Our People

'Eloquentia perfecta'

Riverview debating dinner 2003

By Most Rev. Anthony Fisher OP
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
23 September 2003

Father Rector, Headmaster, Parents, Coaches, Friends and Outstanding Debaters: Might I begin by thanking you for the great privilege of being part of this celebration of the Riverview debating year 2003.

My first official activity as a bishop – in fact as a bishop-elect – was a debate in the Great Hall of the University of Sydney on the issue of euthanasia with Dr Philip Nitschke. There were about a thousand students there and, though I was rather nervous about it before hand, I think the debate went very well. By the end most of the students had their doubts about euthanasia or were opposed to it altogether. That, it seems to me, was debating put to the service of questioning and informing, pursuing and teaching the truth, on a major social question. Debating at the service of life and love. I remember thinking at the time how well my debating days at Riverview – more than a quarter of a century ago – were in some sense a preparation for that day in the Great Hall. And so I want tonight to thank the College for all it gave me in my years here and especially to pay tribute to the great gift that ‘the Riverview debating experience' was for me.

Riverview's record in debating is, of course, extraordinary. We know that, for the past four decades at least, Riverview has almost always won the senior championships it has entered. It is known, amongst other things, as Australia's greatest debating school. Debating's profile within the school has also risen enormously in those past few decades. Yet it has always been a feature of the college: its oldest extra-curricular activity, the debating club (‘SICDS') was founded by, at the latest, 1881.

Why does debating matter so much here at Riverview? One answer might be: we like winning; winning, frankly, is a buzz, both for the winners themselves (you boys celebrating here tonight) and those who can share in their glory (the rest of us). That's not such a bad thing. But I think there is more to it than that.

That something more – more Christian and Jesuit– has been articulated in the words and practices of SICDS ‘Presidents' and ‘members' (coaches and debaters) for 122 years now. They have spoken about giving students that command of language which is the prerequisite to thinking, the ability to organise knowledge in a workable form, the eloquence to communicate it effectively and in due course, the confidence to bring all that to their Christian and professional lives. The ‘more' which is at stake here than merely winning shields such as those which grace this parlour tonight is the Jesuit ideal of all-round, humanistic education and the Christian reverence for Truth and the Word which expresses it and the One who speaks the Word that tells the Truth.

The Jesuit Ratio Studiorum which was in place at time the College was founded encouraged the study and practice of rhetoric. It outlined four principles which the speeches we have heard tonight have demonstrated are still very much at the heart of SIC debating over a century later:

• The debater shall defend his view in such a way as to allow moderate and kindly consideration of the opposing view;
• He shall not being forward any views which are useless, antiquated, absurd, or patently false;
• He shall strive to prove his conclusions not by the number of his arguments but by their effectiveness; and
• He shall quote authorities only sparingly and always accurately.

Those four principles alone indicate that from the start much more was at stake in the practice of debating here at Riverview than winning; more, even, than the acquisition of skills and the multiplication of achievements. A good pickpocket has skills and achievements in a sense. We can admire his technique and impishly delight in his achievements, at least when it is ‘the filthy rich' (people other than us) who are fleeced. But skills and achievements such as these are not enough to make a man admirable.

Clearly the Society of Jesus aspired to more for their boys than that they be ‘used-car salesmen' (in the pejorative sense) or false advertisers, sophists who could take the part of any lie and present it so persuasively that all present would readily follow it. No: the Society expected ‘moderation', ‘consideration', ‘truthfulness', ‘relevance', ‘good argument'.

Fr John Ryan, the founder of SICDS, wrote in 1883 after one debate (on whether the Middle Ages are justly termed ‘dark') that not all speeches are equally good: one boy had “made a speech which caused the whole club to almost burst its sides with laughter, not so much on account of the wit it contained as on account of the foolishness of his statements”. The students, it seems, appreciated good argument. Likewise, in the 1890s, when Fr Edward Masterton exhorted the student audience at a debate to vote against the wicked Napoleon for divorcing his wife, the boys voted in favour , not just out of a typical Australian attitude to the authority of priests but because they thought the arguments presented for Napoleon were the stronger! Eloquentia perfecta, as Riverview's greatest debating coach Fr Charles McDonald sj , wrote, is “the ability to think worthwhile thoughts and express them effectively” – not the ability to offer people mirages or to sell them glib half-truths or to play mind-games or word-games with them.

Yet that centuries-old ideal might seem rather alien to our tolerant, relativist, nihilist world, strange to an age which has made meaninglessness into a major philosophy (‘deconstruction'), into an art-form (‘punk') and into a culture (‘post-modernism'). Ours is in some ways an age of Pilate's “Truth: what is that?” We lack confidence in our ability to discern and articulate reality: all is image, perspective, opinion. What is more, we fear those who talk or act as if they know the truth. Such people can seem to us naïve at best, dangerous at worst. They can be fanatics, despots, ready to thrust their views down our necks.

Yet the SICDS has for twelve decades been convinced that the passions and skills for truth-finding and truth-communicating are worth attaining. And those twelve decades have surely proved them right. For those same years have demonstrated in Nazism, Communism and whole systems of propaganda the terrible power of lies to kill and maim. They have witnessed the power of commercial lies like false advertising and tax-evasion and credit-beyond-our-means; of political lies like economic pragmatism and all-for-the-sake-of-the-party; of social lies like freedom from morality and self-fulfilment through always getting your own way. Lies like the promise of happiness through infidelity in relationships, through aborting our babies, through abandoning our unemployed and elderly, through excluding the refugee and stranger, through war with our enemies, through self-protection and self-indulgence of a thousand different kinds.

The truth which debating seeks to find and articulate has enormous potential to liberate people from such falsehood, superstition and fear. From the mirages created by various interests, like government, commerce, culture. From the illusions we create for ourselves whether they are about us or about our world. Truth dis-illusions, without making us cynical. It releases the heart from unnecessary anxiety. It heals inauthenticity, that division of heart which is so corrupting. Truth, then, is both radically humanizing and wonderfully divinizing. As Charles McDonald argued, debating can teach us both tolerance and conviction, by inviting us to step beyond our prejudices, to extend our horizons, to see the truth on all sides of an argument and then – and only then – to pursue, with humility and integrity, those arguments which are strongest and most incisive.

When debating here at Riverview for years, then coaching debating, and then writing up its centennial history, I was pressed to reflect upon what it was all for. Was it just about winning tropheys and admiration, applause and self-esteem? Those are fun of course, though they do not count for all that much in the long run. Debating, Riverview style, has to be about more than linguistic pickpocketing. And so I invite you young men tonight to reflect upon what you will do with the skills and experience that debating at Riverview has given you.

I travelled the country and the world through debating. I entered the noble profession of law in a large part because of debating. I joined the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) in a significant part because of my desire to put my debating skills and experiences to some higher end. Above all I learnt to think and speak well through debating and I will be eternally grateful to this College and to men such as Fr McDonald for that opportunity.

In the end his challenge, the challenge of St Ignatius himself and of his College to you young men tonight is this: is it eloquentia perfecta you have learnt? Or something less worthy? Are they worthwhile thoughts you will have and communicate to our world? Will you put those gifts to building up of God's kingdom on earth?

If I may speak on behalf of the past 122 years of Riverview debaters and certainly on my own behalf, may I congratulate you boys, and your parents and coaches and the whole of the College, on your remarkable achievements. We debaters who have gone before you are very proud of you indeed and not just because of the past you are joining but because of the great promise you hold out for the future. Thanks be to God for you. God bless you.