The fall of the University of Cape Town
David Benatar
SKU: 9783982236438
When LitNet approached David Attwell to review David Benatar’s The fall of the University of Cape Town (2021, Politicsweb) he suggested that instead of a review, he would be willing to take part in a conversation. Here he is in discussion with (the fictional) Bernard Kripke, imagined as a retired professor of philosophy at UCT.
David, what’s your overall impression of David Benatar’s book?
There’s a substantial and still growing archive on Fallism and its consequences, in fiction, poetry, memoir, and analysis. This book is the most detailed and candid account thus far – of course from a particular point of view – about Fallism and the wider debates around transformation and decolonisation. It’s a courageous work. Having said all that, I do have difficulties with it, some philosophical, some ethical.
Go on.
Well, I think it’s helpful to understand David Benatar’s intellectual position. He is a distinguished philosopher. He is not affiliated politically, but his outlook is liberal. In this book he is certainly in the trenches, responding to events and the arguments that swirl around them.
Occasionally, he reveals his philosophical leanings. There’s a disparaging remark about “French philosophy”, meaning poststructuralism and deconstruction. In one of the appendices (3) he refutes some lazy and inaccurate remarks about what is taught in the Philosophy Department at UCT. In response to the accusation that “to study philosophy in South Africa [meaning Cape Town] is to study a series of pronouncements from white, European men”, he writes: “If anyone knows anything about academic philosophy, and especially its analytic branch, one knows that it is not the study of anyone’s ‘pronouncements’. Instead it is the critical evaluation of arguments” (410).
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Clearly, he is comfortable in the British analytic tradition. From that position the book is an exercise in applied ethics, which is one of the fields in which analytic philosophy has made its mark.
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Clearly, he is comfortable in the British analytic tradition. From that position the book is an exercise in applied ethics, which is one of the fields in which analytic philosophy has made its mark. The purpose of the book, decidedly, is to “critically evaluate arguments”. On these terms, the book is powerful and persuasive. I imagine there will be quite a few people at UCT who will be looking into a mirror as they read it, feeling uncomfortable. The problem, as I see it, is that there is more at stake in the situation at UCT and elsewhere than the critical evaluation of arguments. As Hamlet says, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
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I imagine there will be quite a few people at UCT who will be looking into a mirror as they read it, feeling uncomfortable. The problem, as I see it, is that there is more at stake in the situation at UCT and elsewhere than the critical evaluation of arguments. As Hamlet says, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
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And what things are those? What would Hamlet be referring to with reference to UCT?
The wider context, mainly. I would have liked to see a greater effort to understand why the situation is what it is. The book is preoccupied with a contagion of unreasonableness, a malaise, but if so, that is a cultural problem worth exploring. The situation is seldom addressed in these terms, except to pass judgement.
How would you read the context, then?
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Well, there are global economic trends that have undermined the prospects for this entire generation, but on top of that, for local students, the venality of state capture and corruption, the very real prospect of state failure, has opened up a profound moral abyss. We have a democratically elected government that is failing.
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Well, there are global economic trends that have undermined the prospects for this entire generation, but on top of that, for local students, the venality of state capture and corruption, the very real prospect of state failure, has opened up a profound moral abyss. We have a democratically elected government that is failing. If there were a credible, unifying vision nationally, we would not have had such intense arguments around the semiotics at universities.
So you would shift the emphasis to the state, rather than the university? Surely the defining event was the fall of the Rhodes statue?
Up to a point. After #RhodesMustFall, #FeesMustFall came closer to addressing the underlying issues. It’s interesting that long before he went after the statue, Chumani Maxwele aimed his sights at Jacob Zuma. In 2010 he was locked up for “giving the finger” to Zuma’s motorcade and swearing at his bodyguards. By 2015, when Fallism started, the entire constitutional order post-1994 was in question. So the statue was a symptom and a catalyst. We can’t ignore the quasi-religious millenarianism of these movements, and the politics of shame and shaming. There was more at stake than statues, or even than the university.
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So the statue was a symptom and a catalyst. We can’t ignore the quasi-religious millenarianism of these movements, and the politics of shame and shaming. There was more at stake than statues, or even than the university.
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And you feel that the book doesn’t adequately address this?
