The Opening Speech

This year [2024] more than one half of the globe’s population go to the polls. In more than 64 countries, great swathes of people will be asked variations of one, eternal question: what do you think?
This is not an easy question. It is a very difficult thing to hold an idea, and to handle it properly.
Imagine shopping at a market. You may have heard of this market, it’s the marketplace of ideas, where discerning shoppers may inspect all the world’s opinions and choose some to take home with them.
Now I know what sort of people you are: into your basket you immediately add a healthy splash of individual liberty. So far, so good. In the next aisle, perhaps you spot a box of Keynesian economics and it makes sense to you - so into the basket it goes. And so on. Each shopper makes their choices, and each shopper adds ideas into their basket one by one: democracy, the rule of law, maybe a flirtation with universal basic income - and oh, you surprise yourself with a taste for tax breaks - but you do rather like generous arts funding - but you don’t care about the BBC - but you voted Remain - but you don’t hate Donald Trump - but…
Suddenly, the ideas in your trolley begin fighting amongst themselves. They don’t seem to form a pattern in the way you flattered yourself into thinking they would. And now the other shoppers start giving you very strange looks and telling you that you’re wrong, you’re out of fashion, and that such and such heroes of yours would be rolling in their graves at the sight of you.
The situation suddenly seems a bit stressful. You’ve lost the shopping list you started with, the buyer’s guides all seem to conflict with each other and with themselves - and the supermarket keeps changing which ideas are on the front shelves. What a palaver.
Like any other market, there is a price to pay.
For most people, it is easier to leave the basket empty. I don’t blame them; I get it. It requires practice, patience and finesse to properly discover, consider, and defend the opinions we come across - and that is a fact we don’t acknowledge often enough.
But to labour this metaphor far beyond its sell-by date, we’ll all go hungry if we leave our baskets empty. We must build ourselves up to the task, rather than run away from it.
The Sevenoaks Debating Society is a training ground, a forum, and a social club all in one. There are three golden goals enshrined at its core:

1. to share ideas;
2. to practice articulating those ideas; and
3. to forge friendships across the aisles.

It has never been more important to have earnest conversations - live, and in person. To put to the test our unspoken ideas, to carry out the hard work of thought and free expression, and to address the world as it must be addressed, with wit, conviction, and a sincerity which in our times is now rarely seen.
Today, the prime minister’s independent adviser on social cohesion, Dame Sara Khan, reported that three quarters of people are self-censoring because they fear harassment. I intend to oppose this trend to the bitter and glorious end and hope you’ll join me.
This society is a clearing in the forest. I cannot say what strangers we’ll meet and become - but our lives will be more rich and storied because of them.
I admire you all, and I salute you all. Godspeed.
James Bruce, Founder