Tournament: UNI | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
May, if life is sheer toil, a man
Lift his eyes and say: so
I too wish to be? Yes. As long as Kindness
The Pure, still stays with his heart, man
Not unhappily measures himself
Against the godhead. Is God unknown?
Is he manifest like the sky? I’d sooner
Believe the latter. It’s the measure of man.
Full of merit, yet poetically, man
Dwells on this earth. But no purer
Is the shade of the starry night,
If I might put it so, than
Man, who’s called an image of the godhead.
Is there a measure on the earth? There is
None.

— Hölderlin

Contention One: don’t build your house on sand 

Energy production and its use is predicated on an ontological enframing of the earth as standing reserve to be extracted and stored for use without end. Our affirmative seeks to free ourselves up to a mode of sustainable being by recognizing that focusing on beings rather being forecloses the whole picture of being.. through poetically dwelling we can let time reveal the true essence of being…  Backhaus 2009 April 20, Gary, Loyola College in Maryland, Department of Philosophy “Automobility: Global Warming as Symptomatology,” Sustainability 1, 187-208, online
The twentieth-century philosopher… from its clearing.
This ontology of enframing devastates the earth and renders it an unworld devoid of being – this is worse than mere annihilation because devastation represents the foreclosure of all possibilities of life while annihilation is merely a leveling out to zero. MITCHELL 2005, ANDREW J., Stanford University, “HEIDEGGER AND TERRORISM,” Research in Phenomenology 35, 181-218

Devastation (Verwüstung) is… the threat of being.
The Ontopoetical is transformative precursor to the political, opening up spaces for new norms and ethics in international relations. Soguk, 2006
 [Splinters of hegemony: ontopoetical visions in international relations; Nevzat Soguk http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3225/is_4_31/ai_n29317638/pg_2/?tag=content;col1]
Ultimately, therefore, attention… survival in the world.
Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase alternative energy incentives for agricultural solar energy production
Contention two: Disrupting the enframing

Industrialized agriculture enframes the production process as a critical mobilization of the standing reserve, bringing humanity to the zero point of the holocaust

Solar energy can efficiently supply almost all farming energy needs, but requires government backing 

EREC 2 (Department of Energy, Office of Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Agricultural Applications of Solar Energy http://www.p2pays.org/ref/24/23989.htm)

Using the sun… small irrigation systems.

Only federal government subsidies can drive the transition to solarized agriculture—this stimulates the small-farm polycropping that is key to re-creating genetic resiliency and diversity by eliminating the need for fertilizers and pesticides

Pollan 8 (Michael, contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and is a Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley, 10/7/2008, Farmer in Chief Published: October 9, 2008 New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1)

In drafting these… sun-based fertility.

Renewable energy and localized agriculture present an authentic relationship with the earth that is critical to overcoming the standing reserve. Rather than exploiting the natural world through willful mastery, we cultivate an explicit relationship with Being

Heidegger 53 (Martin Heidegger, philosopher/professor, The Question Concerning Technology, publishing 1971, p. 14-18)

And yet the… for peaceful use.
Contention three: Paradox

Have the past struggles succeeded?
What has succeeded? Yourself? Your nation?
 Nature?
Now understand me well—It is provided in the
 essence of things, that from any fruition of suc-
 cess, no matter what, shall come forth something
 to make a greater struggle necessary.

—Walt Whitman, “Poem of the Road” s. 53, Leaves of Grass, 1860

All paths are equally dangerous, but only consciously risking ourselves can rescue thought from its apocalyptic preoccupation with calculation. Such openness to insecurity keeps alive the questioning that is necessary to prevent the conditions that led Heidegger to Nazism 

Dillon 96 (Michael. Politics of Security: Towards a political philosophy of continental thought. pg. 32-33)

While we have… alive within you.
Every revealing conceals turning any truth claims.. 

McWhorter 92 (Ladelle, Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies at Richmond, Heidegger and the earth: Essays in environmental philosophy, Thomas Jefferson University Press, pp. 4-5)

Every academic discipline… cannot be separated.

Tournament: Emporia State | Round:  | Opponent:  | Judge:
Modest chair people painted grey
who don't want to be anything
but chairs for others to sit in.

