THERE are at least two kinds of homophobes. There are violent, conservative homophobes and non- violent, progressive ones. We tend to use the label “homophobia” mostly in relation to violent prejudice against gay men and women. So unless a lesbian is raped to “correct” her sexual preferences or unless Jon Qwelane spreads hate speech in a column, we ease back into what we believe are benign conservative views.
Homophobia is in fact common even among self-confessed progressives, including those most vehemently criticising Qwelane’s reported appointment as our next high commissioner to that human rights-averse outpost of Uganda. Make no mistake, Qwelane is a homophobe and his pending appointment is a moral and political blunder. However, I want to out progressive homophobes who pretend they are liberal because, well, some of their best friends are gay.
A progressive homophobe is someone who thinks Qwelane should be allowed to hold his hateful views and be assessed on mysterious other qualities for his fitness to be a diplomat. The progressive homophobe claims it would be against the spirit of liberal pluralism to bar someone from representing SA just because he hates gay people.
Some of my best friends and media colleagues are progressive homophobes. Unlike President Jacob Zuma , they would not have klapped a gay person when they were younger. Unlike Qwelane, they would never compare gays with dogs and pigs. And so, because they stop short of the abuse perpetrated by their brethren, they imagine themselves to be progressive and rather “nuanced” in their disagreement with others who think Qwelane’s beliefs should disqualify him from diplomatic posting.
This is all pseudo-intellectual nonsense. The reality is that progressive homophobes believe in a hierarchy of discrimination. Some forms of discrimination — typically, racial discrimination — are more serious than others, such as homophobia or ageism.
The reason is simple. We care more about issues that affect our own personal interests and identities than those that affect those who are different from us. This is why progressive homophobes could almost be forgiven for not appreciating that their views are just as morally insulting to gay persons as those of more honest homophobes. The progressives’ selective acknowledgment of others’ rights shows a moral inconsistency. Racism and classism is out; homophobia not so much.
Here is a hypothetical test case . Imagine Qwelane’s writing on homosexuality had dealt with race instead. Imagine he had called white people immoral creatures and those in interracial relationships dogs and pigs. Imagine he had called for them to be arrested . How would you react? Would you still regard such beliefs as irrelevant when assessing whether the man should be the diplomatic face of the country abroad? I think not.
The moral can be stated bluntly: homophobia is less touchy for many progressives than is racism. They compare and contrast different forms of discrimination. This is why very few newspapers, political parties, public institutions and “eminent South Africans” have been speaking out on the impending Qwelane appointment. Your silence leaves me cold.
It is also the reason African National Congress spokesman Jackson Mthembu can get away with his insensitive and ignorant claim that there is no “scientific proof” that Qwelane is a homophobe. This is a bit like asking for scientific proof that Verwoerd was racist. What do you want us to do, Mr Mthembu? Get a urine sample and have it analysed at the lab? Homophobia is the hatred of gay persons. It is typically expressed in beliefs and actions that undermine the self-worth of gay persons. That is an apt summary of Qwelane’s beliefs. No further proof is needed than his hate speech against gay people.
Why did you not ask for “scientific proof” that former Sunday Times columnist David Bullard was racist by virtue of the content of views he had put on paper? This is a revealing case of ethical double standards. Sorry, I forget — Qwelane’s homophobia is excusable on grounds of sucking up to Zuma, right?
We can only hope that Mthembu is misrepresenting the governing party’s understanding of these issues. But that might be a generous assumption in the absence of comrades having the ethical balls to stand up and articulate a contrary view.
In the end, however, it is the comfortable silence of many progressives or the progressive homophobia of those who do speak that enable idiotic defences such as those of Mthembu to slip into the marketplace of ideas without immediate intellectual and moral censor by his fellow comrades.
This silence would have been unthinkable if this were an appointment overlaid with racism rather than homophobia. Why are gays less worthy of protection than pre- democracy blacks or post-democracy whites? Why are the black liberation guardians so silent? Equally, why are the overzealous “human rights activists” fighting for white minority rights quiet too? Where is your moral consistency? Are some prejudices less uncool than others? I urge progressive homophobes to sleep on these questions.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
My review of William Gumede and Leslie Dikeni's recent book
The poverty of ideas: South African Democracy and the Retreat of Intellectuals, edited by William Gumede and Leslie Dikeni
The poverty of ideas is a gigantic failure. It claims to be about intellectuals’ retreat within the South African democracy. It is not. Instead, it hosts a number of pieces that do not, as a collection, adequately speak to the book’s overall inspiration. This is unfortunate not just because the provocative question that the book seeks to answer is poignant. It is also unfortunate because many of the contributions are excellent self-standing pieces on the issues which they do speak to and so are done an injustice to be located within an anthology about something else. A piece by Mahmood Mamdani, for example, does not address the topic of ‘African intellectuals’ (despite its deceptive title to that effect) but rather narrates elements of broader colonial history (and mainly outside South Africa, the book’s supposed locus). Mamdani’s piece – like others - is fascinating but misplaced.
The poverty of ideas’ failure teaches two things.
First, the shortcomings are themselves a dramatic expression of the poverty of ideas within public discourse in post-democratic South Africa. It betrays, to be blunt, a lack of conceptual rigour. Second, the role of editor is tougher than might seem the case when thinking about putting together an anthology whilst sipping cappuccino.
If there is a takeaway thought that surfaces consistently, it is the powerful insistence by some contributors (for example, Jeremy Cronin and Dan O’Meara) that public intellectuals should not be preoccupied with mere theorising and conceptual analysis. They should also seek to have a practical impact on society. This should be sought, as Jonathan Jansen argues in his contribution, even in the face of institutional and other threats to academic and intellectual freedom.
The conceptual framework: what sub-questions should drive an inquiry about the role of intellectuals?
The authors claim in their introduction to the book that intellectuals in South Africa remain invisible some fifteen years after the birth of democracy. The problem is that they fail to build a conceptual framework that can act as scaffolding for the book’s journey.
First, the very notion of an intellectual is slippery. What, for example, is the difference between an intellectual and a public intellectual? Who are intellectuals and by the light of what criteria? What is the relationship between academics on the one hand and public intellectuals on the other? From a normative viewpoint, what ought that the relationship to be, quite independent from what it actually is? Where does public commentary end and (public) intellectualism start? Can the roles of ‘analyst’, ‘commentator’ and ‘public intellectual’ be regarded as pretty much co-extensive? What is the source – ethical or otherwise - of public intellectuals’ duties? What are those duties at any rate?
The editors do not show enough concern for these definitional debates. This is a fatal weakness of the book since these questions would catalyse more substantive engagement of the issues. This is not a mere plea for conceptual rigour and clarity. These questions constitute the set of sub-questions that any book on the role of intellectuals must engage. This book does not do so.
A diagnosis of the problem: what do public intellectuals (not) do?
Gumede correctly argues that democratic cultural norms are a more important driver of long-term democratic stability than formal rules, regular elections and even the existence of democratic institutions. He repeatedly refers to intellectuals who have failed to help build a democratic culture, allowing themselves to be co-opted by the African National Congress government. But there is not one single illustrative example of this. One is left wondering who Gumede counts as ‘intellectuals’ since the chapter remains stuck at the general level, hardly ever anchoring itself in specificity.
The second chapter, by Leslie Dikeni, represents the poorest contribution to the anthology. It is filled with ad hominem attacks rather than rigorous argument, and thereby illustrates the very dangers of poor public intellectual life that he is trying to warn the rest of us against. He spends the bulk of the chapter listing and discussing so-called “celebrity intellectuals”, “commercial intellectuals”, “policy analysts” and “late-coming, new gender activists”. These are all supposed to be pseudo-intellectuals. But not once does he discuss an example of even a media article by a person from any of these groups to demonstrate the impoverished nature of their work. Dikeni comes across as someone who wishes he had more media exposure himself.
At any rate, the chapter’s main claim is not cogent. Rigour and popularity are not mutually exclusive. Intellectuals such as Steven Friedman and Achille Mbembe write countless academic articles, anthology contributions and books while still making useful and regular media contributions to debates. It is lazy, false and dishonest to assume that media appearances constitute the whole of their academic and intellectual life. And even if that were the case, Dikeni should dismantle the content of their work through counter-examples or exposure of poor reasoning rather than bemoaning the mere fact of their media presence.