Not adequately, no. Of course, I’m interested in the cultural narratives in which subjectivity takes root. The problem with applied ethics, in the terms practised in the book, is that one is predisposed to expect people to be reasonable. If it becomes patently obvious that they are not, that they are driven by other compulsions, then the more you insist on reason the more you paint yourself into a corner. 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.
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If it becomes patently obvious that they are not, that they are driven by other compulsions, then the more you insist on reason the more you paint yourself into a corner. 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.
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You probably know that there are branches of philosophy that would make sense of this.
Yes, no doubt. I’m not suggesting that literature has all the keys. It depends on what one means by the literary. The later Wittgenstein, for example, would have encouraged us to ask whether the critical evaluation of arguments is the only, or even the most appropriate, kind of language game to be playing in a situation like this.
You’re implying that David Benatar is unsympathetic, or uninterested, in the historical background. That would be unfair, surely. He responds to the accusation that he doesn’t understand, or doesn’t want to understand, why people experience themselves as victims. He says he understands it all too well, and reluctantly he discloses that his perspective is influenced by his being Jewish.
Yes that’s true. It’s a moving – movingly understated – argument.
So, to push you a bit further, if your point of reference in this crisis – let’s accept for the moment that, as you say, it is a crisis, of language, and of moral recognition – if your point of view is informed by an older, European, and Jewish memory, then the kind of liberalism that expects people to be reasonable has its virtues, not so?
Meaning?
Well, to be blunt, if at the back of your mind you are aware that racial nationalism can lead to genocide, then you would want reason to prevail. You would fight unreasonableness tooth and nail. Isn’t that what’s at stake in David Benatar’s brand of liberalism?
I take that point. The book is forensic in going after hypocrisy, double standards, the manipulation of evidence to support arguments decided in advance, and so forth. In that respect, David Benatar is issuing a kind of cris de coeur on behalf of reason. Or, in the interests of a constitutional dispensation, in which basic human rights are understood and respected. Some of his most rigorous arguments are in defence of academic freedom and freedom of expression. And he doesn’t defend only the rights of people who are in his corner. He defends the right to speak of people who hold extremely noxious views.
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The book is forensic in going after hypocrisy, double standards, the manipulation of evidence to support arguments decided in advance, and so forth. In that respect, David Benatar is issuing a kind of cris de coeur on behalf of reason. Or, in the interests of a constitutional dispensation, in which basic human rights are understood and respected.
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So on one hand, David, you’re saying that he isn’t attentive enough to people’s wounds. But on the other hand you’re also saying that he is right to demand that people must behave reasonably. Isn’t this contradictory?
There’s a tension there, certainly. Let me slow down a bit and try to throw some light on the problem.
In the opening paragraphs of The wretched of the earth, Frantz Fanon says that decolonisation “is always a violent phenomenon”. He writes: “At whatever level we study it – relationships between individuals, new names for sports clubs, the human admixture at cocktail parties, in the police, on the directing boards of national or private banks – decolonization is quite simply the replacing of a certain ‘species’ of men by another ‘species’ of men” (sic).
That is pretty close to the bone, especially in a text that is so widely admired today. David Benatar complains that terms like transformation and decolonization are just empty slogans, that they are never properly defined. Perhaps the problem is different, though. He might be challenging his opponents to actually say what they mean. If terms like transformation and decolonization mean what Fanon takes them to mean, then the very idea of the university as a space where people of different backgrounds can freely exchange ideas will cease to exist. He might well be asking are we, or are we not, in Algeria in 1960?
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David Benatar complains that terms like transformation and decolonization are just empty slogans, that they are never properly defined. Perhaps the problem is different, though. He might be challenging his opponents to actually say what they mean. If terms like transformation and decolonization mean what Fanon takes them to mean, then the very idea of the university as a space where people of different backgrounds can freely exchange ideas will cease to exist.
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So he is taking an ethical position, which is a refusal to accept that what is taking place is simply a transfer of power from one racial elite to another, as many have argued. If this is what is happening then the idea of the university collapses. If it is the case, as supporters of Fallism would argue, that the ideal of the free circulation of ideas has never materialised, then a straightforward transfer of power to a new elite will not solve the problem. It might get worse. That’s a fate that David Benatar (or rather, his book) won’t entertain.