Cloud people giving birth to themselves.

Navel-less non-people who'd like to improve
and slowly slowly as if blind
grope their way toward a real human navel.

Hole people who are the straight
gate to the most progressive hell.
Hole people making a comb
but little honey.

Long thin thread people
of white unwritten thread
rolled on a spool
convenient to carry in your pocket.

People who have a feeling
that the stones will soon be ripe.

People of the opinion
that it makes no sense
to grow in addition to their two front legs
two legs behind
that even a single leg would do
to jump into the bottomless pit.

-Tristan Tzara

Contention One: don’t build your house on sand 

Energy production and its use is predicated on an ontological enframing of the earth as standing reserve to be extracted and stored for use without end. Our affirmative seeks to free ourselves up to a mode of sustainable being by recognizing that focusing on beings rather being forecloses the whole picture of being.. through poetically dwelling we can let time reveal the true essence of being…  Backhaus 2009 April 20, Gary, Loyola College in Maryland, Department of Philosophy “Automobility: Global Warming as Symptomatology,” Sustainability 1, 187-208, online

The twentieth-century philosopher …. themselves from its clearing. 

This ontology of enframing devastates the earth and renders it an unworld devoid of being – this is worse than mere annihilation because devastation represents the foreclosure of all possibilities of life while annihilation is merely a leveling out to zero. MITCHELL 2005, ANDREW J., Stanford University, “HEIDEGGER AND TERRORISM,” Research in Phenomenology 35, 181-218

Devastation (Verwüstung) is the process ….. Terror is the threat of being.

Thus my colleague and I present the following plan: 

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase financial incentives for agricultural solar power production
Contention two: Disrupting the enframing

Industrialized agriculture enframes the production process as a critical mobilization of the standing reserve, bringing humanity to the zero point of the holocaust

Heidegger 1949 speech at Bremen:

Agriculture is now a motorized ….the same as the production of the hydrogen bombs.

Renewable energy and localized agriculture present an authentic relationship with the earth that is critical to overcoming the standing reserve. Rather than exploiting the natural world through willful mastery, we cultivate an explicit relationship with Being

Heidegger 53 (Martin Heidegger, philosopher/professor, The Question Concerning Technology, publishing 1971, p. 14-18)

And yet the revealing …. either for destruction or for peaceful use.

Topsoil is the most important and through a genuine respectful relationship within the mesh to the ground we are able to preserve the top soil. Viewing the soil as part of our neighborhood is key to sustainability—in the top soil death is turned into life and life creates more life—a never ending cycle—an example  of life forever in flux and constantly persevering… Our focus should not be on how much topsoil we have left, but rather on the soil itself – we should feel the soil falling through our hands and the life forms crawling on and through us… Berry 2005 (Wendell farmer, writer, academic Graduated from standford and taught at university college in Brox)
It is apparently impossible ….. to understand or diagram the  pattern. 

The Ontopoetical is transformative precursor to the political, opening up spaces for new norms and ethics in international relations. Soguk, 2006
 [Splinters of hegemony: ontopoetical visions in international relations; Nevzat Soguk http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3225/is_4_31/ai_n29317638/pg_2/?tag=content;col1]
Ultimately, therefore, attention …. and survival in the world.

Contention three: Paradox

All paths are equally dangerous, but only consciously risking ourselves can rescue thought from its apocalyptic preoccupation with calculation. Such openness to insecurity keeps alive the questioning that is necessary to prevent the conditions that led Heidegger to Nazism 

Dillon 96 (Michael. Politics of Security: Towards a political philosophy of continental thought. pg. 32-33)

While we have ….questioning alive within you. 

Every revealing conceals turning any truth claims.. 

McWhorter 92 (Ladelle, Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies at Richmond, Heidegger and the earth: Essays in environmental philosophy, Thomas Jefferson University Press, pp. 4-5)

Every academic discipline, ….one and cannot be separated.

Death is an illusion embrace your own immortal existence within the mesh beyond your capacity to destroy
Camus ‘91
The rebel, p 44
What part, in this universe,  ….. everyone into a collective suicide

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die