2NC Death Cult –Theory : Counter-Interpretation - _______________________________We get 3 Condtional Advocacites ______________________________________

1. Key to neg flex – conditionality beats 1ac and 2ac offense – aff speaks first and last and chooses framing of debate

2. Key to strategic and efficient thinking – tough 2ac choices force better speeches

3. Promotes better debate – debate becomes harder as each team needs to make strategic decisions – negative isn’t denied a chance to win if the mess up the 1NC

4. Breath is better than depth – allows teams to scan available options and learn about each of them – debates are limited in size, best to increase the scope of all options

5. Best policy option – when faced with two bad options, rational decision makers logically reject both

6. Key to ideological flexibility – major theses of aff - policy and __different Kritikal arguments __ - need to be tested in mutually exclusive manners, a debater from becoming solely policy or K oriented prevents community fragmentation and key to education

____AT: Strategy SkewStrat skew is inevitable – aff can always kick advantages and neg can double bind T with a DAHarder debate is good – forces the aff to anticipate strategy and execute2nr time outweighs – needs to prevent any 2ar out while covering theory and substance while aff can go for either

____ AT: Time SkewTime skew is inevitable – faster debaters and multiple T and DasReject the argument, not the team – make them prove in-round abuse to win

Performative Contradictions Bad 2AC

It’s like pre-meditated murder – they knew they were wrong but did it anyway, which makes them worse than us, because we only linked unintentionally. Vote them down first.

It forces us to contradict too – if they contradict, we lose our stable advocacy as well, and our ground because they can cross-apply our answers to take each other out, so we always lose.

False advocacies are bad for debate – they violate their own arguments, which proves they don’t really believe them. That’s bad for debate because it promotes cynicism and destroys political activism.

Vote them down on it for ground and that they link more than we do. They link to this on how on Case they are saying V2L is not an impact ,but they are attempt to garner an impact based off this but no

NOW SO WE DON’T Contradict areselves we are kicking the CP and Neolib they were Condtional – so

*** 2NC OV

The question of the debate is whether representing death in the simulation of debate represents a valuable or harmful practice- they can’t access the case without justifying their conclusion that death

simulations are important

We control the offense. Our impacts stem directly from being forced to debate death. Their impacts are missing the internal link between

talking about death and fearing death.

Without the alt’s protest against militarization of the public sphere, continuously escalating spectacles of violence become desirable and necessary- all of their impact

claims are produced to justify a constant state of domestic insecurity and the alt is the only way to solve any of them anyway. We are a pre-requisite to solve literally all of

their offense, from fear of death good to political action good.Giroux 3/14Henry A Giroux, Frequent author on pedagogy in the public sphere, Truthout, “Youth in Revolt: The Plague of State-Sponsored Violence,” March 14, 2012, http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=7249:youth-in-revolt-the-plague-of-statesponsored-violence

As the social is devalued along with rationality, ethics and any vestige of democracy, spectacles of war, violence and brutality now merge into forms of collective pleasure that constitute an important and new symbiosis among visual pleasure, violence and suffering. The control society is now the ultimate form of entertainment as the pain of others, especially those considered disposable and powerless, has become the subject not of compassion, but of ridicule and amusement in America. High-octane violence and human suffering are now considered another

form of entertainment designed to raise the collective pleasure quotient . Reveling in the suffering of others should no longer be reduced to a matter of individual pathology, but now registers a larger economy of pleasure across the broader culture and social landscape. My emphasis here is on the sadistic impulse and how it merges spectacles of violence and brutality with forms of collective pleasure. No society can make a claim to being a democracy as long as it defines itself through shared fears rather than shared responsibilities. Widespread violence now functions as part of an anti-immune system that turns the economy of genuine pleasure into a mode of sadism that creates the foundation for sap ping democracy of any political substance and moral vitality. The prevalence of institutionalized violence in American society and other parts of the world suggests the need for a new conversation and politics that addresses what a just and fair world looks like. The predominance of violence in all aspects of social life suggests that young people and others marginalized by class, race and ethnicity have been abandoned as American society's claim on democracy gives way to the forces of militarism, market fundamentalism and state terrorism. The prevalence of violence throughout American society suggests the need for a politics that not only negates the established order, but imagines a new one, one informed by a radical vision in which the future does not imitate the present.(27) In this discourse, critique merges with a sense of realistic hope and individual struggles merge into larger social movements. The challenge that young people are posing to American society is being met with a state-sponsored violence that is about more than police brutality; it is more importantly about the transformation of the United States from a social state to a warfare state, from a state that embraced the social contract to one that no longer has a language for community - a state in which the bonds of fear and commodification have replaced the bonds of civic responsibility and democratic vision. Until we address how the metaphysics of war and violence have taken hold

on American society (and in other parts of the world) and the savage social costs it has enacted,

the forms of social, political and economic violence that young people are protesting against as

well as the violence waged in response to their protests will become impossible to recognize

and act on .

Firstly . Beres says we need to discuss policy, but has no warrants for including death impacts. Our K proves death debating decreases good

policymaking.

2. Beres votes neg. The paragraphs above their card proves he thinks the suppression of death impacts is a pre-requisite to meaningful

policy education.Louis Rene Beres, professor of international law at Purdue University, 6/5/03 (Journal and Courier, “Anarchy and international law on an endangered planet”)

For us, other rude awakenings are unavoidable, some of which could easily overshadow the horrors of Sept. 11. There can be little doubt that, within a few short years, expanding tribalism will produce several new genocides and proliferating nuclear weapons will generate one or more regional nuclear wars. Paralyzed by fear and restrained by impotence, various governments will try, desperately, to deflect our attention, but it will be a vain effort. Caught up in a vast chaos from which no real escape is possible, we will learn too late that there is no durable safety in arms, no ultimate rescue by authority, no genuine remedy in science or technology. What shall we do? For a start, we must all begin to look carefully behind the news. Rejecting superficial analyses of day-to-day events in favor of penetrating assessments of world affairs, we must learn quickly to distinguish what is truly important from what is merely entertainment. With such learning, we Americans could prepare for growing worldwide anarchy not as immobilized objects of false contentment, but as authentic citizens of an endangered planet. Nowhere is it written that we people of Earth are forever, that humankind must thwart the long-prevailing trend among all planetary life-forms (more than 99 percent) of ending in extinction. Aware of this, we may yet survive, at least for a while, but only if our collective suppression of purposeful fear is augmented by a complementary wisdom; that is, that our personal mortality is undeniable and that the harms done by one tribal state or terror group against "others" will never confer immortality. This is, admittedly, a difficult concept to understand, but the longer we humans are shielded from such difficult concepts the shorter will be our time remaining. We must also look closely at higher education in the United States, not from the shortsighted stance of improving test scores, but from the urgent perspective of confronting extraordinary threats to human survival. For the moment, some college students are exposed to an occasional course in what is fashionably described as "global awareness," but such exposure usually sidesteps the overriding issues: We now face a deteriorating world system that cannot be mended through sensitivity alone; our leaders are dangerously unprepared to deal with catastrophic deterioration; our schools are altogether incapable of transmitting the indispensable visions of planetary restructuring. To institute productive student confrontations with survival imperatives, colleges and universities must soon take great risks, detaching themselves from a time-dishonored preoccupation with "facts" in favor of grappling with true life-or-death questions. In raising these questions, it will not be enough to send some students to study in Paris or Madrid or Amsterdam ("study abroad" is not what is meant by serious global awareness). Rather, all students must be made aware - as a primary objective of the curriculum - of where we are heading, as a species, and where our limited survival alternatives may yet be discovered. There are, of course, many particular ways in which colleges and universities could operationalize real global awareness, but one way, long-neglected, would be best. I refer to the study of international law. For a country that celebrates the rule of law at all levels, and which explicitly makes international law part of the law of the United States - the "supreme law of the land" according to the Constitution and certain Supreme Court decisions - this should be easy enough to understand. Anarchy, after all, is the absence of law, and knowledge of international law is necessarily prior to adequate measures of world order reform. Before international law can be taken seriously, and before "the blood-dimmed tide" can be halted, America's future leaders must at least have some informed acquaintance with pertinent rules and procedures. Otherwise we shall surely witness the birth of a fully ungovernable world order, an unheralded and sinister arrival in which only a shadowy legion of gravediggers would wield the forceps.

