In Leonard Shlain’s wonderful book, Sex, Time and Power (2003), he makes the following observation: “Our ancestors would … bring about the greatest mass extinction of large animals since the dinosaurs abruptly disappeared 65-million years ago. Through their ever burgeoning technological prowess, humans would plant crops, tend herds, invent writing, build the Parthenon, discover gunpowder, […]
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.
Posted inGeneral
‘There’s something wrong with this picture’
When I was reading some of the responses to my previous post, I had the distinct impression that people who regularly refer to capitalism’s ostensibly inevitable capacity to enrich everyone, without exception, have in mind a formula which seems to operate in a vacuum, where the generation of income by one automatically leads to the […]
Posted inGeneral
Greek crisis a window to the future
In a Time article on the worrying debt situation in Greece — and the wider implications this has for Europe and the world — Nicole Itano, Lisa Abend and Michael Schuman observe that: “Perhaps the biggest worry of all is the chance that the Greek crisis is a window into the future of the entire […]
Posted inGeneral
Lacan’s theory of discourse
A commentator on one of my recent posts on discourse asked a question about the discourse analysis of capitalism. Lacan had something interesting to say about that — he remarked that the discourse of the capitalist is the “cleverest discourse” ever devised by humans. One may wonder why, but it is only when one has […]
Posted inGeneral
How people allow themselves to be spoken by discourse
I have noticed that some readers — probably more than meets the eye — have difficulty understanding what is meant by the notion that one is “spoken” or “constructed” by discourse. A concrete example of how this happens may clarify things somewhat. Some time ago, as part of a discourse-analysis project with other members of […]
Posted inGeneral
The need to resist being ‘constructed’ by divisive discourses
One often gets the impression that what is known as social constructionism has won the day, in so far as people seem to be slaves to the belief that everyone is conclusively “constructed” — that is, “determined” — by the cultural practices and beliefs they have adopted in the course of growing up. This is […]
Posted inGeneral
Che
Recently I was fortunate to see Steven Soderbergh’s two-part film on Ernesto “Che” Guevara, respectively titled The Argentine and Guerrilla, which debuted at the 2008 Cannes film festival, to mixed reviews. I say “fortunate” for two reasons — first, it is a splendid, documentary-style film-duo which corresponds, as far as I am able to ascertain, […]
Posted inGeneral
‘Generation next’
Some people believe that things never really change in society — there are several proverbs which attest to this deep-seated belief, such as: “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” This is not true, of course — there was a fundamental change in the transition from the ancient Greek and Roman world […]
Posted inGeneral
The French masters of cinema
Why is French film important? Not only because the French, such as Auguste and Louis Lumiére — who invented the cinématographe — and Alice Guy Blaché were among the pioneers of film technology, but because as film directors and film actors/actresses, not to mention theoreticians of cinema, they have made a lasting and very influential […]
Posted inGeneral
Our complex, changing world
In his magisterial work, Modern European Thought, Franklin Baumer alludes to the “three blows” that humanity (one could also say “the human ego”) has suffered since the end of the European Middle Ages. First, Copernicus delivered the blow that dethroned humanity as the “crown of creation”, with his mathematical-astronomical claim that we are not at […]
Posted inGeneral
Leonard Cohen: Singer extraordinaire
Nietzsche once remarked that life would be “aimless” (a confused “getting lost”) without music. There are many instances of musical performance that attest to the accuracy of this insight, and among these one must certainly count the music of Leonard Cohen. I can hardly imagine that fans of the man who “was born with the […]
Posted inGeneral
Arts, literature integral to a child’s development
The recent South African matric results are no cause for celebration — that much is clear. The question is: what should be done to improve them, assuming that this can be done without dropping intellectual standards so drastically that the description “improved results” would be meaningless. An improvement in the quality of teaching would certainly […]