Dikeni also fails to tells us who should count as public intellectuals and why. He ends off by simply stipulating that Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Nelson Mandela are intellectuals. This stipulation, to the extent that it is an argument, is a circular argument in the context of a book that cries out for a) a list of the criteria to be awarded the title ‘public intellectual’, b) a justification for said criteria and c) an explanation of why, say, Walter Sisulu and not Joe Soap meet the requisite standard. The entire chapter lacks that sort of theoretical rigour and systematic argument.
The saving graces
Some of the contributions, despite not engaging the main theme head-on, are worth reading and engaging. Two examples will suffice.
Albert Nolan argues that “there is an unavoidable link between intellectual work (the pursuit of truth) and the inner work of spirituality (recognising and coping with the truth about oneself).” It is perhaps unfortunate that Nolan uses the term ‘spirituality’ since many might dismiss the concept’s invocation as a whiff of religiosity. In fact, the essence of what he is getting at has nothing to do with any particular religion. It speaks instead to a certain orientation – a certain attitude – that intellectuals need to have in order to succeed. If one is very intelligent and academically gifted but lacking in spirituality (as defined by Nolan) then there is very likely the possibility of early demise as a public intellectual.
Jansen argues, in his turn, that many former anti-apartheid intellectuals have found it difficult to critically engage the democratically elected government, comprising former friends and allies. Various developments within institutions have reinforced this silencing of intellectuals. For example, there has been – in various senses – what Jansen calls an increased ‘managerialism’ within universities which has contributed to a diminution in academic freedom.
These contributions needed to be engaged by the editors, however, since they only touch cursorily on the conceptual and definitional complications I sketched at the beginning.
Besides lack of engagement, there was also a failure to reign in poor writing style. Chapter five, entitled Meta-intellectuals: intellectuals and power, written by Grant Farred, is easily the most obscure, impenetrable and incomprehensible contribution. It is littered with pseudo-profound post-modern statements. I refuse to believe the editors understood these sentences beyond recognising them as vaguely similar to ones one might find in the English language. Allowing individual writers to write in their preferred voice should never be at the cost of lucidity.
Here are three random illustrative gems:
“The state-centred act of thinking is the precondition of meta-intellectuality; it is the performance of thought, the thinking in public of thought, both in the service of the state, that makes the meta-intellectual different from every other functionary of the political.”
And:
“It is precisely this powerful sitedness, which, in turn, produces a powerful citationality, so that the meta-intellectual never speaks ‘only’ as an intellectual but as power and for the state, that demands the theorisation of the meta-intellectual within its localisation.”
And, finally:
“The meta-intellectual interiorises and animates the state’s power over and of [sic] truth”
Concluding thought
Gumede and Dikeni posed the right question but failed to provide contributors with editorial guidance that could have led to wrestling with the relevant sub-issues that the main question entails. The book cannot be rewarded for posing a sexy question or carrying chapters by well-known folk. It failed to deliver on its promises. It would be intellectually dishonest, and therefore contrary to the book’s spirit, to assert otherwise.
[ This review first appeared in the Helen Suzman Foundation's FOCUS magazine, Issue 55 ]
The poverty of ideas is a gigantic failure. It claims to be about intellectuals’ retreat within the South African democracy. It is not. Instead, it hosts a number of pieces that do not, as a collection, adequately speak to the book’s overall inspiration. This is unfortunate not just because the provocative question that the book seeks to answer is poignant. It is also unfortunate because many of the contributions are excellent self-standing pieces on the issues which they do speak to and so are done an injustice to be located within an anthology about something else. A piece by Mahmood Mamdani, for example, does not address the topic of ‘African intellectuals’ (despite its deceptive title to that effect) but rather narrates elements of broader colonial history (and mainly outside South Africa, the book’s supposed locus). Mamdani’s piece – like others - is fascinating but misplaced.
The poverty of ideas’ failure teaches two things.
First, the shortcomings are themselves a dramatic expression of the poverty of ideas within public discourse in post-democratic South Africa. It betrays, to be blunt, a lack of conceptual rigour. Second, the role of editor is tougher than might seem the case when thinking about putting together an anthology whilst sipping cappuccino.
If there is a takeaway thought that surfaces consistently, it is the powerful insistence by some contributors (for example, Jeremy Cronin and Dan O’Meara) that public intellectuals should not be preoccupied with mere theorising and conceptual analysis. They should also seek to have a practical impact on society. This should be sought, as Jonathan Jansen argues in his contribution, even in the face of institutional and other threats to academic and intellectual freedom.
The conceptual framework: what sub-questions should drive an inquiry about the role of intellectuals?
The authors claim in their introduction to the book that intellectuals in South Africa remain invisible some fifteen years after the birth of democracy. The problem is that they fail to build a conceptual framework that can act as scaffolding for the book’s journey.
First, the very notion of an intellectual is slippery. What, for example, is the difference between an intellectual and a public intellectual? Who are intellectuals and by the light of what criteria? What is the relationship between academics on the one hand and public intellectuals on the other? From a normative viewpoint, what ought that the relationship to be, quite independent from what it actually is? Where does public commentary end and (public) intellectualism start? Can the roles of ‘analyst’, ‘commentator’ and ‘public intellectual’ be regarded as pretty much co-extensive? What is the source – ethical or otherwise - of public intellectuals’ duties? What are those duties at any rate?
The editors do not show enough concern for these definitional debates. This is a fatal weakness of the book since these questions would catalyse more substantive engagement of the issues. This is not a mere plea for conceptual rigour and clarity. These questions constitute the set of sub-questions that any book on the role of intellectuals must engage. This book does not do so.
A diagnosis of the problem: what do public intellectuals (not) do?
Gumede correctly argues that democratic cultural norms are a more important driver of long-term democratic stability than formal rules, regular elections and even the existence of democratic institutions. He repeatedly refers to intellectuals who have failed to help build a democratic culture, allowing themselves to be co-opted by the African National Congress government. But there is not one single illustrative example of this. One is left wondering who Gumede counts as ‘intellectuals’ since the chapter remains stuck at the general level, hardly ever anchoring itself in specificity.
The second chapter, by Leslie Dikeni, represents the poorest contribution to the anthology. It is filled with ad hominem attacks rather than rigorous argument, and thereby illustrates the very dangers of poor public intellectual life that he is trying to warn the rest of us against. He spends the bulk of the chapter listing and discussing so-called “celebrity intellectuals”, “commercial intellectuals”, “policy analysts” and “late-coming, new gender activists”. These are all supposed to be pseudo-intellectuals. But not once does he discuss an example of even a media article by a person from any of these groups to demonstrate the impoverished nature of their work. Dikeni comes across as someone who wishes he had more media exposure himself.
At any rate, the chapter’s main claim is not cogent. Rigour and popularity are not mutually exclusive. Intellectuals such as Steven Friedman and Achille Mbembe write countless academic articles, anthology contributions and books while still making useful and regular media contributions to debates. It is lazy, false and dishonest to assume that media appearances constitute the whole of their academic and intellectual life. And even if that were the case, Dikeni should dismantle the content of their work through counter-examples or exposure of poor reasoning rather than bemoaning the mere fact of their media presence.
Dikeni also fails to tells us who should count as public intellectuals and why. He ends off by simply stipulating that Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Nelson Mandela are intellectuals. This stipulation, to the extent that it is an argument, is a circular argument in the context of a book that cries out for a) a list of the criteria to be awarded the title ‘public intellectual’, b) a justification for said criteria and c) an explanation of why, say, Walter Sisulu and not Joe Soap meet the requisite standard. The entire chapter lacks that sort of theoretical rigour and systematic argument.
The saving graces
Some of the contributions, despite not engaging the main theme head-on, are worth reading and engaging. Two examples will suffice.
Albert Nolan argues that “there is an unavoidable link between intellectual work (the pursuit of truth) and the inner work of spirituality (recognising and coping with the truth about oneself).” It is perhaps unfortunate that Nolan uses the term ‘spirituality’ since many might dismiss the concept’s invocation as a whiff of religiosity. In fact, the essence of what he is getting at has nothing to do with any particular religion. It speaks instead to a certain orientation – a certain attitude – that intellectuals need to have in order to succeed. If one is very intelligent and academically gifted but lacking in spirituality (as defined by Nolan) then there is very likely the possibility of early demise as a public intellectual.
Jansen argues, in his turn, that many former anti-apartheid intellectuals have found it difficult to critically engage the democratically elected government, comprising former friends and allies. Various developments within institutions have reinforced this silencing of intellectuals. For example, there has been – in various senses – what Jansen calls an increased ‘managerialism’ within universities which has contributed to a diminution in academic freedom.
