On The fall of the University of Cape Town: A further discussion

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Speech bubbles: https://pixabay.com/vectors/speech-bubble-comic-bubbles-4963615/; book cover: https://www.amazon.com/Fall-University-Cape-Town-university-ebook/dp/B09L96NJRK

The fall of the University of Cape Town
David Benatar
SKU: 9783982236438

After (the fictional) Bernard Kripke interviewed David Attwell about David Benatar’s book, The fall of the University of Cape Town, Emeritus Professor Kripke invited David Benatar to have a discussion about that interview.

David, what was your overall impression of David Attwell’s comments about your book?

I appreciated the positive remarks he made. It was also helpful that he placed in the public realm some further details, not contained in my book, about the circumstances in which he was twice passed over for the deanship of the Faculty of Humanities.

He also offered some candid criticism, “of course from a particular point of view”, although he did a good job of obscuring what his point of view was. To be honest, I found the criticisms disappointing.

You have made two claims, and I would like you to say more about each, please.

I would be happy to, Bernard.

Let’s begin with your second point. What was so disappointing about his criticisms?

Well, let’s start with the most foundational issue. Having acknowledged that my discussion of arguments is “powerful and persuasive”, he says that “there is more at stake in the situation at UCT and elsewhere than the critical evaluation of arguments”.

There is a fundamental confusion in that objection. This is because there is an obvious difference between, first, what is at stake in a given situation and, second, how we should think about what is at stake. Imagine that one is considering whether active euthanasia should be legally permissible. There is much at stake here, including individual liberty, the prevention of suffering, and the state’s role in protecting innocent life. However, knowing what is at stake tells us nothing about what we should do about what is at stake.

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On any given issue, how should we weigh up the different issues at stake? This is where we need arguments, including evidence. We need, in other words, to reason our way, as best we can, through the issues. That is exactly what I was doing in the book.

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On any given issue, how should we weigh up the different issues at stake? This is where we need arguments, including evidence. We need, in other words, to reason our way, as best we can, through the issues. That is exactly what I was doing in the book.

David Attwell seems to be suggesting that we need more than reason to think about these matters.

“Seems”! This is one place where he obscures his particular point of view. It is not entirely clear that this is what he is saying. In any event, the suggestion that we should reject or surpass reason is tempting for those who find that the cold light of reason renders their position untenable. They throw up their hands and tell us that reason is not all it is cracked up to be. But one should notice what they are doing when they say this. They are offering us a reason why we should not put too much trust in reason. To be sure, it is an abysmal argument, but they are playing the reason game while pretending not to be doing so.

.........

Let me be absolutely clear about what I am saying. I am not saying that the use of reason cannot lead one to the wrong answers. Clearly, people have misused reason in a great variety of ways. One common technique is to settle on a conclusion first, and then muster reasons in support of it.

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Let me be absolutely clear about what I am saying. I am not saying that the use of reason cannot lead one to the wrong answers. Clearly, people have misused reason in a great variety of ways. One common technique is to settle on a conclusion first, and then muster reasons in support of it. In fact, the reasoning process should generally work in the opposite direction. Evaluations of the evidence and arguments should lead to whichever conclusion the evidence and best arguments support. However, even when people do abuse reason, the best methodology for showing that, is to point out this abuse, and this involves mustering better arguments.

If my critics think that I am mistaken in the conclusions I reach, they should show where the empirical evidence that I provide is mistaken, or where my logic falls short. Put another way, with apologies to Shakespeare, if there are more (relevant) “things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of” in a philosophy, then let’s just add them to the philosophy. Dismissing reason simply won’t do.

David Attwell has another, and perhaps related, objection. He says that you are “preoccupied with a contagion of unreasonableness” and that if there is such a contagion, then it “is a cultural problem worth exploring”. He says that you seldom do that, “except to pass judgement”.

That is another critique I found disappointing. Consider first his own account of what explains the contagion of unreasonableness that has ravaged UCT. He says that “there are global economic trends that have undermined the prospects for this entire generation” and that, for South African students, “the venality of state capture and corruption, the very real prospect of state failure, has opened up a moral abyss”, and there is no “credible, unifying vision nationally” which would have prevented “such intense arguments around the semiotics of universities”.

I want to say three things about this critique. The first is that David Attwell’s explanation is not a real explanation. It is a just-so story. “Global economic trends that have undermined the prospects [of an] entire generation” occur with some frequency in human history. They do not explain what has happened to UCT over the past six years. Nor do the local factors. Many of those most opposed to what has happened at and to UCT are equally dismayed by state capture and corruption, but did not resort to the same behaviour. Moreover, at least some of those either involved in, or aiding and abetting, the regressive elements are ardent supporters of the governing party that is responsible for state capture and corruption.

The second point is that contagions of unreasonableness pervade human history. Reasonableness is the exception rather than the norm. The unreasonableness takes different forms in different places and at different times, but it is a staple of human affairs. Thus, unreasonableness is not so much a cultural problem as a pervasive human one.