Also on the turn that is where garner better impacts- firstly

a. V2L is decreased when we race to extend the timeline of are exction and how we die . Then are deaths are just like in the world of Hunger Games Death is oversenstionalized then are deaths are just

good because why live in the world where death is being oversenstionalized . That connects to the debate

Alt solvency :Voting neg solves – 2 reasons:

A. Deterrence. Racist language proves.Alfred C. Snider, Edwin Lawrence Assistant Professor of Forensics - University of Vermont, ‘4 (http://debate.uvm.edu/ReplyFrank.doc, date from Archive.org, article also cites 2002 articles)

The challenges to the game of debate mentioned in my essay also directly address this. The critical move in debate, where debaters step outside of the traditional “box” to analyze the ethical issues of argumentative perspectives and to analyze the language employed in a debate belies this

concern. Almost all American debaters know that making a racist or sexist comment in a debate is one of the easiest ways to lose a ballot, as the opposing team is likely to make that the only issue in the debate, and the judge will make an example of you. There is no time in debate history when falsification and fabrication of evidence has been better monitored or when the behavior of debaters as regards evidence has been better. This may be more due to the ability to check the evidence used by others, but it still is the case. This sort of ethical dimension of argument and presentation has been made an issue in the decision. Winning at all costs could cost you the win.

B. Corrective justice. The ballot has to delineate what is acceptable.Alfred C. Snider, Edwin Lawrence Assistant Professor of Forensics - University of Vermont, ’84 (The National Forensic Journal, II, Fall, “Ethics in Academic Debate”)

Ethics concerns codes of behavior, specifically in the "ought to" or "should" sense of behavior. Duke notes that the ethics of game use is a very important issue.5 While an issue of importance should be dealt with by strict criteria in the game design process, this is not possible, since many ethical considerations cannot be anticipated during the design process and must be dealt with during the play of the game itself. In attempting to compose an ethical code for the game of debate, the options are either to state a small number of criteria which lack precision or to produce a long list of criteria which restrict the options of the participant. Almost all philo-sophical disputations which attempt to determine whether a given pattern of behaviors is "ethical" or not give special attention to the particulars of the situation and the ends which are at issue. While murder is seen as unethical behavior by most individuals, never-theless these same individuals might find it tolerable if it was committed in self-defense. Once we begin formulating ethical guidelines we are soon lost in a sea of "if. . . then" statements designed to take situational factors and the desirability of certain ends into account. What is true of general ethical guidelines is also true of ethical guidelines for debate. Recognizing that ethical considerations probably must be dealt with inside a given debate situation, it seems appropriate to opt for the course of generating a small number of generally applicable ethical standards.

2NC A2: Perm Do BothPermutation is illogical- this is a gateway argument about the nature of the debate community- they should have to justify the inclusion of their death impacts to win- they can’t just wish them away

Pedagogical Pollution DA- It invalidates our protest if the institution we’re protesting continues to exist and functions exactly the way we’re protesting- also militarization of the public sphere makes critical reflection and dialogue impossible- means the alt is a prerequisite to solving the aff and is better than the perm.Giroux 3/20Henry Giroux, Truthout, “Gated Intellectuals and Ignorance in Political Life: Toward a Borderless Pedagogy in the Occupy Movement,” 20 March 2012, http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/8009-gated-intellectuals-and-ignorance-in-political-life-toward-a-borderless-pedagogy-in-the-occupy-movement

A group of right-wing extremists in the U nited States would have the American public believe it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of a market society . Comprising this group are the Republican Party extremists, religious fundamentalists such as Rick Santorum and a host of conservative anti-public foundations funded by billionaires such as the Koch brothers(1), whose pernicious influence fosters the political and cultural conditions for creating vast inequalities and massive human hardships throughout the globe . Their various messages converge in support of neoliberal capitalism and a fortress mentality that increasingly drive the meaning of citizenship and social life . One consequence is that the principles of self- preservation and self-interest undermine, if not completely sabotage, political agency and

democratic public life . Neoliberalism or market fundamentalism as it is called in some quarters and its army of supporters cloak their interests in an appeal to "common sense," while doing everything possible to deny climate change, massive inequalities, a political system hijacked by big money and corporations, the militarization of everyday life and the corruption of civic culture by a consumerist and celebrity-driven advertising machine. The financial elite, the 1 percent and the hedge fund sharks have become the highest-paid social magicians in America. They perform social magic by making the structures and power relations of racism, inequality , homelessness, poverty and environmental degradation disappear . And in doing so, they employ deception by seizing upon a stripped-down language of choice, freedom, enterprise and self-reliance - all of which works to personalize responsibility, collapse social problems into private troubles and reconfigure the claims for social and economic justice on the part of workers, poor minorities of color, women and young people as a species of individual complaint. But this deceptive strategy does more. It also substitutes shared responsibilities for a culture of diminishment, punishment and cruelty. The social is now a site of combat , infused with a live-for-oneself mentality and a space where a responsibility toward others is now gleefully replaced by an ardent, narrow and inflexible responsibility only for oneself.

And, this begs the question of the framework debate- if we win that the aff is stuck to their pedagogical frame, then the permutation includes a violent pedagogy that should not be included in our vision of debate

1. Double-Bind. Either the perm severs its death impacts or doesn’t solve. Severance makes the aff a moving target. We base our strategy

on the 1AC’s choices, so stick them to it.