These contributions needed to be engaged by the editors, however, since they only touch cursorily on the conceptual and definitional complications I sketched at the beginning.
Besides lack of engagement, there was also a failure to reign in poor writing style. Chapter five, entitled Meta-intellectuals: intellectuals and power, written by Grant Farred, is easily the most obscure, impenetrable and incomprehensible contribution. It is littered with pseudo-profound post-modern statements. I refuse to believe the editors understood these sentences beyond recognising them as vaguely similar to ones one might find in the English language. Allowing individual writers to write in their preferred voice should never be at the cost of lucidity.
Here are three random illustrative gems:
“The state-centred act of thinking is the precondition of meta-intellectuality; it is the performance of thought, the thinking in public of thought, both in the service of the state, that makes the meta-intellectual different from every other functionary of the political.”
And:
“It is precisely this powerful sitedness, which, in turn, produces a powerful citationality, so that the meta-intellectual never speaks ‘only’ as an intellectual but as power and for the state, that demands the theorisation of the meta-intellectual within its localisation.”
And, finally:
“The meta-intellectual interiorises and animates the state’s power over and of [sic] truth”
Concluding thought
Gumede and Dikeni posed the right question but failed to provide contributors with editorial guidance that could have led to wrestling with the relevant sub-issues that the main question entails. The book cannot be rewarded for posing a sexy question or carrying chapters by well-known folk. It failed to deliver on its promises. It would be intellectually dishonest, and therefore contrary to the book’s spirit, to assert otherwise.
[ This review first appeared in the Helen Suzman Foundation's FOCUS magazine, Issue 55 ]
Friday, January 22, 2010
Why global firms should not be granted a free moral pass
LAW and morality sometimes make strange bedfellows. So it is not surprising that the public debate about the lawsuit against companies that propped up the apartheid government has focused on legal headaches, rather than moral ones.
The case brought by the Khulumani Support Group in the US against various international companies has tossed up two tricky legal questions. One is whether the US represents the right jurisdiction for hearing this case. The other is whether there is a legal basis for holding a company responsible in this way. Disagreement about the answers to these questions has resulted in an ethical dimension being silenced. Does it even make sense to regard corporations as moral agents that can be held morally accountable in the same way that you and I hold each other morally accountable? And how does this ethical stuff intersect with the legal debate?
It is relatively easy to make sense of why people hold each other morally responsible. Moral rules speak to expectations of decent behaviour that we demand of each other as a community of people. Anyone who has the capacity to understand these rules and the ability to act in accordance with that understanding has no excuse for ignoring these rules. A baby does not understand such rules, so we do not regard it as a moral agent. Adults, however, barring exceptional circumstances that reduce your capacity to think and act morally, such as mental illness, must comply with social and moral norms.
A company is a special kind of moral agent. But being special does not mean exemption from the requirements of decency. We should not be fooled by the fact that companies are legal entities that do not exist in the way we do. Yes, we cannot imagine a company committing a murder, for example, because it does not exist in the flesh. Companies are abstract things that exist on paper. But that fact is a red herring.
Behind the company are human beings, who do have the capacity to think and act morally. They take and execute decisions in the name of the legal entity. This means there is nothing weird about saying a company that releases toxic waste into a river from which a community draws water, for example, is acting immorally as a company. There are managers who took such a decision and who could have acted otherwise.
What does all this mean for the companies that did business with the apartheid government?
They acted immorally. It is immaterial whether they complied with laws. If, for example, you produce technology that enables the apartheid government to be efficient in classifying its citizens racially for purposes of enforcing its pass laws, then you are directly assisting in the commission of a crime against humanity.
A company has the capacity and ability to reason as follows: “Do I really want to sell these buggers machines that can make the enforcement of apartheid more effective? Do I want to help sustain their evil?” Given that we know that people execute the mandate of a company, it is not weird to expect this kind of moral reasoning on the part of a company. We are, in effect, demanding that those who constitute the executive management and leadership of the company behave morally on behalf of that company. All the corporations Khulumani are targeting fell short of these requirements of morality.
There are at least two challenging responses to my analysis that demand attention. One is the claim that the only duty of a company is to maximise shareholder value. Companies may be agents but not moral ones. The other response is to concede that companies acted immorally but to deny that they should be held legally accountable. It is not the business of law to enforce morality.
It is unconvincing to pretend that companies need only concern themselves with their legal mandate. First, companies operate within a social context that is affected by their actions. They cannot be oblivious to the consequences of their actions. Once we accept that they are agents at all — with human decision makers — there is no reason to regard them as “agents but not moral agents”. This would be like you or me asking society to regard us as agents but not moral ones just because we wish to ignore inconvenient requirements of decent behaviour that get in the way of our personal “mandate”.
Your membership as part of the moral community is not negotiable unless you lack the capacities that are sufficient to follow moral norms. The same goes for companies. Just because you have a legal duty to maximise shareholder value does not mean that the effect of your economic behaviour on all stakeholders can be disregarded. Companies are not the first creatures to need to balance legal duties or selfish interests with moral ones. We all do. So the challenge of acting morally while maximising shareholder value cannot be regarded as unreasonable.
Indeed, there are examples of companies doing both. For example, at least some pharmaceutical companies have eventually come round to accepting that there is an overriding moral justification for sharing intellectual property in a time of a pandemic and allowing drugs to be produced cheaper to save lives.
Not all these actions are motivated by the force of the moral arguments, but we ourselves often act in accordance with moral norms prudentially rather than for the right reasons. The point is that companies will not find it impossible to maximise shareholder value simply because we expect them to act morally. The companies that colluded with the apartheid government are no different.
Finally, it is true that not all moral norms can or should be legally enforced. However, global corporations are so powerful in their reach and effect that it is proper that laws exist to ensure ethical behaviour. The Khulumani case should set a precedent that states that corporate morality is not an extra optional to be discussed by the marketing division of a company. If a crime against humanity will be successfully committed partly because of the zeal of some corporations, then it is time for the law to step in. It is irrelevant that international law is unclear on this point. It can and should be changed to clearly reflect the demands of morality. And given that the US is still the world’s economic centre, it is also apt that this nexus of economic morality and legal expectation be clarified in a US court.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=91798
The case brought by the Khulumani Support Group in the US against various international companies has tossed up two tricky legal questions. One is whether the US represents the right jurisdiction for hearing this case. The other is whether there is a legal basis for holding a company responsible in this way. Disagreement about the answers to these questions has resulted in an ethical dimension being silenced. Does it even make sense to regard corporations as moral agents that can be held morally accountable in the same way that you and I hold each other morally accountable? And how does this ethical stuff intersect with the legal debate?
It is relatively easy to make sense of why people hold each other morally responsible. Moral rules speak to expectations of decent behaviour that we demand of each other as a community of people. Anyone who has the capacity to understand these rules and the ability to act in accordance with that understanding has no excuse for ignoring these rules. A baby does not understand such rules, so we do not regard it as a moral agent. Adults, however, barring exceptional circumstances that reduce your capacity to think and act morally, such as mental illness, must comply with social and moral norms.
A company is a special kind of moral agent. But being special does not mean exemption from the requirements of decency. We should not be fooled by the fact that companies are legal entities that do not exist in the way we do. Yes, we cannot imagine a company committing a murder, for example, because it does not exist in the flesh. Companies are abstract things that exist on paper. But that fact is a red herring.
Behind the company are human beings, who do have the capacity to think and act morally. They take and execute decisions in the name of the legal entity. This means there is nothing weird about saying a company that releases toxic waste into a river from which a community draws water, for example, is acting immorally as a company. There are managers who took such a decision and who could have acted otherwise.
What does all this mean for the companies that did business with the apartheid government?
They acted immorally. It is immaterial whether they complied with laws. If, for example, you produce technology that enables the apartheid government to be efficient in classifying its citizens racially for purposes of enforcing its pass laws, then you are directly assisting in the commission of a crime against humanity.
A company has the capacity and ability to reason as follows: “Do I really want to sell these buggers machines that can make the enforcement of apartheid more effective? Do I want to help sustain their evil?” Given that we know that people execute the mandate of a company, it is not weird to expect this kind of moral reasoning on the part of a company. We are, in effect, demanding that those who constitute the executive management and leadership of the company behave morally on behalf of that company. All the corporations Khulumani are targeting fell short of these requirements of morality.
