Food for Thought | Denstone College | Staffordshire

‘Red Beef and Strong Beer’: The Famous Denstone Discussion Club

The author C. S. Lewis, in his autobiography, describes his first meeting with a teacher (William Kirkpatrick, nicknamed Kirk or The Great Knock) who was to have a formative influence on his life, his outlook and his whole system of philosophy:

‘A few minutes later we were walking away from the station.
[…] I began to "make conversation" in the deplorable manner which I had acquired at those evening parties and indeed found increasingly necessary to use with my father. I said I was surprised at the "scenery" of Surrey; it was much "wilder" than I had expected.

"Stop!" shouted Kirk with a suddenness that made me jump. "What do you mean by wildness and what grounds had you for not expecting it?"

I replied I don't know what, still "making conversation". As answer after answer was torn to shreds it at last dawned upon me that he really wanted to know. He was not making conversation, nor joking, nor snubbing me; he wanted to know. I was stung into attempting a real answer. A few passes sufficed to show that I had no clear and distinct idea corresponding to the word "wildness", and that, in so far as I had any idea at all, "wildness" was a singularly inept word.

"Do you not see, then," concluded the Great Knock, "that your remark was meaningless?"
I prepared to sulk a little, assuming that the subject would now be dropped. Never was I more mistaken in my life. Having analysed my terms, Kirk was proceeding to deal with my proposition as a whole. On what had I based (but he pronounced it baized) my expectations about the Flora and Geology of Surrey? Was it maps, or photographs, or books? I could produce none. It had, heaven help me, never occurred to me that what I called my thoughts needed to be "baized" on anything. Kirk once more drew a conclusion – without the slightest sign of emotion, but equally without the slightest concession to what I thought good manners: "Do you not see, then, that you had no right to have any opinion whatever on the subject?"’
Lewis concludes that, ‘Some boys would not have liked it; to me it was red beef and strong beer.’

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the founding of Denstone’s Discussion Club, now famous with a generation of ODs. Discussion Dinners are held twice a term for invited Sixth Formers, and they are designed to give us a chance to indulge in exactly the sort of intellectual ‘red beef and strong beer’ that Lewis describes above: the thorough but friendly dissection, interrogation and rebuttal of ideas. Over a delicious three-course meal, and perhaps a glass or two of the fruit of the vine, we while away a long evening in the old Pavilion, tearing each other’s arguments to shreds – in the most good-natured way possible (spoiler alert: not always very possible). The Club’s motto is ‘sermunculus prohibitus’: no chitchat! It is a reminder announced to the assembled diners at every meeting, as a sort of admonitory grace before we tuck into our starters.

Another rule at Discussion Dinners is that it is entirely permissible, indeed encouraged, to argue strongly in favour of positions that you do not, in fact, hold, in order to  foster a vibrant argument – and, as a corollary, it is not the form to assume that anyone really believes any of the outrageous arguments they may be positing during the evening: in fact, the evening is one gigantic game of Devil’s Advocate, one of the most important strands in our Food for Thought programme. It is also entirely permissible to change your position over the course of an argument: either because you have genuinely changed your mind, or because you want to come to the defence of a comrade who is having the worst of an exchange.

The underlying ethos of Discussion Club is that there is almost no intellectual position for which it is impossible to construct an at least quasi-rational argument. A number of diner-combatants over the years have come a cropper by beginning a statement with the phrase, ‘You can’t believe that…’, only to be howled down by a group of students or teachers only too willing to defend such a belief, even if only as credible, rather than actually true. People believe all kinds of different and remarkable things, and almost all of them at least believe that they have some sort of rational grounds for thinking so.

Equally, however, another common expression in use at Discussion Dinners is, ‘How do you know that?’ Or ‘Prove that claim!’ I think The Great Knock would have fitted in well. We live in a world increasingly, in my opinion, led by blaggers and populated by those only too happy to be blagged. There is, admittedly, a profound joy in bursting a blagger’s bubble – but it is not mere schadenfreude. Since the Ancient Greeks, the vital, civilisational importance of identifying sophistry has been central to a democratic system actually working. Perhaps, as a society, we would be better governed if as individuals we were better at calling B… – well, let’s just say ‘Balderdash!’

As a special celebration of ten years of the Denstone Discussion Club, we plan this Summer Term to host a reunion dinner for ODs who have been involved with Discussion Dinners in the past: invitations for expressions of interest have recently been sent out and replies are beginning to come in. I look forward to introducing our current Sixth Form members to some of their ancestors in argument, and reigniting some old debates across the Denstone generations. No chitchat!