2. Severance fails:

A. Severance destroys accountability. Sandra Harris, Prof Emeritus – Nottingham Trent, Karen Grainger, Lect Communications – Sheffield Hallam, & Louise Mullany, Linguist – U Nottingham, ‘6 (Discourse Society 17, “The pragmatics of political apologies”)

In reply to an audience member who responded to this statement by Patricia Hewitt by shouting ‘You haven’t’, and the prolonged applause for another woman who argued that Mr Blair’s conference ‘apology’ really meant ‘That is saying I’m able to apologize but I’m not actually apologising’, Ms Hewitt made the following statement to the Question Time audience: I certainly want to say that all of us, from the Prime Minister down, all of us who were involved in making an incredibly difficult decision are very sorry and do apologize for the fact that that information was wrong – but I don’t think we were wrong to go in. It was primarily these words which sparked off the very considerable public debate and controversy which followed. Major newspapers headlined Ms Hewitt’s ‘apology’ the next day; a member of the Government appeared on the Radio 4 early morning Today programme; clips from Question Time appeared on the news the next evening; BBC News invited its listeners worldwide to respond by expressing their views as to whether ‘Patricia Hewitt was right to apologise’ online; Michael Howard (the then Leader of the Opposition) further demanded an apology from the Prime Minister in Parliament the following week in Prime Minister’s Question Time (13 October 2004). At a time when it had become increasingly clear that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and the Prime Minister’s decision to go to war in Iraq was being undermined by arguments not so much concerning the validity of intelligence reports but as to how they were interpreted and used by the Government, it is interesting that the controversy should centre not only on the increasing demand for a political apology but on the substance and nature of that apology. If we look at what Ms Hewitt actually said, she uses both of the explicit Ifid words, i.e. ‘sorry’ (intensified) and ‘apologise’. She emphasizes by way of explanation that the decision to go to war was an ‘incredibly difficult’ one and that ‘the [intelligence] information was wrong’. Moreover, she also in her statement assumes some kind of collective responsibility; her ‘apology’ is on behalf not only of the Prime Minister but of ‘all of us’ who were involved. Thus, on the surface, this looks very like an apology, and, indeed, it was widely reported in the media as the ‘first direct apology to be made by a senior member of the Government’. It is interesting to note how The Daily Telegraph (9/10/04: 10), for example, defines such a speech act. ‘Miss Hewitt issued her direct apology, using the word “sorry”’, contrasting this usage with Mr Blair and other ministers, who have ‘studiously avoided using the word “sorry” in this context’. Downing Street, on the other hand, claimed that Ms Hewitt was not saying anything that Mr Blair had not said already, i.e. ‘All she was doing was echoing precisely what the Prime Minster had said, which is, of course, that we regret the fact that some information was wrong’ (cited in The Daily Telegraph, 9/10/04). In a sense, Downing Street is right. In terms of the taxonomy of the strategies which constitute an apology as an identifiable speech act, Ms Hewitt has used both the explicit Ifid words, but her collective responsibility is a spurious one, since it relates to an ‘offence’ committed (implicitly) by the intelligence services (producing wrong information) rather than the Cabinet, including the Prime Minister. Hence, the Ifid ‘sorry’ becomes necessarily ‘sorry’ as regret, as the Downing Street statement which followed Hewitt’s ‘apology’ makes explicit. Because ‘ sorry’ as regret carries no acceptance of responsibility or accountability, the ‘offence’ becomes an implicit part of the explanation, even a justification for an ‘incredibly difficult decision’. Reparation, forbearance, absolution are not appropriate in such circumstances. Moreover, Ms Hewitt concludes her ‘apology’ with a statement (‘but I don’t think we were wrong to go in’) which contradicts the demand made by the questioner, i.e. that the Prime Minister should apologize for taking the British nation to war in Iraq. However, though nearly all forms of media who report the Question Time encounter refer to Hewitt’s statement as an ‘apology’, thus at least implicitly categorizing it as such, most of them do call into question in various ways its nature and substance. The many viewers who responded to BBC News are even more critical and also, perhaps surprisingly, more discerning, despite the fact that the invitation was headlined: ‘Ms Hewitt is the first senior member of the government to make a direct apology for the intelligence failings’ and the question worded as ‘Was Patricia Hewitt right to apologise? Does the apology draw a line under the debate over WMD?’, all of which accept as a presupposition that an apology has been made. The most frequent question raised by both the press and viewers has to do with accountability, i.e. that a ‘proper’ apology involves the acceptance of personal responsibility for the ‘offence’ by the apologizer. Hence, Patricia Hewitt’s apology is faulty both because she’s apologizing for something for which she bears no responsibility (‘What does Patricia Hewitt have to do with the security services?’, as one viewer asks) and for the ‘wrong’ offence, i.e. that it was the Prime Minister’s misrepresentation of the intelligence reports, not the intelligence reports in themselves, which was wrong (‘I asked him [the Prime Minister] very specifically about the way in which he misrepresented the intelligence that he received to the country. Why can he not bring himself to say sorry for that?’ – Michael Howard in the House of Commons, 13 October 2004). Both the press and large numbers of viewers, like Michael Howard, question the acceptability of Hewitt’s remarks on these grounds. Perhaps partly because Hewitt’s ‘apology’ comes to exemplify what is seen as the failure of a number of leading politicians to accept accountability, viewers, like the press, also question the ultimate significance of political apologies which appear to be unconnected with meaningful action, both in terms of rectifying the damage caused by the ‘offence’ (‘An apology won’t bring back the lives of the servicemen lost, nor the civilians, nor rectify the damage, nor pay back the £5bn cost, nor call off the insurgents and terrorists, nor free Ken Bigley’ – BBC News, World Edition 09/10/04) and as an indication of the (lack of) seriousness of the politician’s sense of remorse (‘The only apology that I would accept is the apology of resignation’ – BBC News, World Edition 09/10/04). Examining the controversy which followed Ms Hewitt’s Question Time statement has highlighted the complexity of political apologies in relationship to the interpersonal types usually explored in the apology literature – or at least has demonstrated that different types of complexity are involved. First of all, it is clear that the use of one of the two explicit Ifids (‘sorry’ and ‘apologize’) appear to be crucial according to the judgements/evaluations of both the press and viewers in order to categorize what a politician says as an apology. The widespread categorization of Patricia Hewitt’s statement by the press as ‘the first direct apology by a senior minister’ appears to relate to her use of these Ifids. Tony Blair’s conference statement, on the other hand (‘I can apologize for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can’t, sincerely at least, apologize for removing Saddam’) is ambiguous in its use of ‘can’ as to whether that speech act is actually being performed, and the clear emphasis is, in any case, on his refusal to apologize for the act cited in the latter half of the sentence. Indirection in a political apology is likely to be perceived negatively as evasion and shiftiness. Second, there are clearly disputes over who should apologize; hence, the reaction of much of the press and many viewers who write in online that Patricia Hewitt is not the appropriate person to apologize for something for which she had minimal or no responsibility. There is also the question of the ‘offence’ itself, which in the Question Time challenge by the studio audience is related to the decision to go to war in Iraq, but in the apology becomes that the information provided by the intelligence services was wrong. And, perhaps most significant, to whom is the apology being made? Who are the victim/s? Unlike Mr Blair’s apology for the ‘injustice’ to those wrongly convicted for the IRA pub bombings, where the victims are named, there are no victims indicated in Ms Hewitt’s apology. The implication in the studio audience challenge is that it is the British people to whom an apology for the decision to go to war in Iraq should be addressed, for having been misled, but the implications are probably even wider than that. (If there is an implicit meaning in the apology statement itself, it is that the Government itself has been ‘victimized’ by having been provided with faulty intelligence, especially since Ms Hewitt clearly states that the act of going to war itself was ‘not wrong’.) In addition, Ms Hewitt’s statement is made in the immediate context in answer to a question raised by a member of the studio audience, but the reaction of that audience certainly demonstrates that they regard the ‘apology’ as directed at the entire audience rather than at the specific individual. Ms Hewitt knew that her statement was also being heard by the unseen wider audience who are watching the programme and must have anticipated that it would be taken up by the press, repeated and published for a wider public yet. Who the ‘victim/s’ are and the nature of the ‘offence’ are clearly disputed territory which the ‘apology’ does little to clarify. Clearly, the political stakes for the Prime Minister are incredibly high, and whatever his current beliefs about Iraq or the demands of a substantial number of the British public for an apology for taking the country to war on the basis of faulty (or misrepresented) intelligence, Tony Blair is unlikely ever to issue a political apology which would satisfy the basic conditions of those demands according to viewer judgements (an Ifid token + an expression which indicates acceptance of responsibility and/or blame for wrongdoing) – or to resign (absolution).1

