Society should regret the common narrative of good triumphing over evil in children's entertainment

I'm modifying the structure this round. G&E = good and evil. Con's case is actually one large contention split into two pieces: an establishing link story + a continuation of that story with some semblance of an impact. There is no solid impact to take from either piece. Even if you agree with Con, all that does is tell you that his view of G&E is better, and that setting up good role models is good because more people can become good, which is good because it's good... which is circular reasoning. GTOE provides no clear benefit to society over the alternatives. If presenting a good role model is important, why not present G&E separately without requiring one to triumph over the other? Con talks about "just conflict," but never explains why it is beneficial to show to children. If good characters are all we care about, why not simply present good characters without evil? Why not have them triumph over non-moral problems that prevent them from achieving goodness? These would be much more relatable role models that wouldn't cause ego depletion because they would provide means for children to overcome these problems in real life. It also wouldn't require the creation of evil beings through creative media. Con argues that we shouldn't be creating evil, and yet his case he's defending GTOE, which requires the creation of evil so that it can be defeated. To triumph over something, it must exist, which means an artist must create said evil to have it be triumphed over; if this is the problem, i.e. that we should never intentionally create evil in any medium, then vote Pro right now. If evil is an ant-goal, and its creation "give[s] up any moral nature whatsoever", then by Con's own logic, the only way to move away from non-morality as a society and towards good is to regret GTOE for its creation of evil. On Con's C1, if a misunderstanding occurred, then the reason is probably because the quotes are so detached from his conclusions. The first Aristotle quote does establish what "the good" is, but the criteria of personal motive is exceedingly subjective. We are given no means for someone to objectively view another person pursuing a goal and determine their motives, and therefore no means to evaluate goodness objectively. Kant implies that there is some continuum for improvement by using "better" and not "good," yet Con has argued that, anyone with even a single goal that doesn't meet Con's definition of good is wholly evil. There are no incremental improvements; his views of G&E exist entirely in absolutes. I have shown that setting up the ideal of good actually functions against becoming better as the focus on the extremes actually precludes the process of betterment. Even if we can eventually reach that ultimate good, Con hasn't established that the least bit likely to happen. In the vast majority of cases, the pursuit of that ultimate good will come at the expense of any good. There is no betterment under Con's case, just despair and derision. The final Aristotle quote doesn't fit his view of G&E either. Aristotle ascribes baseness and nobility to individual actions and not just the overall direction of those actions (i.e. goals). Clearly, there is G&E in individual actions. Con even admits this: "Individual acts, taken in totality, are what make an individual good or evil." Yet Con gives us no means to assess those specific actions or to weigh them against a goal or one another. This is a gaping hole in Con's analysis that leaves G&E subjective for every single action. Con has also repeatedly dropped my evidence of root causes that prevent them from achieving goodness. With these thrown into the mix, Con's argument that free will governs G&E is upended, since we have no clear idea of whether external causes played a role in a given decision, which makes evil and non-moral indistinguishable. This renders the application of the terms subjective. On Con's C2, the fact that everyone can emulate these role models does not mean that they will, and the failure to fully emulate results in what is essentially just evil (i.e. lack of self-control to pursue any goal) without any of the mental resources to achieve good. Con argues that limited mental resources are irrelevant, yet they prevent people from seeking those goals, which means that they are "[t]hat which impedes virtue." This is evil from Con's perspective. Even if these factors relegate you to non-moral status, the fact that these preclude people from becoming good is itself harmful and unique to his case. Onto my contentions. Note that all of the evidence here is dropped, Con just tries to sever the link to his case. On creativity, Con's own analysis of what feeds into G&E means that they prescript practically every motivation and action we take. This encompasses a tremendous amount of character design, essentially turning every good character into carbon copies of each other. I contest that the movies Con mentions contain such a character, but in instances where it is used, it basically sets up the same role model time and time again without variation. That's a huge loss to creative influence. Con hasn't quantified a single one of his points. I've provided at least some means by which to assess the strength of my impacts: a maximum value lost and a metric to assess the value of increased CQs. Con solely mitigates these - he's never explained how CQs won't increase, or provided substantive harms to increased CQs. The closest he's gotten to the latter is some vague analysis regarding objective realities being portrayed and continuing to argue that creativity is not a pure good, though in both cases he fails to weigh the value or likelihood of these potential harms against the cited economic and societal values of increased CQs. It doesn't matter if I only engender a minute linear improvement to CQs. It at least has some quantification, even if it's difficult to assess just how much of that quantity is affected by GTOE. On real-world learning, Con focuses on perspective. Even if Con's perception of G&E are objectively true, that truth is never guaranteed to be accepted or understood. And of course it relates to the resolution: a common narrative can be and in this case most certainly is appropriated to fit individual worldviews. Con dropped my point that people perceive themselves as good based on their own standards for what goodness is, and the GTOE trope does at least one thing very well: it puts them in opposition to a perceived evil. Con hasn't countered the effects of that opposition, meaning that all of the harms of othering can be extended. Voters, you have two choices: you can either accept that G&E are subjective, which means that perception results in othering merely by means of personal perspective placing them in opposition to some "evil," or you can take Con's view that they are objective. If you do the latter, recognize that Con isn't just arguing what G&E are. He's arguing that the conflict of G&E should continue to be a common narrative, despite the evidence that such a stark, conflict-driven narrative is what pushes people to othering and dehumanization. All Con is doing is reinforcing the relegation of evil or non-moral people to a dehumanized status. Remember: we can both recognize that G&E are starkly defined and still regret GTOE because of what the emphasis on the superiority of good and the need to triumph over evil do to peoples' perceptions of each other. I ascribed a clear moral duty to society that Con basically drops. A society is composed of people. If those people come to harm, society is itself harmed. Society should thus endeavor to reduce harm to people. Diversity does directly link to increased creativity in society,[22] which adds to my C1, but the duty of a society to reduce clear harms to itself is enough. Con hasn't argued that othering isn't harmful or that it doesn't happen, so he drops the warrants that establish why society has a vested interest in regretting a narrative that furthers these harms. Con argues that subjectivity and duty are mutually exclusive. He's focused on the wrong part of my case. The impacts are what establish a duty, and those, by virtue of my evidence and Con's lack of rebuttal, are objective. I'm not ascribing a duty on the basis that G&E are subjective; I'm ascribing a duty based on the harms result from this on society, which are objective. And if G&E are objective, then GTOE is still clearly harmful regardless. Conclusion: This is an on-balance debate, and as Con explained, we have to be able to weigh arguments objectively and in some quantifiable manner. He's got two impacts: upholding his "objective" reality, and good role models generated by GTOE specifically. We have no reason to believe that any substitute for GTOE is worse; in fact, merely removing the "TOE" part appears to be beneficial, since it doesn't require the creation of evil or othering. But even if there's some good in GTOE, there's no substance to any of his impacts. There's no way to determine how many people become good as a result of GTOE existing, we have no way to evaluate the effects of that increased goodness on society, and we have every reason to believe the role models it creates do substantial harm. He has nothing quantifiable and objectively evaluable. I do. The value of higher CQs are at least quantifiable within a range, and we can measure economic and intellectual effects. We can observe and measure the effects of hatred and suffering, and evaluate the importance of these impacts for society. Those impacts establish substantial harms to society that, in turn, establish a duty to address those harms. Society has an obligation to its people to reduce the overall harms it faces, and GTOE undoubtedly causes more harm than good. Thus, society ought to regret its preponderance in children's media, where it is doing the most harm to the most vulnerable minds. Vote Pro. 22. http://bit.ly...