There are at least two challenging responses to my analysis that demand attention. One is the claim that the only duty of a company is to maximise shareholder value. Companies may be agents but not moral ones. The other response is to concede that companies acted immorally but to deny that they should be held legally accountable. It is not the business of law to enforce morality.
It is unconvincing to pretend that companies need only concern themselves with their legal mandate. First, companies operate within a social context that is affected by their actions. They cannot be oblivious to the consequences of their actions. Once we accept that they are agents at all — with human decision makers — there is no reason to regard them as “agents but not moral agents”. This would be like you or me asking society to regard us as agents but not moral ones just because we wish to ignore inconvenient requirements of decent behaviour that get in the way of our personal “mandate”.
Your membership as part of the moral community is not negotiable unless you lack the capacities that are sufficient to follow moral norms. The same goes for companies. Just because you have a legal duty to maximise shareholder value does not mean that the effect of your economic behaviour on all stakeholders can be disregarded. Companies are not the first creatures to need to balance legal duties or selfish interests with moral ones. We all do. So the challenge of acting morally while maximising shareholder value cannot be regarded as unreasonable.
Indeed, there are examples of companies doing both. For example, at least some pharmaceutical companies have eventually come round to accepting that there is an overriding moral justification for sharing intellectual property in a time of a pandemic and allowing drugs to be produced cheaper to save lives.
Not all these actions are motivated by the force of the moral arguments, but we ourselves often act in accordance with moral norms prudentially rather than for the right reasons. The point is that companies will not find it impossible to maximise shareholder value simply because we expect them to act morally. The companies that colluded with the apartheid government are no different.
Finally, it is true that not all moral norms can or should be legally enforced. However, global corporations are so powerful in their reach and effect that it is proper that laws exist to ensure ethical behaviour. The Khulumani case should set a precedent that states that corporate morality is not an extra optional to be discussed by the marketing division of a company. If a crime against humanity will be successfully committed partly because of the zeal of some corporations, then it is time for the law to step in. It is irrelevant that international law is unclear on this point. It can and should be changed to clearly reflect the demands of morality. And given that the US is still the world’s economic centre, it is also apt that this nexus of economic morality and legal expectation be clarified in a US court.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=91798
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Why pardon for either De Kock or Shaik would be an insult to SA
IT IS mind-boggling that there should even be a possibility that either Eugene de Kock or Schabir Shaik might yet be pardoned by President Jacob Zuma .
The rumour mill alleges that if De Kock is pardoned by Zuma, it would make it easier for him to pardon Shaik also. This theory is flawed. Not only has there been no indication from the Presidency that a pardon for De Kock is on the cards, but the notion of a trade- off makes little sense.
For one thing, the categories of crimes committed by De Kock and Shaik respectively are so different that such a trade-off would be blatantly random. Such randomness would betray the lack of rationality in the trade-off and overzealous opponents of Zuma might see a narrow legal opportunity to challenge the administrative justness of the way in which his discretion had been exercised.
For another, it is not clear that there is a pro-De Kock constituency that exists somewhere out there that possesses so much political clout that it needs to be shut up to prevent a fallout should Shaik be pardoned. Quite frankly, if Zuma wanted to pardon Shaik, despite public sentiment to the contrary, he could do so without the help of an irrelevant De Kock or dated racist minorities.
The real question is a much more basic one. Are there good independent reasons to pardon either of these convicted criminals? The answer to this is a definitive “No”.
De Kock was granted a partial amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). A partial amnesty implies that he was judged not to have disclosed his knowledge of, and involvement in, political crimes fully. This opened the way for a lengthy criminal trial in which he was found guilty of human rights abuses, including the murder of at least six people.
He kept watch over the killing of innocent South Africans regarded as enemies of the apartheid state, of which De Kock was a central figure. Some were first killed before being burnt, incinerated, or even blown up to ensure that no scrap of evidence was left. Pardoning such an evil character would be a gross mistake.
One criticism that has been lodged against the TRC process is that retributive justice was too hastily sacrificed on the altar of forgiveness and in the fake name of restoring intergroup relationships.
While it is true that restorative justice during the transition to democracy was widely supported by many South Africans, the deal was clear: amnesty and forgiveness were to be exchanged for full disclosure. Since De Kock did not fully disclose his knowledge of political crimes, the law had then to take its course.
To pardon him now would simply undermine the point of the amnesty hearings and the conditions for being granted a full amnesty.
Restorative justice is a fragile notion. That fragility would give way to breaking point if apartheid actors who did not fully co-operate with the TRC process should be pardoned.
It is also a mistake to think of De Kock as a mere cog in the apartheid wheel. Some have argued that one man should not get all the blame for an entire system that was evil. He was following orders. And, at any rate, many others also followed orders but are now roaming the streets as free men and women. Indeed, many of the political masters to which De Kock was accountable are arguably as morally culpable, yet remain free citizens.
This argument is not totally unconvincing. There is something intuitively unfair about only one evildoer being bust while others get off free. But multiple wrongs do not add up to a justified pardon. If there are people who had committed political crimes but were not granted amnesty then they should be prosecuted. That debate cannot be regarded as settled.
Perhaps most importantly, we need to think more carefully about the relationship between institutions and system, on the one hand, and individual agency on the other.
Of course the apartheid system was evil, but many thousands of sane people chose to execute the evil instructions of their bosses. For this they are responsible. To simply excuse it all away as a “systems failure”, rather than irresponsible choices by ordinary people, is disingenuous.
Certainly, many ordinary people were brainwashed and coerced. But De Kock was not assessed as mentally unfit to stand trial. He appreciated the nature of the acts he committed at the time when he committed them.
He is thus fully culpable and cannot be morally discounted because of the evil system within which he operated. He ought to have resisted that system. He did not and 212 years behind bars is a fitting reward.
Shaik, on the other hand, is not a convicted murderer. He is a convicted fraudster. Comparing violent crime with economic crime is pointless. It might be tempting to regard economic crime as serious but less serious than violent crime. This would be a mistake. Both undermine the fabric of society.
It is particularly important for a developing country to be seen to take a tough stand on corruption. Life in the first instance depends on our material wellbeing. Without food or water, you cannot survive. Economic crimes result in the looting of resources that otherwise would be spent on developing a country. There is a clear correlation between high levels of economic crime and poor standards of living and low life expectancy. Kleptocracy in post-independence Africa provides ample proof. It is therefore extremely important that fraud be rooted out by jailing offenders who do not play by the rules.
Shaik is one such offender.
The matter is made worse by the fact that his fraud stems from a relationship with Zuma. This makes it even more important that he does not get pardoned. Pardoning him would send an unambiguous message that those with friends in high political places can get away with economic crime. It will thereby also constitute an incentive for others to commit economic crime by courting politicians.
Furthermore, there are facts particular to the Shaik case that militate against a pardon. Shaik has been caught failing to comply with his medical parole conditions. This means that not only is Shaik someone who is legally proven to disregard the law, but he is now proven to be willing to disregard the law even after he had been given a reprieve.
Failure to comply with all the medical parole conditions amounts to a brazen arrogance that is no doubt founded in the belief that he is politically untouchable because of the Zuma connection. In this context, the president needs to signal that he is not enslaved by the friendship with his former financial adviser. That can only be achieved by making it clear that a pardon is not on the cards.
Pardons should never be granted lightly. If a conviction resulted from a legal error, for example, then a pardon may be sensible. But where someone is an unrepentant extraordinary criminal (De Kock) or a common criminal (Shaik), then a pardon would be an insult to the millions of law-abiding citizens struggling to make it by playing fair.
Do the right thing, Mr President.
[ This article first appeared in Business Day
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=91126 ]
The rumour mill alleges that if De Kock is pardoned by Zuma, it would make it easier for him to pardon Shaik also. This theory is flawed. Not only has there been no indication from the Presidency that a pardon for De Kock is on the cards, but the notion of a trade- off makes little sense.
For one thing, the categories of crimes committed by De Kock and Shaik respectively are so different that such a trade-off would be blatantly random. Such randomness would betray the lack of rationality in the trade-off and overzealous opponents of Zuma might see a narrow legal opportunity to challenge the administrative justness of the way in which his discretion had been exercised.
For another, it is not clear that there is a pro-De Kock constituency that exists somewhere out there that possesses so much political clout that it needs to be shut up to prevent a fallout should Shaik be pardoned. Quite frankly, if Zuma wanted to pardon Shaik, despite public sentiment to the contrary, he could do so without the help of an irrelevant De Kock or dated racist minorities.