To put it yet another way, there’s a kind of Pascalian wager here. Even if it doesn’t feel like we live in a rights-based constitutional democracy with equal access to the law and to the free exchange of ideas, which is what universities are for, we have no option but to continue to believe and act as if we do. Perhaps that explains his determination to hold on to the idea that people can and should do better. It’s part of his belief in the university as an institution. If I understand him correctly.
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Even if it doesn’t feel like we live in a rights-based constitutional democracy with equal access to the law and to the free exchange of ideas, which is what universities are for, we have no option but to continue to believe and act as if we do. Perhaps that explains his determination to hold on to the idea that people can and should do better. It’s part of his belief in the university as an institution.
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Fallists would claim, as you hinted at there, that UCT has never supported the free exchange of ideas. There’s a charge of hypocrisy.
It never exists in a perfect state, but I would encourage you to look at the debate over the admissions policy in 2010. It’s all on YouTube. David Benatar was on the panel, as was Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, and Archbishop Ndungane as Chair of Council. The interesting clash was between Max Price and Neville Alexander. Max Price argued that UCT should continue using race as an indicator of disadvantage. Neville Alexander argued that, this being South Africa, UCT should take the high road of principle and remove race altogether from official university discourse. It’s a lively, public debate. It’s hard to imagine that taking place now.
One of David Benatar’s senior colleagues has said on social media that someone who attacks the university in this way should not be earning a professorial salary. What’s your view of this?
That opinion is just plain wrong. The book is a leap of faith. You don’t have to agree with it to see this, and I hope the university leadership will see it in that light.
When we began you said you had some ethical difficulties with the book. What did you mean?
I spoke loosely. I don’t mean that it is in any way unethical. I mean that there are some arguments in which the ethics are not fully developed. The debate on the use of force, for example, in chapter 7 (“The university of capitulation”). The argument is that the university executive capitulated again and again to brutality and vandalism. Red lines would be drawn, only to be ignored, then redrawn, and so on, with a downward spiral.
There’s more than a grain of truth in this, but the argument is actually that the university ought to have been willing to call in the police sooner. That assumes that the police have the training and capability to provide a non-lethal show of force. But this is SAPS. The university tried using private security, with mixed results, which inflamed the debate even further. I don’t think the book fully faces up to the implications, or the prospect of worse violence. Where I do agree with him is that the executive might have polled the university community on this and other issues, as was done at Wits.
David, you’re mentioned in the book, in connection with the deanship of the Faculty of Humanities. What did you make of that?
Yes, I’m in the dramatis personae, in a very minor role. It’s a fair account. He doesn’t have all the facts as I saw them, but he can’t be expected to have known them.
What facts, for example?
Let me tread carefully here. I wasn’t looking for a position at UCT. I was invited to apply, twice – first in 2013 by members of the selection committee, the second time in 2017, by Max Price.
On both occasions you were not appointed, on racial grounds, by David Benatar’s account. Is that so?
Yes. When the invitation came in 2013 I was assured that the committee would like to have my application. I allowed myself to think, naively in retrospect, that they must have known what they were doing – that there must be a nuanced understanding of transformation, that it didn’t have to depend on the candidate’s race, but on their intellectual interests, and so on. Otherwise why approach me?
You were proved wrong. But why did you apply again?
It was more complicated than that. After giving it much thought I said I would put in the second application, adding that if they were able to shortlist any candidates from the designated groups I would understand and immediately withdraw. As it turned out, Max Price, who chaired the process on both occasions, didn’t convey this position to the committee, nor the faculty. He was procedural, but to the best of my knowledge he never fulfilled this request.
It became awkward at the presentation to the faculty. The first person to respond to my talk was Lwazi Lushaba, who is a major role player in the book. He fired five questions at me in a row, the first being, “Professor Attwell, you have published in African literature. Don’t you think you should step aside in favour of a black candidate?” Max Price kept stumm.
That sounds difficult, but you still haven’t answered the question. Why did you agree to go through this?
Thuma mina, to quote President Ramaphosa. UCT is an alma mater.
