TUDS is the University of Tasmania's Debating Society. New members welcome! Ah, University. Inclusiveness and competition are promoted.
Aside from being a centre for the noble advancement of
knowledge and free enquiry, it also includes such varied pursuits as the odd barrel, inter-faculty rivalry, activism, inter-faculty barrels, debate, free barrels, societies, the scavenger hunt, and debate about barrels. Time-honoured activities like these are weaved into the fabric of any enjoyable and worthwhile university. They’re talked abo
ut years after by past students in memoirs, around dinner tables, over reunion drinks and are what classify university years as the best time of many people’s lives. This is why I believe UTas can step on the ancient battle of wits known as debating. Debating provides opportunity for expression, a platform to speak freely and passionately, together with the unexplainable feeling of elation when you’re party to brilliant rhetoric or destruction of opposing argument. Tales and conversation that will occur after the fact can also provide ultimate talking points between friends for future barrels. Consider that you don’t even need to actively participate in a debate to gain from it. Just watching a competition between peers can be entertainment enough. Better yet, witnessing opposing teams pick and ridicule each other may spur a want of involvement/popcorn.
“Time spent arguing is, oddly enough, almost never wasted” mused the
polarising Christopher Hitchens - himself and his peers having cut their teeth in the fabled Oxford Union, the ancient (but not invincible) debating society that has been, and still is, a training ground for the most charismatic of public figures. And also by which its students, along with Harvard’s, were beat in the international competition two years ago by Sydney University. This, then, is an activity which isn’t exclusive, and that can be attempted by anyone with a brain and mere interest. If Sydney can do it, we can do it. Foremost, this demonstrates the immense contribution that structured debate must bring to university life if it is the intellectual core of the most prestigious of universities and leaves such a mark on its students. We at UTas need to provide the occasion to prove to ourselves what we may already know, but just haven’t been able to show off to others here yet: How good we are at something we care about. So, - as said at one point in every movie ever – who' s with me?. By Lewis Ringwaldt (TUDS' modern founder)
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