Conclusions We would agree with Luke (1997) that ‘the apology has become a form of political speech with increasing significance and power’ (p. 344), and across the political spectrum on a global scale has, arguably, become one of the most prominent of ‘public’ speech acts. Even though it may not as yet be ‘the age of the apology’, the relative lack of interest in the political apology as a generic type of discourse by sociolinguistics and pragmatics is both surprising and unwarranted, since they demonstrate some revealing differences as well as significant areas of overlap with the type of interpersonal and individual apologies which have been the primary focus of the now considerable amount of apology research. For example, much of the existing literature on apologies, following Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987), adopts a face-needs perspective, seeing the apology as basically a negative politeness strategy which is aimed mainly at the redress of Face Threatening Acts (see Brown and Levinson, 1978, 1987; Goffman, 1971; Holmes, 1995, 1998). It is certainly the case that many types of political apologies do represent a potentially

serious loss of face for politicians, which may be why they are frequently so eager to apologize for things for which they cannot be held accountable. But to approach political apologies by means of face-oriented definitions is often not particularly helpful and highlights some of the important differences with the interpersonal data on which such definitions are most often based. Holmes (1998), for instance, defines apologies as follows: An apology is a speech act addressed to B’s face-needs and intended to remedy an offense for which A takes responsibility, and thus to restore equilibrium between A and B (where A is the apologizer, and B is the person offended). (p. 204) Clearly, this is a definition which assumes that it is two individuals who are involved in the process of apologizing and that addressing the face-needs of the ‘person offended’ is the primary motive for the speech act, with the restoring of equilibrium its main goal. Such definitions do not take us very far in understanding the significance and issues raised by political apologies. Given the magnitude of some of the ‘offences’ we have considered, describing what the apology addresses as the ‘face-needs’ of ‘the person offended’ seems neither accurate nor enlightening. To claim that it is the face-needs of Samantha Roberts which are in some way damaged or that she is ‘the person offended’ seems somehow to trivialize events which are of a very serious nature. Nor would these terms be very helpful in describing the motives held by the various persons and groups who call on the British Prime Minister to apologize for taking the country to war in Iraq – or for allegedly misrepresenting the intelligence reports to members of Parliament. Moreover, the process of restoring ‘equilibrium’ is again likely to be a much more complex process – if it can be achieved at all – than is the case when apologies are negotiated between individuals acting in a private capacity. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine how Robinson’s (2004) notion of a ‘preferred’ response (one which offers absolution to the apologizer rather than merely accepting the apology) could possibly be applicable in the case of most political apologies. Even in the instance of fairly low level ‘offences’ such as the British diplomat who described Nottingham as a more dangerous place than Saudi Arabia, city officials agreed to accept the apology rather than to offer absolution to the ‘offender’. However, Holmes’ emphasis on the apologizer’s accepting responsibility for the offence and Robinson’s argument that ‘Apologizing is an essential component of the maintenance of social harmony because it communicates awareness and acceptance of moral responsibility for offensive behavior’ (2004: 292) both foreground the essential sense of morality which generates the need for such apologies and which goes well beyond face-needs. What Samantha Roberts demands is an apology from the Minister for Defence which explicitly accepts his own moral responsibility for the actions which led to her husband’s death. From both the press and viewers, Ms Hewitt’s political apology produces responses which are concerned essentially with morality, i.e. what is right or wrong, what the politician/s should or should not do; and these responses most often centre on the question of accepting personal responsibility. Eelen (2001: 249) argues in conjunction with new directions in politeness theory that ‘morality is no longer regarded as a fixed higher-order set of rules that determine the individual’s behaviour, but as something that people do to – or with – each other’. This seems to us an arguable point but one which is overstated. Though what constitutes an acceptable political apology may not be based on ‘a fixed higher-order set of rules’, there does seem to exist a cultural consensus that is morally grounded and goes beyond the merely individual response, i.e. it is right for a politician to offer an apology in which s/he explicitly accepts responsibility for his/her own acts and wrong to attempt to evade that responsibility. This is not to deny that the political apology is a contested concept or that it not only arises out of discourse struggle but generates further struggle and controversy. It is that very discourse struggle which is, indeed, part of their interest for linguists and which is reflected in the substantial amount of media coverage and public debate that political apologies often provoke. However, once again, we would argue that apologies, nearly always regarded in apology research as a ‘quintessential’ politeness strategy, are more than ‘an argumentative social tool with which the individual can accomplish things’ (Eelen, 2001: 249) and also that political apologies are perceived as more than a politeness strategy. It is interesting that the British data on political apologies which we have examined contains no references at all to the question of (im)politeness, though that too frequently evokes impassioned public debate. Like Eelen, Mills (2003) also regards apologies as a contested concept and stresses the importance of ‘evaluation’. ‘Apologies are often composed of elements which cannot be recognised easily by either interactants or analysts as unequivocal apologies’ (p. 111). Hence, ‘apologies cannot be considered to be a formal linguistic entity (p. 222) but rather ‘a judgement made about someone’s linguistic performance’ (p. 112). This, again, is probably true in a general sense, and as we maintained earlier, apologies are unlikely ever to be defined precisely as a fixed set of semantic components. However, once again, though the evaluative component is highly significant, the responses (from both media and public) to the political apologies in our data are more than merely individuals making disparate judgements about ‘someone’s linguistic performance’. They do instead, we would argue, reflect a set of cultural expectations as to what constitutes a valid apology as a formal speech act, and, as

such, contain also a quite considerable degree of predictability. Indeed, it is in large measure the fact that listeners and viewers do have a sense of what constitutes an ‘unequivocal apology’ that perpetuates the discourse struggle. In contrast to many apologies between individuals, which may take a wide variety of forms and often contain a high degree of implicitness, it seems to be crucial if political apologies are to be regarded as valid by those to whom they are addressed that they are not implicit or ambiguous, i.e. that they contain an explicit Ifid (‘sorry’ and/or ‘apologize’) and that there is an (explicit) acceptance of personal responsibility for a stated act which has been committed by the apologizer. The widely expressed cynicism with regard to political apologies which are made by major politicians long after the events concerned have occurred and for which they cannot be accountable reflects these cultural expectations, along with the clear sense that apologies are morally grounded.