The real question is a much more basic one. Are there good independent reasons to pardon either of these convicted criminals? The answer to this is a definitive “No”.
De Kock was granted a partial amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). A partial amnesty implies that he was judged not to have disclosed his knowledge of, and involvement in, political crimes fully. This opened the way for a lengthy criminal trial in which he was found guilty of human rights abuses, including the murder of at least six people.
He kept watch over the killing of innocent South Africans regarded as enemies of the apartheid state, of which De Kock was a central figure. Some were first killed before being burnt, incinerated, or even blown up to ensure that no scrap of evidence was left. Pardoning such an evil character would be a gross mistake.
One criticism that has been lodged against the TRC process is that retributive justice was too hastily sacrificed on the altar of forgiveness and in the fake name of restoring intergroup relationships.
While it is true that restorative justice during the transition to democracy was widely supported by many South Africans, the deal was clear: amnesty and forgiveness were to be exchanged for full disclosure. Since De Kock did not fully disclose his knowledge of political crimes, the law had then to take its course.
To pardon him now would simply undermine the point of the amnesty hearings and the conditions for being granted a full amnesty.
Restorative justice is a fragile notion. That fragility would give way to breaking point if apartheid actors who did not fully co-operate with the TRC process should be pardoned.
It is also a mistake to think of De Kock as a mere cog in the apartheid wheel. Some have argued that one man should not get all the blame for an entire system that was evil. He was following orders. And, at any rate, many others also followed orders but are now roaming the streets as free men and women. Indeed, many of the political masters to which De Kock was accountable are arguably as morally culpable, yet remain free citizens.
This argument is not totally unconvincing. There is something intuitively unfair about only one evildoer being bust while others get off free. But multiple wrongs do not add up to a justified pardon. If there are people who had committed political crimes but were not granted amnesty then they should be prosecuted. That debate cannot be regarded as settled.
Perhaps most importantly, we need to think more carefully about the relationship between institutions and system, on the one hand, and individual agency on the other.
Of course the apartheid system was evil, but many thousands of sane people chose to execute the evil instructions of their bosses. For this they are responsible. To simply excuse it all away as a “systems failure”, rather than irresponsible choices by ordinary people, is disingenuous.
Certainly, many ordinary people were brainwashed and coerced. But De Kock was not assessed as mentally unfit to stand trial. He appreciated the nature of the acts he committed at the time when he committed them.
He is thus fully culpable and cannot be morally discounted because of the evil system within which he operated. He ought to have resisted that system. He did not and 212 years behind bars is a fitting reward.
Shaik, on the other hand, is not a convicted murderer. He is a convicted fraudster. Comparing violent crime with economic crime is pointless. It might be tempting to regard economic crime as serious but less serious than violent crime. This would be a mistake. Both undermine the fabric of society.
It is particularly important for a developing country to be seen to take a tough stand on corruption. Life in the first instance depends on our material wellbeing. Without food or water, you cannot survive. Economic crimes result in the looting of resources that otherwise would be spent on developing a country. There is a clear correlation between high levels of economic crime and poor standards of living and low life expectancy. Kleptocracy in post-independence Africa provides ample proof. It is therefore extremely important that fraud be rooted out by jailing offenders who do not play by the rules.
Shaik is one such offender.
The matter is made worse by the fact that his fraud stems from a relationship with Zuma. This makes it even more important that he does not get pardoned. Pardoning him would send an unambiguous message that those with friends in high political places can get away with economic crime. It will thereby also constitute an incentive for others to commit economic crime by courting politicians.
Furthermore, there are facts particular to the Shaik case that militate against a pardon. Shaik has been caught failing to comply with his medical parole conditions. This means that not only is Shaik someone who is legally proven to disregard the law, but he is now proven to be willing to disregard the law even after he had been given a reprieve.
Failure to comply with all the medical parole conditions amounts to a brazen arrogance that is no doubt founded in the belief that he is politically untouchable because of the Zuma connection. In this context, the president needs to signal that he is not enslaved by the friendship with his former financial adviser. That can only be achieved by making it clear that a pardon is not on the cards.
Pardons should never be granted lightly. If a conviction resulted from a legal error, for example, then a pardon may be sensible. But where someone is an unrepentant extraordinary criminal (De Kock) or a common criminal (Shaik), then a pardon would be an insult to the millions of law-abiding citizens struggling to make it by playing fair.
Do the right thing, Mr President.
[ This article first appeared in Business Day
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=91126 ]
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Liberals must accept polygamy
Polygamy is a sexy topic yet again. It is back on the table for debate thanks to our most famous polygamist, President Jacob Zuma, who married his fifth wife this past week. Some people have an intrinsic hatred of polygamy. They regard it as dated, misogynist, irresponsible in a time of HIV/AIDS and a violation of core constitutional concepts like dignity and equality.
Others, with equal intensity, loathe what they view as the cultural chauvinism of liberals, defending cultural practises as an integral part of the socio-historical reality of too many people. For these supporters of polygamy, such practises must be defended from the liberal tyranny of a constitutional model that is out of touch with the ethical intuitions of the conservative majority.
In such a polarised debate space, with seemingly irreconcilable moral frameworks brought to the discussion table, is moral consensus possible? Or are we stuck with assertion and counter-assertion which can best be described as intractable differences in moral taste? How, if at all, can common ground be reached?
There is, in fact, an important liberal justification for polygamy that critics of the practise – who often think of themselves as subscribing to liberal or progressive moral values – are not aware of. The dichotomy between ‘tradition’ and ‘liberalism’ is hasty and lazy. There are important non-conservative reasons why polygamy should be allowed. Liberals, if they were to think more clearly about what liberalism means and commits them to, would realise that they have to be more accommodating of conservatives if they are to remain true to their own values and principles. Likewise, conservatives who often thoughtlessly regard liberalism as a threat to traditional forms of life, have to face the uncomfortable truth that a proper understanding of liberalism reveals a compassionate (even if qualified) permissiveness on the part of liberalism.
In order to understand this connection between liberalism and tradition, and polygamy in particular, it is of course important to get a clear conceptual grip on liberalism. Terms like ‘progressive’ and ‘liberal’ are bandied about in political discourse, often without clear meaning.
The users of these terms simply hope to evoke positive feelings in readers or listeners rather than making substantive and clear points. It does not really matter how one interprets these inherently tricky concepts – the important thing is to be honest and clear about your own definitions in order to both avoid being misunderstood and to allow for substantive differences and agreements between interlocutors to be clear.
Liberalism regards individual freedom and autonomy as critically important goods that the state should promote and protect. The core justification for this view is that individuals are best placed to know what values and principles they want to endorse and live their lives by. The state should not interfere in the exercise of that autonomy other than, as was argued by John Stuart Mill, to ensure that others’ right to freedom are not infringed. This gives us a framework to explore the ethics of polygamy. Is polygamy consistent with a liberal ethics?
Polygamy certainly is consistent with liberalism. One of the more subtle justifications for liberalism, in addition to and connected with, the premise about respecting individual autonomy, is valuing pluralism. The very point of allowing individuals to be free is to enable them to live the experimental life and settle for life forms that they endorse as worth living. It follows that if some communities wish to endorse polygamy, then this is perfectly permissible.
A liberal society’s liberalism is measured by its tolerance for diversity. There is no reason why polygamy is illiberal in a context where the persons entering into those relationships do so of their own free accord. To take away the moral entitlement to choose such a lifestyle would amount to a violation of liberalism’s commitment to protecting individual autonomy and pluralism.
There is thus no tension between liberalism and polygamy. There is, in fact, a positive relationship: a liberal society must allow for such a practise to be possible.
There is a mixture of principled and practical objections that have been trotted out on this issue. The principled arguments range from the downright silly (such as Kenneth Moeshe’s worry that it is an unchristian practise, as if we live in a Christian state) to more serious worries that values like substantive equality and dignity cannot be squared with polygamy. The serious worry merits attention.
Kenneth Moeshe’s worry deserves a mere parenthetical retort. South Africa is a secular state – for many good reasons - in which church and state is separated and so it would be unacceptable for any denomination’s moral code to be domesticated as national law.
