Thought Leader

‘Dark technology’ and human ‘nature’ or ‘nurture’?

5 January 2019 Bert Olivier

In the later 19th century there was a protracted debate among thinkers of various stripes about the question, what ultimately determines human actions — ‘nature’ or ‘nurture’ — a debate that is still going on today. But while it was then influenced by the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin, on the one hand, and empiricist…

comments (0)

| views (1865)

What parents can do to make up for gaps in our basic education?

5 January 2019 Mandela Rhodes Scholars

By Lehlohonolo Mofokeng Here is a reality many of us do not want to talk about: our basic education encourages surface learning than deep learning. One of the reasons I encourage my learners to enter for Accounting Olympiads is to show them that our content is weak; by consequence, disadvantages them when they enrol at…

comments (0)

| views (1814)

‘Ubuhle bendoda, izinkomozakhe’ and the trouble with paying lobolo

27 December 2018 Psychological Society of South Africa

By Refiloe Makama “Men are never ugly”. Nnu Ego makes this statement in Buchi Emecheta’s novel, The Joys of Motherhood, set during the colonial period in Nigeria. In a scene between two friends, the protagonist Nnu Ego had recently lost her first child, and Ato, her childhood friend comes to comfort her. In a memorable moment,…

comments (0)

| views (1859)

People are not as free as they think they are

24 December 2018 Bert Olivier

Some (older) people may recall the 1983 Warner Brothers mockumentary, Zelig, written by, and starring Woody Allen, together with Mia Farrow as the psychiatrist who treats him for his strange disorder. Lately I have been thinking a lot about this classic portrayal of conformism on the part of a man who manifested his adaptation to…

comments (0)

| views (2469)

Being Cuban and black in post-apartheid South Africa

21 December 2018 Psychological Society of South Africa

By Sol Maria Fernandez Knight Growing up, my mother always told me that I was a special child. But then again many parents want their children to feel unique and valuable, to instill a sense of pride in their identity, and to remind them of their heritage. As a child I did not think how being…

comments (0)

| views (1801)

A world in need of redemption

16 December 2018 Bert Olivier

This morning my two sons and I were having a texting exchange on Skype, while all of us were on our computers and online for various reasons — I was working and chatting to them in-between reading a PhD-student’s latest chapter of his thesis, and at least one of them was working while chatting too….

comments (0)

| views (2238)

‘Pictures at an Exhibition:’ Mussorgsky, painting and Virilio’s ‘grey ecology’

3 December 2018 Bert Olivier

In my previous post, I pondered the work of Paul Virilio on the ‘accelerated’ lives we lead in the early 21st century, and tried to explain what this has to do with the never-ending stream of images bombarding one on a daily basis. What I did not have space to do, was to draw attention…

comments (0)

| views (2979)