a name and to make it intelligible that it is able to be destroyed. Links based on this are more common for critiques of K affs because of their use of identity politics. Afropessimism on the other hand bases it’s critique on the way in which society does not construct slaves as workers, but as objects who exist in a state of ontological negativity, or in a state without being. The thesis upon which most afropess links are based is the aff looking at the problem of antiblackness as a material issue that can be solved through material solutions. This could look like many things, like the state link which says that progress via the state is impossible for black folks because the state is structured in a fundamentally anti-black way, or the identity politics link which says that identity politics creates illusions of social progress while maintaining black positionality as social death.

Alts

Alts on both types of pess covered here can pretty much fall under two categories. The first category, and the one most people think of when they think of a pess K is what is know colloquially as the “burn it down” alt. This alt says that because of the way the world is structured, progress in the antiblack, antiqueer world we live in is impossible and thus we must burn it down, destroy society and start anew. These alts are strategic because they give a good answer to most of the policy extinction/our impact outweighs type arguments because they would say that an event like that would allow us to restart in a world not already tainted by anti-blackness or reproductive futurism. The second type of alt would be the rejection alt. This alt would say in that the neg is winning a link, the aff should be rejected because it has been proven that it is structured by anti-blackness or anti-queerness and we must reject anything that is structured by anti-blackness or anti-queerness. These are both strategic in different scenarios and should be used in the correct context, and there are also many alts that aren't covered here that are definitely worth looking into.

Core Authors -

Afropessimism

• Frank Wilderson

• Jared sexton

• Saidiya Hartman

• Calvin Warren

• John Gillespie

Queerpessimism

• Lee Edelman

• Baidan - https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/baedan-baedan

• Pearl Brilmyer

• Eric Stanely

Common Responses -

Optimism/Hope

Optimism is a common response to pessimism that grounds itself in literature that often looks at progress possible a more theoretical angle. It at the most basic level says that we should be optimistic about queerness and blackness. There are a few problems with this, first of all, many of the authors would say that optimism is good, but would still say that the aff is not a good idea. This is because many authors who write about hope and optimism believe that optimism is a place for social movements to gain energy from and advance their goals, but would still agree that the aff’s use of the state or identity politics is antithetical to the movement that they are trying to advance. These authors also often don't directly answer the ontology claim that the pessimism debater is making, they will say that optimism is good without saying why reproductive futurism is false or why politics isn't structured through antiblackness. Also many authors will say that we should reject utopian visions of black and queer life which you should leverage.

Progress Possible

Progress possible is very similar to hope/optimism, but it looks at the debate from a much more structuralist perspective. Progress possible should be fairly easy to answer by leveraging the claims that will be made in the 1NC. Progress possible just says that progress is something that can happen in the state, but most 1NCs will and should include claims about how material progress does nothing to stop the underlying systems of antiblackness and reproductive futurism, but rather serves to hide the systems under the guise of progress. Even if legal process has happened, it does nothing to undo the systems which the K critiques and narratives of progress possible should be articulated as another link because they serve to hide anti-blackness and anti-queerness while allowing their proliferation.

The Perm

The perm is a response that people will read on most Ks, but it doesn't really answer pess because of the way the alt functions. The perm is a test of competition and it serves to say that the alt isnt competitive with the aff, but in most cases, competition is very clear. This is because most affs are written with progress in mind, the aff is presenting a plan or a method with the goal of making the world a better place, because of this the burn the world down alt is obviously competitive because we cant simultaneously try to make the world a better place and burn it down, and rejection is competitive because you cant simultaneously affirm and reject the alt.