Concerns about substantive equality are much more serious. If only men are allowed to enter into concurrent relationships with many female partners, then the practise is a violation of women’s right to equality. This means that anyone who wants to hang onto a liberal justification for polygamy must accept that both men and women should be allowed to enter into such relationships. Many supporters of polygamy will resist this move. They cannot have their liberal cake and eat it. They would have to find some other basis for their sexist views.
The strongest type of objections to polygamy, however, is practical rather than principled. One worry is the very real fear that concurrent relationships should not be encouraged in the context of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. When the political head of the country leads such negative messaging by engaging in concurrent sexual relationships with his wives – presumably – then it is not unreasonable to regard such leadership as irresponsible. It also becomes reasonable to consider discouraging polygamy in society more generally as part of the fight against the pandemic.
This is a tricky objection to negotiate. It is obviously desirable that all reasonable measures be taken to deal the pandemic a death blow. Messaging about responsible sexual practises are central to this strategy. However, if the value that is placed on polygamy by some individuals and some communities are as deep and serious as appear to be the case, then a ‘second best’ strategy is to encourage safe sexual practises within polygamous relationships. Concurrent relationships are not ideal. But such relationships are not inherently inimical to halting the spread of HIV.
Messaging about HIV/AIDS must be evidence-based in the context of the social realities of ordinary people rather than pretending that an ideal reality can be created. So if polygamy is valued and ethically permissible and happens, then focusing on encouraging safe sex within these relationships must be a core part of our fight against the pandemic. Discouraging tradition is not essential.
The second worry is that, in practise, women are forced into polygamous relationships all too often. It is myth to imagine that full consent is routinely obtained and autonomy exercised by women as prescribed by some long-dead Western philosopher. In the real world, in the rural hinterlands where columnists, academics and even political leaders often do not tread, many young girls and women are forced or pressurised into such relationships. Many who are not physically forced, are constrained by their economic disempowerment. Not all women have university degrees and the capacity to live independently - like the President’s latest spouse.
Are these practical worries decisive? It is always difficult to assess the impact of practical considerations on ethical debates. How many practical concerns need to be stacked up before a practise should be banned or discouraged regardless of principled justifications?
Take a parallel example – how many boys will have to die in the Eastern Cape during initiation ceremonies before the death toll justify stopping the practise even if in principle there are important justifications for allowing cultural practises that are integral to a community’s identity?
In the case of polygamy, I cannot proclaim to know the practical facts intimately enough to offer a view. A qualified view is that, certainly, should well-researched and peer-reviewed social science studies – or even compelling cumulative anecdotal evidence – reveal that in practise too many women are abused in polygamous relationships and, furthermore, that practical interventions to stop such gender abuse are not possible or continue to fail, then we will have good reason to discourage the practise.
If there are only a handful of abuses, and these can be dealt with without throwing the cultural practise out of the window, then the life form should remain as one that can legitimately be chosen by people who deem it valuable. The polygamy debate would benefit from robust empirical evidence on this point.
What has seemed like deep disagreement between traditionalists and liberals turns out to be superficial disagreement. Liberalism and pluralism are core values that our liberal constitutional model is based on. These liberal values form the basis of a liberal justification for allowing polygamy. Traditionalists, in their turn, may curiously come to learn that the protection of their non-liberal, communitarian life forms are often best protected in a moral and political system based on liberalism and not conservatism.
In the end, however, this interesting principled consensus between liberals and traditionalists need to be informed by empirical facts. If polygamy is shown to systemically enslave women and such ills cannot be practically arrested, then the principled defences of polygamy collapse under the weight of practical burden.
[ This article was published in Sunday Independent on 10 January 2010 ]
Others, with equal intensity, loathe what they view as the cultural chauvinism of liberals, defending cultural practises as an integral part of the socio-historical reality of too many people. For these supporters of polygamy, such practises must be defended from the liberal tyranny of a constitutional model that is out of touch with the ethical intuitions of the conservative majority.
In such a polarised debate space, with seemingly irreconcilable moral frameworks brought to the discussion table, is moral consensus possible? Or are we stuck with assertion and counter-assertion which can best be described as intractable differences in moral taste? How, if at all, can common ground be reached?
There is, in fact, an important liberal justification for polygamy that critics of the practise – who often think of themselves as subscribing to liberal or progressive moral values – are not aware of. The dichotomy between ‘tradition’ and ‘liberalism’ is hasty and lazy. There are important non-conservative reasons why polygamy should be allowed. Liberals, if they were to think more clearly about what liberalism means and commits them to, would realise that they have to be more accommodating of conservatives if they are to remain true to their own values and principles. Likewise, conservatives who often thoughtlessly regard liberalism as a threat to traditional forms of life, have to face the uncomfortable truth that a proper understanding of liberalism reveals a compassionate (even if qualified) permissiveness on the part of liberalism.
In order to understand this connection between liberalism and tradition, and polygamy in particular, it is of course important to get a clear conceptual grip on liberalism. Terms like ‘progressive’ and ‘liberal’ are bandied about in political discourse, often without clear meaning.
The users of these terms simply hope to evoke positive feelings in readers or listeners rather than making substantive and clear points. It does not really matter how one interprets these inherently tricky concepts – the important thing is to be honest and clear about your own definitions in order to both avoid being misunderstood and to allow for substantive differences and agreements between interlocutors to be clear.
Liberalism regards individual freedom and autonomy as critically important goods that the state should promote and protect. The core justification for this view is that individuals are best placed to know what values and principles they want to endorse and live their lives by. The state should not interfere in the exercise of that autonomy other than, as was argued by John Stuart Mill, to ensure that others’ right to freedom are not infringed. This gives us a framework to explore the ethics of polygamy. Is polygamy consistent with a liberal ethics?
Polygamy certainly is consistent with liberalism. One of the more subtle justifications for liberalism, in addition to and connected with, the premise about respecting individual autonomy, is valuing pluralism. The very point of allowing individuals to be free is to enable them to live the experimental life and settle for life forms that they endorse as worth living. It follows that if some communities wish to endorse polygamy, then this is perfectly permissible.
A liberal society’s liberalism is measured by its tolerance for diversity. There is no reason why polygamy is illiberal in a context where the persons entering into those relationships do so of their own free accord. To take away the moral entitlement to choose such a lifestyle would amount to a violation of liberalism’s commitment to protecting individual autonomy and pluralism.
There is thus no tension between liberalism and polygamy. There is, in fact, a positive relationship: a liberal society must allow for such a practise to be possible.
There is a mixture of principled and practical objections that have been trotted out on this issue. The principled arguments range from the downright silly (such as Kenneth Moeshe’s worry that it is an unchristian practise, as if we live in a Christian state) to more serious worries that values like substantive equality and dignity cannot be squared with polygamy. The serious worry merits attention.
Kenneth Moeshe’s worry deserves a mere parenthetical retort. South Africa is a secular state – for many good reasons - in which church and state is separated and so it would be unacceptable for any denomination’s moral code to be domesticated as national law.
Concerns about substantive equality are much more serious. If only men are allowed to enter into concurrent relationships with many female partners, then the practise is a violation of women’s right to equality. This means that anyone who wants to hang onto a liberal justification for polygamy must accept that both men and women should be allowed to enter into such relationships. Many supporters of polygamy will resist this move. They cannot have their liberal cake and eat it. They would have to find some other basis for their sexist views.
The strongest type of objections to polygamy, however, is practical rather than principled. One worry is the very real fear that concurrent relationships should not be encouraged in the context of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. When the political head of the country leads such negative messaging by engaging in concurrent sexual relationships with his wives – presumably – then it is not unreasonable to regard such leadership as irresponsible. It also becomes reasonable to consider discouraging polygamy in society more generally as part of the fight against the pandemic.
This is a tricky objection to negotiate. It is obviously desirable that all reasonable measures be taken to deal the pandemic a death blow. Messaging about responsible sexual practises are central to this strategy. However, if the value that is placed on polygamy by some individuals and some communities are as deep and serious as appear to be the case, then a ‘second best’ strategy is to encourage safe sexual practises within polygamous relationships. Concurrent relationships are not ideal. But such relationships are not inherently inimical to halting the spread of HIV.
Messaging about HIV/AIDS must be evidence-based in the context of the social realities of ordinary people rather than pretending that an ideal reality can be created. So if polygamy is valued and ethically permissible and happens, then focusing on encouraging safe sex within these relationships must be a core part of our fight against the pandemic. Discouraging tradition is not essential.
