Foucault Parts 3 & 4

In part 3, Nae talks about how policy teams should answer Foucault and Biopolitics. Nae starts by noting that Foucault can show up beyond just the biopolitics K and can be a part of lots of other criticisms.

First, Nae recommends that you should start with deciding what your priorities are in answering Foucault and biopolitics. You should stick to your strengths, so that if the negative pivots, you have something to stick to the K. You should go in the direction of whatever your affirmative leans toward, whether it be a perm/link turn/no link strategy, impact turns, or framework. You should try to weigh the consequences of the aff vs the alternative because the alt likely can't reach the scale of the aff. Nae recommends attack the alternative as its normally one of the weaker components to the K.

On a thesis level, you need to decide the affirmative's stance is on how the state manages life. How does your affirmative participate or refuse what happens in the status quo? Building specific examples on your stance on biopolitics can be particularly potent. This is important to justify the impacts, framework, and other aspects of the debate.

In part 4 of this series on Foucault, Nae continues from part 3 to talk about how policy teams should answer Foucault and biopolitics. If you haven't at least watched part 3, I recommend starting with that video before watching this one.

You should probably spend less time on the link debate, but you can use it to exploit the other portions of debate. When answering surveillance and population management, making some base arguments about your relationship to these things is important. Why is it that management may be necessary if you're going the impact turn strategy? Why could policymaking be important to get rid of certain biopolitical systems? Making a distinction between law as a tool and our attachment to law to create change at a larger structure scale as well as the interaction between the two.

On the perm, you should try to challenge the alternative in how it resolves biopolitics in debate and in policies. How can the alternative change institutions to replace how policymaking currently functions? Placing barriers on the alternative can be important for both impact and link turn strategies.