David Benatar gives the results of the faculty votes. In 2013, 70% of the faculty supported you, but another appointment was made. In 2017, it was 56%, just short of the required 60%. He says the drop from 70% to 56% “is not attributable to any negative change in the candidate”, but that it reflects either a change in the membership of the faculty, or a change in the climate. What did you make of it?
It was the climate. In a faculty of over 300 people, 106 were present. There was widespread disaffection. If a handful of the abstentions had voted for me, it would have gone through.
I must thank you, Bernard, for writing to me afterwards to apologise for the conduct at that meeting and on behalf of UCT generally, for the shabby treatment. I wasn’t there, of course, but from what I could gather there were garbled facts and racial squabbling.
From what you now know from the book you must feel that you dodged the bullet?
Yes, up to a point. In 2017 I asked my friend Harry Garuba, who was acting dean (we were PhD students together in Austin, Texas), to arrange for me to meet with members of the BAC [Black Academic Caucus]. I wanted them to tell me whether they were prepared to accept the appointment. Harry kept this low profile, but I met two people. One of them was Lwazi Lushaba – whether he was actually a member of the BAC or not, I don’t know. We got on surprisingly well, despite the earlier encounter, even reminiscing about our past lives in KwaZulu-Natal. On the way to the dean’s suite, Harry arranged for a staff member to go off and buy lunch for the four of us. As she left, Lwazi shouted after her in Zulu, asking her to make sure there would be meat!
This was in reference to the row that David Benatar reports in chapter 4 (“The censure”) about a proposal to serve only vegetarian food at faculty functions.
Yes. It reads like a bad campus novel, the kind of squabble that gives academics a bad name.
What would you have done, if you had been the dean?
I would have allowed the proposal to go before a normal faculty board meeting, fully expecting it to be defeated. Carnivores, of all hues, have the numerical advantage. But I would have made a counter-proposal. The faculty has no obligation to provide food, since people earn salaries. The money it spends on catering could be given to a charity feeding scheme. People could bring their own food to meetings – even better if it were shared out on a common table.
Any final thoughts on the book?
Yes. It’s disappointing to read that David Benatar had no success with the mainstream commercial or academic presses. If they felt the book was too hot to handle, they might have sent him a good editor to cut out some of the repetition and create a clearer, more temperate spine of argument. It’s long because he wants the empirical record to stand, but I wonder if the polemic could have been dialled down just a bit, for his sake, and for everyone involved.
Thank you, David.
My pleasure, Bernard. Thank you for platforming me.
Also read David Benatar’s response to the above here.
On The fall of the University of Cape Town: A further discussion
Further reading:
Why English should be the language of South African universities
The role of African universities in the intellectualisation of African languages
University Seminar 2016: Achille Mbembe on the new politics of the South African student
Interview: Different conditions on the campuses, different protests
As by fire – the end of the South African university by Jonathan Jansen: book review
Open Stellenbosch: Beyond the rainbow, towards a change of climate
A comment on Peter Kallaway’s book titled The changing face of colonial education in Africa
Decolonising education in South Africa: An interview with Aslam Fataar
Kommentaar
Surely we are on the slippery (Table Mountain) slope of philosophristy here? Selfs ´n deurwinterde bergmens soos Marthinus Versfeld sou net ´n sonore (en gelate) windlaat kon los ten aanhoor van soveel talibaans …
Thank you, Breyten. I would not want to get on the wrong side of the (spirit of) Martin Versveld, especially if he expressed himself this way. But I’m trying to get the measure of your comment. Could ‘philosophistry’ and ‘talibaans’ come from the same pen? Wouldn’t they be at loggerheads? I would hope that what I have written is neither of these things — neither specialised, nor ideological. David Benatar’s book comes from a distinct philosophical position, which is both its weakness and its strength. How does one engage with this duality without producing still more Opinion? It would be instructive to have your own views on the book, if you are able and willing.
Reading the review shows the complexities of the situation and the continued need for what my teacher taught us to have, viz. 'Die Oop Gesprek'. I will be re-reading as there is much one can take away from the review.
I need to apologize to you, David Atwell, for the rather brutal shortcuts I allowed myself which may have suggested that I did not appreciate and admire your sensitive analysis of the book written by David Benatar on the fall of the impossible dream of this kind of 'university' in present day Mzansi. Please excuse my clumsiness.