B. Rhetorical accountability is key to value to life and education.Jerry Blitefield, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, ‘6 (Rhetoric & Public Affairs 9.4, Book Reviews)

Wayne Booth, who passed away in October 2005, has long been rhetoric's most ardent ambassador, having pressed his claim for rhetoric's value in the halls of literature, science, and philosophy. With his last book and self-described "manifesto" The Rhetoric of RHETORIC, Booth takes his message beyond the intramural back-chatter of academe and straight to the public at large. His case: "that the quality of our lives, moment by moment, depends upon the quality of our rhetoric" (171), and that the discursive, ethical, and epistemic impoverishment of contemporary democratic politics and culture results from practicing bad rhetoric, what he calls rhetrickery—"dangerously, often deliberately, deceptive [rhetoric]: just plain cheating that deserves to be exposed . . . the art of producing misunderstanding" (x). As a mend, Booth posits that by reviving rhetorical education across the board, by attuning the general population upward toward heightened rhetorical awareness, rhetorical hucksters and cardsharps—from shady politicians and corporations to the shading press—would find no truck among the people. Or at least a lot less.

So firstly we control V2L – Next that is a gateway into education

* *Death impacts decrease our fear of death. Heather Anne Harder, Ph.D. in Education, 1993 (Exploring Life's Last Frontier, http://www.innerself.com/Miscellaneous/afraid_dying.htm)

One of the most important things to know is that you can prepare now for death and you can even enjoy the preparation process. Preparing for death can enrich your living experiences. Once you can look death in the eye and feel nothing but pleasant, yet mild, anticipation, then life becomes much more enjoyable. This epitaph taken from a headstone in Ashby, Massachusetts, describes the basic truth. Remember, friends, as you pass by, as you are now, so once was I. As I am now, so you must be. Prepare yourself to follow me. You are well-advised to prepare yourself for death. But whether you are ready or not, when your self-determined hour arrives you will pass to the next dimension. Your hour is determined by you and your council -- not the little you that operates in the conscious mind, but the greater You that operates in harmony with Divine Source. This higher self, as it is often referred to, maintains the direct connection to the Divine Source. A little preparation can make the death experience more pleasant and thus more peaceful for you as well as those you leave behind. Here are some suggestions for this preparation. TALKING ABOUT DEATH Allow yourself to talk about death as a part of life. I assure you, you do not bring death closer to you by talking about it, and you may make yourself more comfortable with the concept. By avoiding the topic you shroud it in mystery and shame. It becomes one of those topics that we don't talk about in polite society. Upon death you will create your own death experience based on what you believe. Therefore, the clearer you are about what you want and expect to happen, the better off you will be. Read and examine the near-death experiences of others. Discuss with friends what you read. Do these books and articles describe a hell? Do you want one? Play with the concepts and words involved with death. This allows you and others to adjust to a death reality. Talking about your thoughts and concepts helps you to clarify your own views. It forces you to synthesize and articulate your reality. It is at this point that you are able to revise or adjust your own faulty thinking. Even if you do not, at first, have an accurate reality of death, the process of open forum allows you to open to a variety of possibilities. While Mom was in the hospital, she and I had an opportunity to discuss death. Although she was very confused and scared of death, she listened to my views and shared her own. She talked about what she wanted to happen (and how) if she died. At this point no one believed that she would be dead in less than two months. The conversation was one I shall always remember and treasure. A colleague at the university, Don, and I discussed the recent death of a co-worker. We talked about death -- his beliefs and mine. It was to be our last conversation, for he died just a few days later. These conversations help to acclimate people to the transition process. Neither Don or Mom knew consciously that they were soon to die. Yet both felt the need to discuss death. It is important to be comfortable enough with the topic to discuss it when the conversation arises. Often there is an inner knowing and a need to discuss death as the hour approaches, much like the impending birth of a child is discussed. People have taken the topic of death, and even the words associated with it, and made them naughty -- something we don't speak aloud in public. Children are shushed or quickly diverted if they bring up the topic. Our society is "death-a-phobic" and it's time this is changed. By becoming comfortable with the words and concepts, when the magic moment arrives and you discover that you are dead, you won't be so shocked. Many people have a difficult time accepting their own death simply because of the shock value of the word . Ignoring and suppressing the idea of death throughout your life actually empowers the word. So take the power away from the words and concept of death by verbalizing and getting comfortable with them. Make the words "death" and "dead" as familiar as the word "birth" and "life". Birth and death are both times of transition. They imply a change from one dimensional form to another. You don't see people going to pieces because someone gave birth like you do when people (especially themselves) die. Yet birth is much more traumatic and generally unpleasant to the one experiencing it. Death is a much easier transition. A WORKING REALITY OF DEATH Take a minute to imagine the following scene. You find yourself inside a large cube or box. It can be of any material you choose. You are completely enclosed in this box. There are no doors or windows, no way to get in or out. You do not know how you got in or how to get out. As you imagine yourself in this box, what are your reactions? What thoughts or feelings do you have? Remain in this imaginary state for a minute or so to fully experience your feelings. STOP! DON'T READ ANY FURTHER UNTIL YOU HAVE TAKEN A MINUTE TO EXPERIENCE THIS SENSATION! Good. Did you feel panic? How about curiosity? There are a multitude of reactions, and yours are perfectly normal regardless of what they were. Your reactions to this exercise are similar to those you might experience as you pass into death. Now reexamine your reactions to the box, only apply these to death. How do you feel about death? Don't judge yourself, simply examine. You now have a starting point from which to examine your current death beliefs. For our second exercise, imagine yourself walking down a path. Create your path; notice the details. Is it wide, narrow, smooth, rough, beautiful, not-so-beautiful, straight, or winding? You decide. After you walk for awhile you come to a wall. The wall can be any form you like, but it must run across your path and stretch so far that you cannot walk around it. Create the wall now! Now move beyond the wall. What do you see? Take a minute to experience this vision. Relax and play with the images. Don't read on until you have experienced this! No fudging! This path represents your view of your life. Was your life easy or rough?