This brings me to my third point. Just because some reviewers would like me to have explained why people are unreasonable, I am not bound to take on that task. As my second point makes clear, it is a much broader issue than my critics imagine. Not every book that examines the hypocrisy, dishonesty, intellectual bankruptcy, and depravity of a particular institution or movement needs to explain either that particular malaise or what makes the timber of humanity more generally so crooked. In other words, not every work of philosophy must be a work of psychology, sociology, history or political studies.

.........

As my second point makes clear, it is a much broader issue than my critics imagine. Not every book that examines the hypocrisy, dishonesty, intellectual bankruptcy, and depravity of a particular institution or movement needs to explain either that particular malaise or what makes the timber of humanity more generally so crooked. In other words, not every work of philosophy must be a work of psychology, sociology, history or political studies.

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I am struck by the contrast between what you have just said and David Attwell’s suggestion that one mistake you make is that you expect people to be reasonable. It seems, from what you’ve just said, that you do not expect people to be reasonable.

It depends on what you mean by “expect”. If you mean that I “regard it likely” that humans will be reasonable, then obviously I do not. If, however, you mean that I “require as rightful or appropriate” that people be reasonable, then certainly I do. That is especially so when they are claiming to be acting reasonably. The appropriate response to somebody’s acting unreasonably but pretending to be acting reasonably, is to demonstrate with an argument that they are actually acting unreasonably.

But David Attwell says that “the more you insist on reason, the more you paint yourself into a corner”. He says that you “might expose your opponents’ faulty arguments, you might outwit them, but if they respond by fortifying themselves with cultural symbols, then what do you do? Every victory is Pyrrhic, a defeat in fact.”

I have two things to say in response to this. First, arguments that highlight some people’s unreasonableness do not have to win around those people, in order to be worthwhile. Such people are unlikely to be persuaded by rational arguments. However, the arguments can bolster the conviction of those on the other side, and win over some of those on the fence. I have received supportive feedback, so far, from hundreds of people (of all “races”).

Second, Professor Attwell needs to think about the counterfactual. I am one voice in a university filled with people who have largely been silenced. (I can think of no more than a handful of people who have spoken out publicly and clearly.) Is the suggestion that if I had not laboured to show up the unreasonableness, then the situation would have been considerably better? That the “cultural symbols” with which the unreasonable have fortified themselves would have been any less fortifying? The answer is obvious. The problem would be every bit as bad as it currently is, although I personally would not have been targeted in the ways that I have. The problem is not that I am exposing my opponents’ faulty arguments, but that more people are not doing so.

David Attwell responds to your complaint that terms like “transformation” and “decolonization” are empty slogans. He wonders whether the problem might be different – that what they actually mean is simply the replacement of some people by others, violently if necessary. He says that if that is what they mean, “then the very idea of a university as a space where people of different backgrounds can freely exchange ideas will cease to exist”. He suggests that this is a fate that you – or, at least, your book – “won’t entertain”.

I find that a curious criticism. There was a time when I thought that UCT could perhaps still be saved, but I make it abundantly clear in the final paragraph of the book’s conclusion that I have long since given up that hope. This is what I said:

I have not written this book because I believe that it will make a difference to UCT’s future. It has been some time since I ceased trying to preserve what is good in UCT and change what is not. I have no confidence that what I say or do will effect either. All I have sought to do in this book is to document and analyse what has been happening, and to offer caution about what is likely to result. Nobody at UCT can later claim that they were not warned.

David Attwell suggests that you did not fully think through the implications of your view that UCT’s executive should have enforced the law. He says, more specifically, that calling the South African Police Service onto campus might have had unfortunate results on account of its inadequate training and capability. How would you respond to that?

I am mindful of the dangers of calling the police (or private security) onto campus – and I mentioned excesses by law enforcement bodies, which I said needed to be investigated and punished. However, that problem has to be balanced against the dangers of not calling police or security onto campus, which is why the UCT executive did at least sometimes call police and security onto campus.

However, this was not the only method for law enforcement. As it happens, I offered some unsolicited practical advice to at least one member of the executive about how the violent protests could be curbed without confronting students at the barricades. I did not reveal those details in the book. Suffice it to say that my advice was not taken – because the UCT leadership, unlike the leadership at other universities around the country, was in capitulation mode.

David Attwell refers to the proposal that you and others put to the Faculty of Humanities – that food served at their faculty events not include any animal products. He says that what followed “reads like a bad campus novel, the kind of squabble that gives academics a bad name”. What do you say about that?

I think that it trivialises the proposal and implies an immoral equivalence between the opposing parties. The proposal was one of significant moral import. The suggestion was that the Faculty of Humanities, if it passed the resolution, would make a symbolic (and “humane”) statement of opposition to the abominable treatment of farm animals, and the environmental effects of intensive animal farming. I know that many people could not see this then and cannot see it now, but that blindness is certainly not “progressive”, and will not be judged favourably by future generations. David Attwell is not one of those who are blind to this issue, but this is another place where he successfully obscures his own view.

