Bert Olivier

The recent turmoil on financial markets has put the spotlight on a certain kind of capitalism, which is driven by the so-called “free” market, and judging by government responses from the US to Europe and Britain, there seems to be an emerging consensus that this greed-driven sector is unlikely to be left to its own […]

Fortunately, even at times when world events seem to point unequivocally to human qualities that are less than admirable – such as ineradicable greed, a craving for power at the cost of others, and so on – one comes across something which functions as a reminder that humans are also, simultaneously, capable of creating something […]

With the whole country agog in the face of the rumblings within (and without) the ruling party, I thought I should write on something else, lest the party in question come to the erroneous conclusion that it is the only thing worth writing about, which it certainly is not. In fact, every time, lately, that […]

Recent events in South Africa have resurrected the age-old question of democracy. What is it? What does it mean to say, ever so glibly, that democracy is ‘the rule of the people’? Putting it that way does not necessarily mean ‘the rule of the people by the people’, but could easily reflect a docile kind […]

In ‘Truth and power’ (1980), Michel Foucault elaborates on different kinds of intellectuals – the ‘universal’ and ‘specific’ intellectual, respectively – in the context of the question regarding the political status of science and its potential ideological functions, especially within universities. The issues raised by this are summed up by Foucault in ‘two words: power […]

Recently there have been a number of discussions/debates in the media on the role of ‘intellectuals’ in relation to politics, or more specifically, politicians. One of the things that gave rise to these discussions appears to have been the information, that African-American philosopher, Cornel West, has been acting in an advisory capacity to Democratic Party […]

The term ‘revolt’ is usually given a broadly political meaning, related to ‘revolution’ and ‘rebellion’. In the work of Julia Kristeva it is radicalised, however, and shown to be integral to the lives of all people who can claim to be autonomous ethical beings. This may not be immediately apparent, but the following excerpt from […]

Julia Kristeva is a very original thinker. This Bulgarian-born, French-educated philosopher, practising psychoanalyst and novelist has contributed to humans’ self-understanding in many different ways, not least with her concept of the “abject”. It was first proposed to explain something that may appear to some to be a lacuna in Lacan’s account of the emergence of […]

In his gripping historical novel on the life and times of Alcibiades of Athens, Tides of War (2000), Steven Pressfield recounts a speech given by the Spartan general Lysander — one among many historical events that shaped the course of the outcome of the decades-long Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta. In his address to […]

Through my son, who is as much of a science fiction aficionado as I am, I recently discovered the Terminator movie spin-off television series, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which apparently had to be “terminated” temporarily, after nine episodes, because of the film and television-writers’ strike in Hollywood. Watching the series develop the theme of a […]

Leonard Shlain has done it again: in a probing and wide-ranging study, Sex, Time and Power (2003) — which probes even deeper into the origins of patriarchy than his earlier The Alphabet Versus the Goddess (1998) — he sets out to answer the question he had posed to a medical doctor (instructor) during his medical […]