With virtually all my colleagues shaking in their boots, so to speak, in the face of an impending double audit at our university this year — one internal, in preparation for the other, external one, later in the year — and my own instinctive as well as not-so-instinctive (philosophically informed) response being one of immediate […]
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
Naomi Klein on disaster capitalism
Naomi Klein’s recently published book The Shock Doctrine is itself a shocking revelation of the cynicism underpinning the relentless manner in which what she calls “disaster capitalism” opportunistically (mis-)uses various kinds of collective disorientation to establish new “markets”. Behind all of this lurk the economic theories of Milton Friedman — once discredited in the US, […]
Posted inBusiness
Private healthcare, or health-needs exploitation?
The recent announcement by private healthcare groups (Netcare, Medi-Clinic and others) that their ward and theatre fees would rise considerably (between 8% and 33%) this year — drawing the response from the Registrar of Medical Schemes that they would be taken to the Competition Commission if they could not explain why these increases are necessary, […]
Posted inGeneral
Another step into the 21st century
Towards the end of 1999, Time magazine published a special edition that looked ahead to the new millennium. Among others, it contained an article that summarised the projections of a variety of thinkers, writers and scientists approached by Time for their considered prognoses and expectations concerning the new millennium.
Posted inGeneral
Theory and practice
In a previous posting (The critical task of universities) I wrote about, among other things, the society-critical task of universities, as well as the place of teaching and research at such institutions. Unsurprisingly, it has elicited a negative comment aimed at exposing what my critic saw as the hollowness of “theory”
Posted inGeneral
The critical task of universities
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the educational task of universities is fundamentally twofold: first, to train and prepare students for a specific profession, or at least to develop capacities and skills on their part with the purpose of enabling them to play a constructive role in a country’s economy — as the […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Alea iacta est …
Now that the die has been cast — a predictable roll of the dice, mind you — all South Africans who care about their and the country’s future no doubt have something on their minds. For some, this assumes the form, mainly, of misgivings; for others, especially the poor, of hope. And if the impression […]
Posted inGeneral
What makes a leader?
Leadership is an elusive quality, associated, at times, with different, even contradictory qualities. In a patriarchal context, people often seem to attribute personal traits such as conspicuous “strength”, authoritativeness and decisiveness (to the point of peremptoriness) to a leader — qualities that could easily be perverted into dictatorship, not only by the leaders in question, […]
Posted inBusiness
Neo-what?
I was quite surprised that so many commentators on my previous piece “A shift of emphasis?” focused, to a large extent, not on my argument concerning the likely reasons for the ostensible shift away from support for Mbeki towards favouring Zuma, but on the meaning of the concept “neoliberal economics”, for the use of which […]
Posted inGeneral
Violence in South Africa: A psychoanalytical perspective
Violence and crime are ubiquitous in South Africa today. Nevertheless, few of the many discussion programmes or media commentaries succeed in providing an illuminating perspective on it. By contrast, Johann Rossouw’s use of the three structuring societal spheres — the religious, political and economic — that occupy different positions of dominance and subordination in different […]
Posted inGeneral
A shift of emphasis?
The neoliberal economic option, in conjunction with a liberal-democratic political practice, appears to have been the direction in which the ANC government under the leadership of Thabo Mbeki has been going for some time. In my own view, this is probably the reason why, judging by the nominations of candidates for leadership positions within the […]
Posted inMedia, Tech
The changing face of identity
In her fascinating and important study Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (1995), Sherry Turkle — professor of the sociology of science at MIT (at the time) and cyber-psychoanalytical theorist — explores the social and psychological effects of the internet on its users. One of her startling findings is that […]