Second, I would not characterise what happened as a squabble. A proposal, meeting all the requirements, was submitted. Under the rules, it had to be placed on the agenda. The dean, Sakhela Buhlungu, first agreed to its being on the agenda, but then removed it. He, at first, refused to explain this. When he was challenged at the faculty board meeting, he started inventing new rules and procedures. When he was taken to task for this, members of the Black Academic Caucus (BAC) accused those challenging the dean of “racism”. They then orchestrated censure of those people, with far-reaching ramifications. That is not a squabble. It is bullying, or worse. I would have hoped that David Attwell would have been more sensitive to this – or, if he is, to have expressed it.

David Attwell suggests that your book contains some repetition, and wonders whether “the polemic could have been dialled down a bit”. Would you like to comment?

Yes. I don’t deny that there is some repetition, but this is always in service of the argument. Sometimes, the same facts have to be mustered in support of different claims and arguments. When that is the case, one simply has to refer to them again (which is not the same as recounting them in detail again). Other readers have not complained of repetition.

I find the “polemic” objection galling. People have been censured, slandered, shamed, intimidated and assaulted. A dean was driven to suicide, and dozens of others to see psychiatrists and psychologists. Paintings, vehicles and the vice-chancellor’s office were set alight. All this has been tolerated and even glorified. We are subjected day in and day out, in every meeting and every document, to endless slogans, stupidities and hypocrisies. None of this is criticised for being polemical. Almost nobody speaks up, but when I write a sober, carefully argued book, I am told that the “polemic could have been dialled down a bit”. What does that even mean? That I should have made the argument less trenchant or robust?

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Almost nobody speaks up, but when I write a sober, carefully argued book, I am told that the “polemic could have been dialled down a bit”. What does that even mean? That I should have made the argument less trenchant or robust?

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Perhaps my response will invite the accusation of itself being polemical. I would suggest, instead, that it is forthright.

Any final comments?

I am pleased (for you) that you retired at the end of 2014, and were spared experiencing first-hand what has happened to UCT in the subsequent years.

I am, too. Thanks, David.

Thank you, Bernard. Please give my regards to Saul.

Also read:

US-konvokasie 2016: Courage, Compassion and Complexity - Reflections on the new Matieland and South Africa

The role of African universities in the intellectualisation of African languages

The centrality of the language question in the social sciences and humanities in post-apartheid South Africa

Afrikaans as a language of reconciliation, restitution and nation-building

Full particulars podcast: Orality and the novel, Zakes Mda’s The Wayfarers' Hymns

Full particulars: A podcast on historical fiction – David Attwell in conversation with Zoë Wicomb and Andrew van der Vlies

Full particulars: Confessional fiction for a desolate age

Full particulars: Where in the world is the South?

Why English should be the language of South African universities

Reclaiming Multilingualism

The fall of Afrikaans, and the rise of English

University Seminar 2016: Achille Mbembe on the new politics of the South African student

The removal of art at UCT: interview with Edward Tsumele

Interview: Different conditions on the campuses, different protests

Misdirected anger towards Afrikaans

Decolonising the curriculum: Darwin’s dangerous idea and economic development

"Standing up for injustices"? – Nine notes on #FeesMustFall

Decolonising education in South Africa: An interview with Aslam Fataar

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: Decolonising the mind

Hélène Passtoors: The life and times of an MK soldier

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Kommentaar

  • David Attwell

    Dear Bernard,

    Hats off to David Benatar. In the critical evaluation of arguments, he is il miglior fabbro.

    There is one observation I do want to make about these conversations, however. In your interview with him, at no point do his views change. He approaches the discussion as an opportunity to lay out a series of arguments, mostly in rebuttal.

    In our interview, on the other hand, thanks to your challenging me, Bernard, the arguments develop. The conversational form puts pressure on the ideas. What you and I created was narrative. That is not the case in the conversation he had with you.

    This difference of approach has consequences for the way David Benatar reads me. He thinks I obscure my arguments, but I don’t think so. If I were to try to put the ideas in terms more congenial to him, they would go something like this:

    I begin by saying that what I missed in his book was a richer sense of the context. I offer some reflections on the provenance of Fallism, which he disputes. Be that as it may, I then try to understand the ethical compulsion that leads him to insist on reasonable behaviour in a situation of discursive chaos and violence. The outcome is that I commend his investment in the idea of the university, even when it seems impossible to sustain.

    I might have put that last point in a different way: to insist on reason, against the odds, at least keeps open the space of inter-subjective dialogue.

    It seems obvious to me that this is the drift of our conversation, yours and mine.

    One other point. David Benatar finds it galling that I suggest that the book is too polemical. He asks why the book should be criticized on these grounds, when the true polemicists have been free to bully, censor, and burn. Of course I take that point, but my concern is different. I think (continue to think) that there is another book inside this one, a book that would be taken by an academic press. Perhaps he already has such a book in mind. I hope so.

    All the best,
    David

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