The late Black Management Forum president and Order of the Baobab recipient is missed, but leaves a legacy
ethics
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, Gender violence, General, Health, Media, Tech
Human ‘nature’ as explored in a riveting television series: ‘The 100’
The question, what is dominant, human ‘nature’, or ‘nurture’ (culture), has been the motivating force in a debate that has waged since at least the 18th and 19th centuries — for instance in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (see his prize-winning Academy of Dijon essay on the question, whether human morals had improved by, or […]
Posted inGeneral, Health, Media
Season 2 of True Detective — A ‘noir’ reflection of our broken society?
When the first season of True Detective was broadcast — with Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey as two detectives out to solve a case that seemed intractable in the extreme, with a gritty cinematic style and refusal to compromise itself for the sake of satisfying the usual Hollywood saccharine, sentimentalist demands regarding plot structure — […]
Posted inEquality, Health
An open critique of the Nieuwoudt et al (2019) study on coloured women
By the Division for Research & Methodology (DRM) The Psychological Society of South Africa’s (PsySSA) Division for Research and Methodology (DRM) is committed to the teaching, practice and promotion of relevant, appropriate and ethical scientific research in South Africa. We are disturbed by and strongly opposed to the practice of misusing racial classification in scientific […]
Posted inGender violence, General, Media, News/Politics, Tech
‘Dark technology’ and human ‘nature’ or ‘nurture’?
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 […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, General
Educational disparities at an international level
For some time now, it has been the case that internationalisation of education cannot be separated from globalisation as a multifaceted phenomenon. This inevitably raises the question of whether such globalisation, especially given its inseparability from advanced (electronic) communicational developments (partly as a means to the sharing of knowledge and, unavoidably, economic prosperity), is judged […]
Posted inGeneral
Ethics always comes too late for power
If there is one lesson I have learned from Foucault, it is this: Ethics always comes too late for power. What I mean by this is that human beings – even philosophers – have a tendency to rationalise, in ethical or moral terms, about the actual decisions and choices one makes in the world, and […]
Posted inBusiness, General, News/Politics
Step on the corruption scale
By Abuti Rams Say you were to step on the “corruption scale”, how much do you think you would weigh? Just like most people, I have a problem with corruption in its diverse forms. In recent years, most of our media reporting has exposed corruption on all levels of government (be it local, provincial or […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Bribery, the real costs
By Anthea Paelo The other day the taxi I was riding in was stopped by a policeman. Not an unusual event in itself. Neither was the exchange of money that happened afterwards. What was strange, at least for me, was the policeman’s method of request. Upon stopping the taxi, he did not bother to pretend […]
Posted inHealth, News/Politics
Is the timing of Madiba’s passing an ANC political strategy?
I thought I’d said my last on the sad topic of Madiba’s illness. Tofolux would have certainly been pleased, as both my last two posts dealing with Madiba clearly upset him/her. But it was not Tofolux’s comment that got my attention. That honour belongs to BillyC, whose comment I initially disregarded as being impossible. It […]
Posted inEquality, Health, News/Politics
Has Mandela’s medical treatment created a bad precedent?
If Madiba is recovering in a manner consistent with the public announcements of being able to go home “soon” I will be the first to admit that my expectation that his days were severely numbered was wrong, and be very pleased that I was. Because it really did not sound good. Being “critical but stable” […]
Posted inGeneral
The network: Towards a new way of life
In his insightful study of ancient philosophy, Philosophy as a Way of Life (Blackwell, 1995), Pierre Hadot disabuses one of the notion that philosophy was for the ancients what it has become in modernity (and postmodernity) since Kant, namely a specialised theoretical practice. Rather, he argues — citing many passages from ancient philosophers during the […]