Was your path well worn, or are you blazing new trails? Was your path straight or winding? If you did not like your path, know that you have full power to change it any time you choose. You can add plants, flowers -- in short, create any path you choose whenever you choose. Examine the wall. Was it high and solid or low and insubstantial? What kind was it? How did you move beyond the wall? Was it hard? What were your reactions to moving beyond the wall? What did you find on the other side? The wall represents the separation of life and death. Beyond the wall is your symbolic subconscious view of the afterlife. Now reexamine your images. If you do not like what you experienced, simply choose a new creation and construct new images. There are no right answers, yet, at the same time, all answers are right. Your answers represent a combination of what you have been conditioned to believe about death and your personal reality of death. If you are happy with your subconscious death reality, that's great. If you are uncomfortable with your symbolic representation of death, then create a new one as you read on. Death need not be scary. In fact, in many ways death can be compared to going away to college. It may cause a little apprehension at first. The change may even produce some stress. But after awhile you can actually become excited about the prospect of going away to your great new adventure. There are many who would even say you are lucky to be going. Death is even easier than college because there is no packing to do, no tuition to pay, nor written exams to take. As you get comfortable with the concept of death, then you can begin to let go of any fearful notions of death. Allow yourself to have a variety of death options, all pleasant. This allows you to stay open and receptive to your own unique death adventure when it occurs, which may be different from the one you have created. If, however, the concept of death still makes you tremble with fear, and you can't leave it in such an unformed and unpleasant condition, then take a few moments to create your own picture of what death will be like for you. Play this image over and over until it becomes your new reality of death. Thus, when you die you will automatically create this familiar reality. Eventually the actual reality will pierce your awareness, but this created reality will be a pleasant first encounter, certainly much better than fear or panic.

Talking about death decreases fear of death.Tom Anderson, Ph.D. Psychotherapist , ’97 (Death Talk auth. Glenda Fredman, Intro p. xi)

When our series was conceived years ago, we were inspired by the power of systemic thinking and the possibility of putting these ideas into practice in a range of different settings. Death Talk is exactly the kind of book we had in mind. It distils very difficult sophisticated clinical wor k into a simple language and simple technique for talking to children, making it accessible to a much wider range of practitioners than trained psychotherapists and family therapists. The book is about the healing power of conversation. It gives numerous examples of children and their families being released from the grip of sadness, isolation, and fear by talking about their own experiences of death. Not only does the author, Glenda Fredman, tackle head-on the great taboo subject, but she embues the reader with the conviction that an open, respectful conversation about death will, in itself, bring about therapeutic change.

Only voting neg to actively avoid death impacts causes fear of death.Leora Kuttner, Clinical Pyschologist / Professor, Pediatrics, University of British Columbia, ‘1 (http://www.familypractice.ubc.ca/forum/talk_FacingFear.html)

Death is something we all have in common. Yet our culture - western culture - actively avoids the consideration of death, and anything that may prepare us for death. How then, can we learn to face our fear of death, and what, exactly are those fears? Facing death means challenging our beliefs and our definition of life. Facing death means facing loss, gradual or sudden. The loss of abilities. The loss of body control. Becoming dependent - or perhaps being alone. Facing death means facing a change in our way of being as we know it, and like it, and facing losses that we don't want to know about. Facing death not only means facing the unknown but also changes in what we did know. For some people, the fear of death is about the unknown of death. For many people it's the fear of suffering as one approaches death. "Suffering is one of the greatest fears of all. But the pain can be controlled, managed, eased. Even big pain," Dr. Kuttner said. This is where health care professionals truly make a huge difference - in easing pain and providing the close contact, comfort, support, human understanding, and relief of body aches and discomfort.

2NC A2: Cede the Political/Political Action GoodCede the political is a reason to vote neg- Giroux says fascination with spectacles of violence trade off with our ability to focus on real political action- debaters cede the question of real political change in favor of finding a policy that is connected with the most nuclear wars or world destructions- that cedes real political questions to the spectacle of death and pain

The K flips all their cede the political arguments- continuous refusal to subject militarization to scrutiny is the ultimate cessation of the public sphere- makes politics

impossible and proves our framework is a prior question to any of their offense.Giroux ‘11Henry A Giroux, Truthout, Occupy Colleges Now: Students as the New Public Intellectuals, 21 November 2011, http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=5046:occupy-colleges-now--students-as-the-new-public-intellectuals

Of course, such a position is at odds with those intellectuals who have retreated into arcane discourses that offer the cloistered protection of the professional recluse. Making few connections with audiences outside of the academy or to the myriad issues that bear down on everyday lives, many academics became increasingly irrelevant, while humanistic inquiry suffers the aftershocks of flagging public support. The Occupy Wall Street protesters have refused this notion of the deracinated, if not increasingly irrelevant, notion of academics and students as disinterested intellectuals. They are not alone. Refusing the rewards of apolitical professionalism or obscure specialization so rampant on university campuses, Roy has pointed out that intellectuals need to ask themselves some very "uncomfortable questions about our values and traditions, our vision for the future, our responsibilities as citizens, the legitimacy of our 'democratic institutions,' the role of the state, the police, the army, the judiciary, and the intellectual community."[1] Similarly, Scarry points to the difficulty of seeing an injury and injustice, the sense of futility of one's own small efforts, and the special difficulty of lifting complex ideas into the public sphere.[2] Derrida has raised important questions about the relationship between critique and the very nature of the university and the humanities, as when he writes: The university without condition does not, in fact, exist, as we know only too well. Nevertheless, in principle and in conformity with its declared vocation, its professed essence, it should remain an ultimate place of critical resistance - and more than critical - to all the power of dogmatic and unjust appropriation.[3]

And, their form of engagement with policymaking only leads to endless pain and suffering - the cultural of violent imagery the aff promotes crystalizes militaristic power relationships that cede the political to a war machine, which fuels its furnace with human misery at home, in order to fund the destruction of civilians abroad Giroux ‘12Henry A Giroux, Frequent author on pedagogy in the public sphere, Truthout, “Youth in Revolt: The Plague of State-Sponsored Violence,” March 14, 2012, http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=7249:youth-in-revolt-the-plague-of-statesponsored-violence

Marked by a virulent notion of hardness and aggressive masculinity, a culture of violence has become commonplace in a society in which pain , humiliation and abuse are condensed into digestible spectacles endlessly circulated through extreme sports, reality TV, video games, YouTube postings and proliferating forms of the new and old media . But the ideology of hardness and the economy of pleasure it justifies are also present in the material relations of power that have intensified since the Reagan presidency, when a shift in government policies first took place, and set the stage for the emergence of unchecked torture and state violence under the Bush-Cheney regime. Conservative and liberal politicians alike now spend millions waging wars around the globe, funding the largest military state in the world, providing huge tax benefits to the ultra-rich and major corporations and all the while draining public coffers, increasing the scale of

human poverty and misery and eliminating all viable public spheres - whether they be the social state, public schools, public transportation, or any other aspect of a formative culture that

addresses the needs of the common good . State violence, particularly the use of torture,

abductions and targeted assassinations, are now justified as part of a state of exception that

has become normalized . A "political culture of hyper punitiveness"(24) has become normalized and accelerates throughout the social order like a highly charged electric current. Democracy no longer leaves open the importance of an experience of the common good. As a mode of "failed sociality," the current version of market fundamentalism has turned the principles of democracy against itself, deforming both the language of freedom and justice that made equality a viable idea and political goal. State violence operating under the guise of personal safety and security ,

while parading species of democracy, cancels out democracy "as the incommensurable sharing

of existence that makes the political possible ." (25) Symptoms of ethical, political and economic impoverishment are all around us.