The second worry is that, in practise, women are forced into polygamous relationships all too often. It is myth to imagine that full consent is routinely obtained and autonomy exercised by women as prescribed by some long-dead Western philosopher. In the real world, in the rural hinterlands where columnists, academics and even political leaders often do not tread, many young girls and women are forced or pressurised into such relationships. Many who are not physically forced, are constrained by their economic disempowerment. Not all women have university degrees and the capacity to live independently - like the President’s latest spouse.
Are these practical worries decisive? It is always difficult to assess the impact of practical considerations on ethical debates. How many practical concerns need to be stacked up before a practise should be banned or discouraged regardless of principled justifications?
Take a parallel example – how many boys will have to die in the Eastern Cape during initiation ceremonies before the death toll justify stopping the practise even if in principle there are important justifications for allowing cultural practises that are integral to a community’s identity?
In the case of polygamy, I cannot proclaim to know the practical facts intimately enough to offer a view. A qualified view is that, certainly, should well-researched and peer-reviewed social science studies – or even compelling cumulative anecdotal evidence – reveal that in practise too many women are abused in polygamous relationships and, furthermore, that practical interventions to stop such gender abuse are not possible or continue to fail, then we will have good reason to discourage the practise.
If there are only a handful of abuses, and these can be dealt with without throwing the cultural practise out of the window, then the life form should remain as one that can legitimately be chosen by people who deem it valuable. The polygamy debate would benefit from robust empirical evidence on this point.
What has seemed like deep disagreement between traditionalists and liberals turns out to be superficial disagreement. Liberalism and pluralism are core values that our liberal constitutional model is based on. These liberal values form the basis of a liberal justification for allowing polygamy. Traditionalists, in their turn, may curiously come to learn that the protection of their non-liberal, communitarian life forms are often best protected in a moral and political system based on liberalism and not conservatism.
In the end, however, this interesting principled consensus between liberals and traditionalists need to be informed by empirical facts. If polygamy is shown to systemically enslave women and such ills cannot be practically arrested, then the principled defences of polygamy collapse under the weight of practical burden.
[ This article was published in Sunday Independent on 10 January 2010 ]
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Why I only date black men (a republication, for fun)
[ This piece was published in the Sunday Indy last year and caused a minor storm in a small teacup, including on SAfm when I was invited to discuss it. One charming listener sent a text stating "SAfm has run out of healthy topics!" haha. The issue re-surfaced in a chat recently with two good friends of mine - so I thought i'd repost it and provoke further discussion- if anyone cares. Use it. Don't use it. ]
******
I drew quite a bit of flak in a chat room the other day. I had expressed a preference for black partners. “I thought we’ve moved beyond such racism!” one self-confessed progressive smarty pants piped up. Others even accused me of having an “immoral” attitude. “What’s wrong with whites?!” insisted yet another. My cheeky “Not much!” was lost on the humourless bugger. After a brief attempt at explaining myself, I accepted defeat. My faceless conversationalists showed no openness to reason. The whole saga has forced me, though, to wrestle with a pretty tough question: are racially exclusive sexual preferences immoral? I date only blacks: does that make me racist?
I always regarded sexual preferences as subjective stuff about which very little can be said. Just as some people like banana on pizza, or can be moved, miraculously, by the jarring sounds of Metallica (yuk!), others enjoy avocado on pizza, and listen to Lionel Richie on repeat (cool!) These are all mere matters of taste. And taste, surely, cannot be objectively evaluated? One person’s ‘bad taste’ is another’s aesthetic heaven - or orgasm even!
And so it is, I always thought, with our choices of who we sleep with. I, for one, don’t ‘get’ my black male friends’ obsession with gigantic booties, for example. But, then again, my near-drooling after tall, well-sculpted black hunks that strut past our lunch table, not only mildly embarrass these same straight friends, but leave them as puzzled about the drivers of my own tastes. Yet, the incident in the chat room tests the foundations of these convictions. Are sexual preferences really so innocent? Or, are they reflections of deeper attitudes, and earlier experiences, which can be morally criticised? In a country like South Africa, in particular, can the potent political sociology of race so easily be divorced from the ethics of sexuality?
A good friend of mine recently challenged my long-held view about the inherent subjectivity and innocence of sexual preferences. He suggested that, in fact, the question of who we sleep with might actually be one of the most interesting litmus tests of how much progress we’ve made in South Africa in terms of race relations. Interracial dating, he argued, is perhaps not as common fifteen years after Apartheid’s demise, as one might have predicted. “There should have been many more coloured kids by now!” he half-joked. Unfortunately, our local academics are not interested enough in sexy social questions, so there isn’t much written, and documented, on these post-democratic behavioural trends.
I am, on second thoughts, inclined to partly agree with my friend – sexual preferences do reflect background experiences, and so might well be a decent proxy for measuring various social phenomena, such as our evolving attitudes towards ‘the other’.
Take a pedestrian example. There was some interracial dating between boys from my Model-C, multiracial high school, and girls from our sister school (gay teens remain invisible). My black friends who attended township schools, on the other hand, continued to date only black girls. This is no co-incidence. Exposure to different languages, cultures, classes, nationalities, bodies, phenotypes and cultures de-mystifies ‘the other’ so that you become socialised into not just ‘understanding’ ‘their’ differences, but also ‘feeling’ (for) ‘them’. The desire for sex, one of those most basic of human drives, suddenly finds itself oriented towards a greater range of potential partners. This, surely, is a sign of successful racial integration, the humanising of black and white folks in each others’ eyes.
There seems to be something to my friend’s hunch that racial exclusivity in sexual choices reflects a psychosexual inability to view ‘the other’ as fully, and basically, human. This thought dovetails our natural impulse to explore things that are foreign. One of the biggest tragedies of ‘growing up’ is that our childhood fascination with exploring stuff (think of the baby, that most intellectually curious of creatures, yanking at every object in its way!) dies before puberty. Throw in the psychological damage caused by Apartheid, a system which criminalised any fascination with difference, and our natural impulses flew into exile.
Against this backdrop, greater interracial dating in post-democratic South Africa would signal the growing impotence of our racist psychologies. Does all this mean that sexual preferences are not all that innocent, then? Should I feel ashamed of, or at least regret, dating only black partners?! An affirmative answer would be hasty, I think, even if we warmed to the idea that sexual choices might reflect the extent of our comfort with others.
We must separate psychological accounts of the origin of our preferences, from the very different issue of whether it matters that those origins might be embarrassing. Imagine, for example, you are an absolute sport fanatic, spending seven days a week at the gym, and taking part in a team sport or two over weekends. You also know that your deeply insecure dad – bless him! – forced you, sometimes near-violently, to participate in sporting activities, just so he could live vicariously through your sporting prowess, having been pretty useless in his day. This sounds like a tragic origin of your adult love affair with health and fitness. Does this mean you should tone it all down, and substitute a few gym visits with trips to McDonalds instead?! Surely not.
Similarly, while it’s true that sexual preferences can reflect tragic earlier life experiences, it does not follow that one has a moral duty to now change one’s preferences. It simply means that we understand where our sexual tastes come from. It is up to us, as individuals, to decide whether we like these tastes we are saddled with, or whether we want to take steps to alter them. Though, heaven alone knows what steps would work - therapy?! hypnosis?! I, for one, would find it difficult to have a pep talk with my sexual hormones, “Friends, PLEASE organise me a few erections when I see white peeps! Please?! In the name of racial integration?!” I’m perfectly happy to remain enthralled with the black body.
Furthermore, what seems like a supposedly healthy and innocent fascination with difference and variety can also sometimes land us in hot ethical waters. There’s a fine line between indulging in interracial bonding, and fetishising ‘the other’. The number of times someone has used the pickup line, “I’ve never been with a black guy!” in the hope of bowling me over, continues to shock me. While I am all for giving substance to the word ‘pluralism’, a word I bandy about every other day, the flip-side is that we must avoid unhealthy obsessions with others.
