The drug wars, or massacres, in Mexico seem interminable, and irresolvable. The subject of a recent (11 July) TIME magazine’s cover story, details about the nature and extent of the human cost accompanying this apparently ineradicable scourge of Mexican society are almost too horrific to register consciously. (I know what some readers will say: so […]
Bert Olivier
As an undergraduate student, Bert Olivier discovered Philosophy more or less by accident, but has never regretted it. Because Bert knew very little, Philosophy turned out to be right up his alley, as it were, because of Socrates's teaching, that the only thing we know with certainty, is how little we know. Armed with this 'docta ignorantia', Bert set out to teach students the value of questioning, and even found out that one could write cogently about it, which he did during the 1980s and '90s on a variety of subjects, including an opposition to apartheid. In addition to Philosophy, he has been teaching and writing on his other great loves, namely, nature, culture, the arts, architecture and literature. In the face of the many irrational actions on the part of people, and wanting to understand these, later on he branched out into Psychoanalysis and Social Theory as well, and because Philosophy cultivates in one a strong sense of justice, he has more recently been harnessing what little knowledge he has in intellectual opposition to the injustices brought about by the dominant economic system today, to wit, neoliberal capitalism. His motto is taken from Immanuel Kant's work: 'Sapere aude!' ('Dare to think for yourself!') In 2012 Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University conferred a Distinguished Professorship on him. Bert is attached to the University of the Free State as Honorary Professor of Philosophy.
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Desire, democracy and Deleuze/Guattari
Escaping for a while from the suffocating Turkish summer in a beautifully carpeted teashop in Istanbul near the Hagia Sophia, we marvel at the unbelievable flows of energy exuded by one of the most vibrant and variegated cities in the world. It is as if every nook and cranny of this metropolis of 13-million people […]
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Turkish delight
If at times, as Heidegger remarked, one forgets to be astonished at the very existence of the world, the the pulsating energy and sensory richness — to the point of overload — of Istanbul on the Bosphorus prompts one to remember to be astonished anew. Ten days in Istanbul, too much of it spent at […]
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The growing resistance to capitalist work
Here in Thessaloniki, Greece, where the international ISTP (International Society for Theoretical Psychology) Conference has just ended, delegates seemed strangely reluctant to abandon the discussions that have occupied them for a week. And not surprisingly, given the quality of the papers, a case in point being the keynote address by Professor Silvia Federici from New […]
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Protests in Greece
Thessaloniki is balmy and sunny, and my partner and I are enjoying our gyros and Mythos beer in the leafy shade of a sidewalk restaurant — an inexpensive and tasty way of surviving in this history-rich Mediterranean country. From where we sit, we can see the colossal statue of Alexander the Great on his steed, […]
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Cinema, the growth of credulity, and time
According to Paul Virilio, illusionists (or television magicians like David Copperfield not long ago) find it increasingly difficult to make their tricks appear convincing as something “magical”, …”not for want of skill, but because the field of public credulity has expanded considerably in recent years, keeping step, indeed, with the progress of the mass media” […]
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Gaming, simulation and killing
The recent killing of a seven-year-old girl by a teenage online gaming “addict” in Vietnam raises important and disturbing questions. From reports it is apparent that Mong The Xuong, 15, tempted Anh Nhu to accompany him into the woods near their northern Vietnamese village of Yen Hoa with the lure that they could pick fruit […]
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The abuse of political power
Power is abused, probably a million times a day, the world over. A man who abuses his bodily power to subjugate a woman for his (power) pleasure, or who abuses her economic dependence on him to get what he wants, are just some of these. Not that women cannot, or do not, abuse their (sexual) […]
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Of ancestors, shoot the boer and muti
A discourse analysis of utterances by members of the ANC yields interesting results. By discourse analysis here I mean an analysis of linguistic practices through a focus on the link between linguistic meaning and the power relations such linguistic practices serve. First, the ANC’s persistence in defending their right to sing the liberation song containing […]
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The ambiguity at the heart of the concept ‘liberal’
The history of politics, or of political struggle and political change, can at least partly be understood in light of the tension between two of the three constituent concepts comprising the battle cry of the French Revolution, triggered by the storming of the Bastille in 1789: “Liberty, equality, fraternity!” There is an irreducible tension between […]
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On UFOs and (psychogenic) perception
The recent declassification of previously secret documents by the FBI, and the availability of these on their so-called Vault website, have given the public access to, among others, the documents pertaining to the UFO “incident” at Roswell in the US, dating back to 1947. The incident in question involves, not merely sightings of “flying discs” […]
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Human health: On corporate (ir-)responsibility and manganese
Should the public tolerate instances of irresponsible behaviour on the part of corporations or companies where the handling of substances that are potentially harmful to human health is concerned? Most people would agree that the obvious answer is NO – especially judging by most of the responses to recent TL-articles on prospects of “fracking” for […]