Ok so now also

On Apoc Rhetoric args firstly cross-apply all offense that we used on Fear of Death – these arguments should be warranted before they even be considered group are answers together

Now quick Case :Agroecology

Industrial ag key to prevent soil erosion – extinctionAvery, Director of & Senior Fellow @ Center for Global Food Issues, former agriculture analyst for the State Department, and former staff member of the President's National Advisory Commission on Food and Fiber, 95 (Dennis, SAVING THE PLANET WITH NO-TILL, HIGH-YIELD FARMING," before the Manitoba/North Dakota Zero Tillage Farmer's Association, January 24, http://www.mandakzerotill.org/books/proceedings/Proceedings%201995/highyield.html)

The true long-term threat to human existence is soil erosion. Doubling the yields on the best and safest farmland cuts soil erosion by more than half . And now herbicides and conservation tillage are letting us cut those low ra tes of soil erosion by 65 to 98 percent . It should now be possible to build topsoil and soil tilth on much of the world's best farmland -- while carrying on intensive high-yield farming. For 10,000 years, man has accepted soil erosion as the long-term price for having a dependable food supply in the short run. In the U.S. alone, the Conservation 'Technology Information Center reports roughly 100 million acres using conservation tillage systems. The systems are continuing their rapid spread through such widely-differing agricultures as Western Europe, Brazil, Australia and Kenya. We are doing this with chemicals. Herbicides are the first alternative mankind has ever developed to "bare-earth" farming. These herbicide-based farming systems are the most sustainable farming Systems ever devised. They save more soil, even as they encourage more earthworms, more soil microbes and more soil tilth than plowing. Nor do the herbicides present any significant threat to wildlife or people from runoff or residues. (Atrazine, the most widely-used "suspicious" herbicide in the world has just had its safety rating raised seven-fold by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.) In addition, high-yield farmers are in the midst of developing "no-leach" farming. Tractors and applicator trucks for farm chemicals now can be guided by global positioning satellites and radar within inches of their true positions across the

field, while microprocessors vary the application rates of chemicals and seed seven times a second based on intensive soil sampling, soil hydrology, slope, plant population and nearness to waterways. It is now practical to manage our farms by the square yard, rather than in chunks of 10 or 100 hectares. High-yield farming must now claim environmental credit for both the acres not plowed. and for the soil erosion not suffered.

Further concessions of the embargo put Cuba organic ag at risk Barclay 03 [Eliza Barclay, “Cuba's security in fresh produce,” Food First, September 12th, 2003, pg. http://www.foodfirst.org/node/1208

Faced with the possibility of widespread starvation, the Cuban government foresaw that a full-scale mobilization of domestic resources, both human and natural, would be required in order to increase production to meet the demands of a

hungry populace. And with few options to import food given the stringency of the U.S. embargo , Cuba turned over a new leaf by converting almost entirely to an organic production system within 10 years.¶ Cuba's nationwide commitment to food self-sufficiency without reliance on chemical or mechanical technologies has borne some startlingly successful results, not only in terms of food production but also in the development of a more personalized food culture, woven deeply into patterns of

food consumption, nutrition, and community.¶ These trends, which many sustainable agriculture experts enthusiastically champion, also appear to be on the brink of a major confrontation with the powerful forces of the global market , from which Cuba was

virtually exempt until 2001, when U.S. policy toward agricultural exports to Cuba began to shift slightly . The strength of Cuba’s food security , with all its growing bureaucratic and market support, will inevitably be put to the test as small but increasing concessions are made to expand trade between Cuba and its closest potential trading partner, the United States.

Cuba has managed to conserve its environment because of seclusion from economic development – repealing the embargo would destroy its environmentDean 7 (Cornelia Dean, NYTimes, “Conserving Cuba, After the Embargo” December 25, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/science/25cuba.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

Through accidents of geography and history, Cuba is a priceless ecological resource. That is why many scientists are so worried about what will become of it after Fidel Castro and his associates leave power and, as is widely anticipated, the American government relaxes or ends its trade embargo.Cuba has avoided much environmental degradation in recent decades, but now hotel developments are seen extending into the water in Cayo Coco. More Photos >Cuba, by far the region’s largest island, sits at the confluence of the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Its mountains, forests, swamps, coasts and marine areas are rich in plants and animals, some seen nowhere else.And since the imposition of the embargo in 1962, and especially with the collapse in 1991 of the Soviet Union, its major economic patron, Cuba’s economy has stagnated.Cuba has not been free of development, including Soviet-style top-down agricultural and mining operations and, in recent years, an expansion of tourism. But it also has an abundance of landscapes that elsewhere in the region have been ripped up, paved over, poisoned or otherwise destroyed in the decades since the Cuban revolution, when development has been most intense. Once the embargo ends, the island could face a flood of investors from the United States and elsewhere, eager to exploit those landscapes.Conservationists, environmental lawyers and other experts, from Cuba and elsewhere, met last month in Cancún, Mexico, to discuss the island’s resources and how to continue to protect them.Cuba has done “what we should have done — identify your hot spots of biodiversity and set them aside,” said Oliver Houck, a professor of environmental law at Tulane University Law School who attended the conference.In the late 1990s, Mr. Houck was involved in an effort, financed in part by the MacArthur Foundation, to advise Cuban officials writing new environmental laws.

But, he said in an interview, “an invasion of U.S. consumerism, a U.S.-dominated future, could roll over it like a bulldozer” when the embargo ends.

Cuba is a keystone environment – the center of all biodiversity in the CaribbeanEDF 00 (Environmental Defense Fund, “Cuba, "Crown Jewel Of Caribbean Biodiversity," Threatened,” November 30, 2000, http://www.edf.org/news/cuba-crown-jewel-caribbean-biodiversity-threatened)

Our work in Cuba: A new era for ocean conservation Cuba has one of the Caribbean's most diverse marine environments, with massive reefs that exceed the Florida Keys and serve as spawning grounds for many species of fish. Environmental Defense scientists and attorneys and their Cuban colleagues are working to protect these marine treasures by reducing overfishing and helping design protected areas for marine life. In addition to publishing marine research and building education programs with Cuban scientists, Environmental Defense will co-sponsor the Fifth Cuban Marine Science Congress, December 4-8 in Havana. "Cuba is the Caribbean's biological crown jewel," said Environmental Defense scientist Dr. Ken Lindeman. "With over 3,000 miles of coastline and 4,200 islets and keys ? Cuba is literally teeming with marine and terrestrial treasures. Cuba is also at a historic crossroads: coastal development and overfishing have begun to damage these resources. Environmental Defense and our Cuban colleagues are working to ensure Cuba's resources are preserved for future generations." In December, 500 managers and scientists from Cuba and the rest of Latin America, North America and Europe will gather in Havana for the Fifth Cuban Marine Science Congress to present the latest research on marine conservation. Environmental Defense scientists and Cuban colleagues will present research on innovative designs for marine protected areas that can benefit local fishers. Environmental Defense experts also will present lessons learned in coastal protection along the US Atlantic coast, where water pollution, habitat destruction and overfishing also threaten marine life. "Cuba is the environmental keystone of the Caribbean. This conference is a crucial gathering of knowledge that can help preserve the marine treasures of the greater Caribbean for years to come," said Environmental Defense scientist Dr. Doug Rader.

