Building New Institutions with James Fishback

Confronted with a national debate institution that has abandoned its core mission, a former debate champion shows us how to start a new one

Over the last few years, I’ve come to develop some core beliefs that seem in conflict with one another.

The first belief is that many (most?) of our national institutions are so thoroughly corrupted that they have reached a point of no return and the best hope for them is that someone can get enough top-down power to “reform” them downwards until the entire institution fits into a suburban strip mall between the CBD dispensary and a half-hearted Chinese restaurant. I would describe this view as “fairly pessimistic” and is informed by a lot of “on-the-ground” experience in the corporate world and many discussions with my academic friends who seem to be watching helplessly as their professional world spins out of control.

The second belief is that we are actually somewhat freed by this realization. Now that we have decided against the noble but useless endeavor of battling an uncontrollable fire by attempting to reform these institutions from the inside, we are free to turn our backs on the flaming wreckage. The old institutions are dying and their death is not reversible: let’s build something new.

It was with this view that I came into contact with James Fishback. James is a former debate champion who, upon returning from college to coach high school debate, discovered that the core values of reason, logic, and persuasion had been discarded in the world of competitive debate. Instead of awarding the students who worked hard to understand the topics and present the most persuasive case to the judges, the judges within the National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA) would award the win to the student whom they believed had taken the most morally correct and progressive stance.

You can read about James’ dystopian experience in

The Free Press

(Part 1 and Part 2). What really caught my eye was that James’ reaction was not to cry out in despair, but to build something new—something that would reflect the ideals that inspired him to love academic debating in the first place. To that end, he started Incubate Debate, a zero-cost debate league that is founded on the principles of free speech and open dialogue back to high school debating.

Before I launch into the insights that James shared with us, I’d like to invite readers to donate to Incubate Debate. I’ve committed to up to a $400 matching contribution for any Marginally Compelling subscribers who donate to Incubate, so please consider helping them in their mission of bringing high school debate back to its roots.

How To Build a New Institution

The question of building a new institution is far bigger than a single newsletter, but there were some insights from our talk that I wanted to break out here. I believe the next decade is going to require the birth of new institutions, and there are lessons in James’ experience that will aid in those efforts.