This is not a warning against interracial relationships. It is a cautionary tale about the danger of trying to turn multiculturalism into something of a normative ethical theory. There are also prudential reasons why we might choose to date someone from a certain group. Almost all of my black American friends on fancy scholarships at Oxford made it clear that they would only marry a black partner when they returned to the States. They left jungle fever experiments for ‘studies abroad’. They thought they’d get greater political mileage out of dating their ‘own kind’. It is interesting to guess, for example, how Obama’s candidacy might have played out if he had a white partner. Would a greater number of white Americans have warmed up to him? Would black Americans have doubted his ‘black credentials’?! One driver of white America’s support for Obama (if you’re into pop psychology theories about voting patterns, like scholar Shelby Steele, who punts this particular view) is that voting for a black President was a form of racial redemption for many whites. If so, an interracial couple running for office might have elicited fewer white votes from those seeking an opportunity to ‘prove’ their non-racism. All this is, of course, speculation – but the truth it speaks to is that choices about who we sleep with, and who we marry, are irreducibly complex, and deeply personal. It is surely ok if I choose Michelle partly because it helps me get to the White House – or, even, because it is easier to introduce her to the family, and mama’s unhealthy ‘soul food’ (unless of course, mama is white, and not into soul anyway!)
In the final analysis, we should think twice about imposing norms on each other for how to pick bedfellows. . Morality does not and cannot dictate to our erotic yearnings or the responses of our privy parts. We don’t need to be equal opportunity lovers. While sexual tastes clearly can betray our deepest anxieties and prejudices, we should also learn to just chill about this issue. Like sin, prejudice can be fun. When the prejudice is innocuous, like my choice of a mommy or daddy for my kids, then we’d all do well to keep away from overzealous moralists trying to take the fun out of loving. Sex, like religion, should not be politicised.
******
I drew quite a bit of flak in a chat room the other day. I had expressed a preference for black partners. “I thought we’ve moved beyond such racism!” one self-confessed progressive smarty pants piped up. Others even accused me of having an “immoral” attitude. “What’s wrong with whites?!” insisted yet another. My cheeky “Not much!” was lost on the humourless bugger. After a brief attempt at explaining myself, I accepted defeat. My faceless conversationalists showed no openness to reason. The whole saga has forced me, though, to wrestle with a pretty tough question: are racially exclusive sexual preferences immoral? I date only blacks: does that make me racist?
I always regarded sexual preferences as subjective stuff about which very little can be said. Just as some people like banana on pizza, or can be moved, miraculously, by the jarring sounds of Metallica (yuk!), others enjoy avocado on pizza, and listen to Lionel Richie on repeat (cool!) These are all mere matters of taste. And taste, surely, cannot be objectively evaluated? One person’s ‘bad taste’ is another’s aesthetic heaven - or orgasm even!
And so it is, I always thought, with our choices of who we sleep with. I, for one, don’t ‘get’ my black male friends’ obsession with gigantic booties, for example. But, then again, my near-drooling after tall, well-sculpted black hunks that strut past our lunch table, not only mildly embarrass these same straight friends, but leave them as puzzled about the drivers of my own tastes. Yet, the incident in the chat room tests the foundations of these convictions. Are sexual preferences really so innocent? Or, are they reflections of deeper attitudes, and earlier experiences, which can be morally criticised? In a country like South Africa, in particular, can the potent political sociology of race so easily be divorced from the ethics of sexuality?
A good friend of mine recently challenged my long-held view about the inherent subjectivity and innocence of sexual preferences. He suggested that, in fact, the question of who we sleep with might actually be one of the most interesting litmus tests of how much progress we’ve made in South Africa in terms of race relations. Interracial dating, he argued, is perhaps not as common fifteen years after Apartheid’s demise, as one might have predicted. “There should have been many more coloured kids by now!” he half-joked. Unfortunately, our local academics are not interested enough in sexy social questions, so there isn’t much written, and documented, on these post-democratic behavioural trends.
I am, on second thoughts, inclined to partly agree with my friend – sexual preferences do reflect background experiences, and so might well be a decent proxy for measuring various social phenomena, such as our evolving attitudes towards ‘the other’.
Take a pedestrian example. There was some interracial dating between boys from my Model-C, multiracial high school, and girls from our sister school (gay teens remain invisible). My black friends who attended township schools, on the other hand, continued to date only black girls. This is no co-incidence. Exposure to different languages, cultures, classes, nationalities, bodies, phenotypes and cultures de-mystifies ‘the other’ so that you become socialised into not just ‘understanding’ ‘their’ differences, but also ‘feeling’ (for) ‘them’. The desire for sex, one of those most basic of human drives, suddenly finds itself oriented towards a greater range of potential partners. This, surely, is a sign of successful racial integration, the humanising of black and white folks in each others’ eyes.
There seems to be something to my friend’s hunch that racial exclusivity in sexual choices reflects a psychosexual inability to view ‘the other’ as fully, and basically, human. This thought dovetails our natural impulse to explore things that are foreign. One of the biggest tragedies of ‘growing up’ is that our childhood fascination with exploring stuff (think of the baby, that most intellectually curious of creatures, yanking at every object in its way!) dies before puberty. Throw in the psychological damage caused by Apartheid, a system which criminalised any fascination with difference, and our natural impulses flew into exile.
Against this backdrop, greater interracial dating in post-democratic South Africa would signal the growing impotence of our racist psychologies. Does all this mean that sexual preferences are not all that innocent, then? Should I feel ashamed of, or at least regret, dating only black partners?! An affirmative answer would be hasty, I think, even if we warmed to the idea that sexual choices might reflect the extent of our comfort with others.
We must separate psychological accounts of the origin of our preferences, from the very different issue of whether it matters that those origins might be embarrassing. Imagine, for example, you are an absolute sport fanatic, spending seven days a week at the gym, and taking part in a team sport or two over weekends. You also know that your deeply insecure dad – bless him! – forced you, sometimes near-violently, to participate in sporting activities, just so he could live vicariously through your sporting prowess, having been pretty useless in his day. This sounds like a tragic origin of your adult love affair with health and fitness. Does this mean you should tone it all down, and substitute a few gym visits with trips to McDonalds instead?! Surely not.
Similarly, while it’s true that sexual preferences can reflect tragic earlier life experiences, it does not follow that one has a moral duty to now change one’s preferences. It simply means that we understand where our sexual tastes come from. It is up to us, as individuals, to decide whether we like these tastes we are saddled with, or whether we want to take steps to alter them. Though, heaven alone knows what steps would work - therapy?! hypnosis?! I, for one, would find it difficult to have a pep talk with my sexual hormones, “Friends, PLEASE organise me a few erections when I see white peeps! Please?! In the name of racial integration?!” I’m perfectly happy to remain enthralled with the black body.
Furthermore, what seems like a supposedly healthy and innocent fascination with difference and variety can also sometimes land us in hot ethical waters. There’s a fine line between indulging in interracial bonding, and fetishising ‘the other’. The number of times someone has used the pickup line, “I’ve never been with a black guy!” in the hope of bowling me over, continues to shock me. While I am all for giving substance to the word ‘pluralism’, a word I bandy about every other day, the flip-side is that we must avoid unhealthy obsessions with others.
This is not a warning against interracial relationships. It is a cautionary tale about the danger of trying to turn multiculturalism into something of a normative ethical theory. There are also prudential reasons why we might choose to date someone from a certain group. Almost all of my black American friends on fancy scholarships at Oxford made it clear that they would only marry a black partner when they returned to the States. They left jungle fever experiments for ‘studies abroad’. They thought they’d get greater political mileage out of dating their ‘own kind’. It is interesting to guess, for example, how Obama’s candidacy might have played out if he had a white partner. Would a greater number of white Americans have warmed up to him? Would black Americans have doubted his ‘black credentials’?! One driver of white America’s support for Obama (if you’re into pop psychology theories about voting patterns, like scholar Shelby Steele, who punts this particular view) is that voting for a black President was a form of racial redemption for many whites. If so, an interracial couple running for office might have elicited fewer white votes from those seeking an opportunity to ‘prove’ their non-racism. All this is, of course, speculation – but the truth it speaks to is that choices about who we sleep with, and who we marry, are irreducibly complex, and deeply personal. It is surely ok if I choose Michelle partly because it helps me get to the White House – or, even, because it is easier to introduce her to the family, and mama’s unhealthy ‘soul food’ (unless of course, mama is white, and not into soul anyway!)
In the final analysis, we should think twice about imposing norms on each other for how to pick bedfellows. . Morality does not and cannot dictate to our erotic yearnings or the responses of our privy parts. We don’t need to be equal opportunity lovers. While sexual tastes clearly can betray our deepest anxieties and prejudices, we should also learn to just chill about this issue. Like sin, prejudice can be fun. When the prejudice is innocuous, like my choice of a mommy or daddy for my kids, then we’d all do well to keep away from overzealous moralists trying to take the fun out of loving. Sex, like religion, should not be politicised.
Monday, January 4, 2010
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