Bio-D loss triggers every impact; famine, nuclear war, econ collapse, disease, climate change.Takacs 96 – Professor in Earth Systems Science & Policy at CSU Monterey Bay and consultant for Conservation International

and USAID (David, “The Idea of Biodiversity: Philosophies of Paradise”, 1996, < http://www.dhushara....s.htm>)//BeddowMore recently, Jane Lubchenco feels very strongly that   people are in fact much more dependent on ecosystem services that are provided by both managed and unmanaged ecosystems than is generally perceived to be the case. So I think it's sheer folly for us to act in ways that are undermining the ability of both managed and unmanaged ecosystems to provide these services that we're dependent on. And that we're doing that more and more as we pollute and destroy habitats, or alter habitats in one fashion or another. And I guess the bottom line is that we're changing the environment faster than our ability to understand the consequences of how we're changing it." Most predictions of eco-doom are predicated on this argument, and many are stated in much more dramatic terms than those Lubchenco employs. As the argument runs, a myriad of organisms, especially "little things," comprise ecosystems that provide countless services that keep the Earth's biotic and abiotic processes up and running.' According to Souls, "Many, if not all, ecological processes have   thresholds below and above which they become discontinuous, chaotic, or suspended." Biodiversity may regulate these processes; among its many talents, biodiversity is said to create soil and maintain its fertility, control global climate, inhibit agricultural pests, maintain atmospheric gas balances, process organic wastes, pollinate crops and flowers, and recycle nutrients.' Confusion in this line of argumentation ties back into why the concept of biodiversity has risen to prominence. Remember that biologists have scant understanding of the roles that species or populations play in maintaining ecosystems. In interviews, Lovejoy, Falk, and Ray confessed that you can strip away many species from an ecosystem without loss of ecosystem function. Ehrlich points out that by the time a species is endangered, it has probably stopped playing an important role in keeping the system functioning anyway." Furthermore, it is not clear whether we should focus on species as functional cogs in the ecosystem wheel, or whether ecological services are emergent properties of ecosystems themselves. With the biodiversity concept, these dilemmas become nearly moot. Biodiversity embraces lists of species, lists of ecosystems, the interactions of species within

ecosystems, and the processes that species may maintain or control. When arguing on behalf of bio-diversity, one need not focus on the specifics-specifically, the specifics of what we don't know. It is enough to explicate some of the functions that keep ecosystems running, or that ecosystems provide for us, and then extrapolate to the dangers associated with declining biodiversity. Peter Raven bases his thinking on Leopold's observation "To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering": "In every sense, in the sense of communities that will preserve soil, promote local climate, keep the atmosphere, preserve water, and everything else, the first rule of being able to put together communities well or have the world go on functioning well, or to keep climates as they are, or to retard disease, to produce products we want sustainably, be cause, after all, plants, algae, and photosynthetic bacteria are the only device we have to capture energy from the sun effectively-in all those senses, and in the sense that we're losing the parts so rapidly, I consider the loss of   biological diversity to be the most serious problem  that we have-far more serious than global climate change or stratospheric ozone depletion, or anything else." "Habitat destruction and conversion are eliminating species at such a frightening pace that extinction of many contemporary species and the systems they live in and support ... may   lead to ecological disaster   and severe alteration of the evolutionary process ," Terry Erwin writes." And E. 0. Wilson notes: "The question I am asked most frequently about the diversity of life: if enough species are extinguished, will the ecosystem collapse, and will the extinction of most other species follow soon afterward ? The only answer anyone can give is: possibly. By the time we find out, however, it might be too late. One planet, one experiment."" So   biodiversity keeps the world running . It has value in and for itself, as well as for us. Raven, Erwin, and Wilson oblige us to think about the value of biodiversity for our own lives. The Ehrlichs' rivet-popper trope makes this same point; by eliminating rivets, we play Russian roulette with global ecology and human futures: "It is likely that destruction of the rich complex of species in the Amazon basin could trigger rapid changes in global climate patterns.  Agriculture remains heavily dependent on stable climate , and human beings remain heavily dependent on food.  By the end of the century the extinction of perhaps a million species in the Amazon basin could have entrained famines in which a billion human beings perished. And if our species is very unlucky, the   famines could lead to a thermonuclear war, which could extinguish civilization."" Elsewhere, Ehrlich uses different particulars with no less drama: What then will happen if the current decimation of organic diversity continues? Crop yields will be more difficult  to maintain in the face of climatic change, soil erosion, loss of dependable water supplies, decline of pollinators, and ever more serious assaults by pests. Conversion of productive land to wasteland will accelerate;   deserts will continue their seemingly inexorable expansion .   Air pollution will increase, and local   climates will become harsher .   Humanity will have to forgo many of the direct economic benefits   it might have withdrawn from Earth's well stocked genetic library. It might, for example, miss out on a cure for cancer; but that will make little difference. As ecosystem services falter, mortality from respiratory and epidemic disease, natural disasters, and especially famine  will lower life expectancies to the point where can cer (largely a disease of the elderly) will be unimportant.   Humanity will bring upon itself consequences depressingly similar to those expected from a nuclear winter. Barring a nuclear conflict, it appears that civili zation will disappear some time before the end of the next century not with a bang but a whimper. 14 Stephen jay Gould presents an equally chilling picture. It is in our "enlightened self interest" to treat Mother Nature nicely: "We had better sign while she is still willing to make a deal. If we treat her nicely, she will keep us going for a while. If we scratch her, she will bleed, kick us out, bandage up, and go about her business at her planetary scale."" Nature is personified as a woman who cares not a whit about us; we, however, must value her supremely, as her biotic processes hold the key to our future. David Pimentel expresses this somewhat more soberly: "We can't have agriculture without these species, we can't have forestry without these species,   we can't live without these species , and that's the essential part. " Walter Rosen, Jane Lubchenco, and Gordon Orians offer similar arguments as in Orians's statement, "I'm very much concerned about preserving the capacity of living systems to provide the resources upon which a quality human life depends." Bryan Norton points out that since humans reside at the end of food chains, we surpass most other organisms in our vulnerability to extinction." Not only does biodiversity sustain us; it provides an "early warning system" that alerts us when it-and therefore humanity-may be in peril. Similarly, biodiversity is a "barometer of environmental health." According to Falk, endangered species are "meaningful primarily because they tell us where there is trouble. And not just geographically. They are excellent ways of spotting problems." Raven calls biodiversity "the key to the world's stability, in terms of the fact that rich biodiversity provides an index, a canary in the coal mine kind of thing, to the stability and healthiness of the world." Ehrlich ties his study organism to this way of thinking: "Butterflies are key indicator organisms for the health of ecosystems, systems that provide Homo sapiens with indispensable services without which civilization cannot persist."" These ecological-value arguments for biodiversity attempt to convey values much bigger than their spokespersons' individualistic preferences. Biodiversity keeps the world's ecology running, which in turn keeps human civilization running; or biodiversity is the ecological world in its entirety, which not only has immense value in itself, but also sustains humanity. Biodiversity's ecological value, therefore, looms inexpressibly large, virtually unknown, but incalculably important.¶