Similarly, dear Paul, I do not see the relevance of 'Die Oop Gesprek' under the circumstances - except maybe for us feeling better about ourselves for having tried. The forces of destruction (some will argue 'for change' and perhaps even 'transformation') are simply too strong. Besides, the 'Oop Gesprek' did not as much as incite anybody in any position of authority, and certainly no-one among the liberals, to try and explain to me what had happened to the works of mine which a collector had lent to the university. Nobody to talk to! (True, they weren't mine to cry over. It did bring home a lesson though: keep as far away as possible from any South African 'university' and try not to be enrolled as 'a useful idiot'... as I'm doing here now....)
I'm not sure our beloved old master, Oom Tao, hy met sy ou suiglaggie en sy woordseerkeel, would have approved of the implied distancing. And it was probably unfair of me to call upon his spirit. It was the distant echo of civil courage and the sweet dream of ethical clarity evoked by the word 'philosophy' that set me off though. May he rest in peace.
Thanks Paul Murray. I agree on the idea of "Die Oop Gesprek" and David Attwell foregrounds problematic issues at UCT. The race debate (Neville Alexander vs. Max Price), the Vegan debate that caused a fracas and divide between white and black staff members and David Attwell's invitation to be dean at UCT, to highlight a few issues. I have immense respect for both David Benatar and David Attwell. Benatar is more comfortable in the British analytic tradition; my field is metamodernism and French philosophy. Universities should be spaces for robust debates.
The complexities of the "modern" university is indeed a space of Duality. And we need more books on these issues.
The fact that someone with outstanding education accolades can write something like this, assuming they have acquired exposure, understand research methodology and have learnt how to view things with an impartial world view, is the very reason why I think traditional teaching methods have become irrelevant and a waste of time.
The world, as we speak, is run by college dropouts or people with very basic formal education qualifications. Academia is always stuck in a bubble of narratives that rarely fit lived reality. UCT did not fall, it is in a process of transformation, evolution and social development. It’s so striking to see how the twin towers are so detached to lived experiences of the majority: unemployment, inhumane living conditions, access to basic services.
Golf club members have always used big terms to brush aside basic reality. There is no fall. Can we just agree that it is not our job to always understand everything, but it is our duty to always create solutions that are not covered in prideful privilege that can’t step out of its own shoes.
UCT likes to be stuck in a bubble of world rankings and ratings, but the real people actually influencing positive and productive change, are just ordinary people with big dreams. They are the ones feeding families, uplifting communities and creating solutions.
Not these people that like to ride off narratives of things they do not fully understand from various angles. For a very long time, even after the end of protests, I was against the strategy of burning buildings and buses, but now, with a more mature understanding of the world, I wonder if RMF would have been such a global discourse if it was purely academic, Euro-centred and colonial-minded.
If formal bureaucratic methods were only followed to address inequality. It’s very telling to see how racist people will always try to justify why the world is unfair, so people need to just deal with it. The fact that the Western world still thinks that their methods are superior in a world where Asia has taken over, is very interesting.
How academics are always debating ideologies no one actually uses in their pure and textbook form. UCT is rated as the number 1 university in Africa, based on valid metrics, but if you have a talented child who you want to give practical and relevant skills in a digital world, institutions like AFDA are also there. They have well skilled, new age academics who do not think that they know enough to speak on behalf of God.
Professor Attwell, in his reply to Prof Breytenbach's comments, says that Prof Benatar's book "comes from a distinct philosophical position". I must disagree; indeed, it's hard to understand exactly what Prof Attwell means by this. Does one need a degree in analytic philosophy to know that arson, intimidation and the destruction of artworks are morally heinous? Does one need to be well versed in modal logic to understand that a university executive's undue interference in academic matters constitutes a grave threat to academic freedom? Does one need to have read Korsgaard in order to be concerned about unwarranted accusations of racism? Or to be worried when academics are bullied for holding unpopular views? In his review-discussion, Prof Attwell repeats the claim that there is "more at stake" than Prof Benatar seems to understand, and yet he fails to show what this "more" is, and how it answers to Prof Benatar's concerns about the failure of UCT. It's easy to say that a position is missing something important, but if one fails to point out what this failure is, then the accusations comes across as little more than an ad hominem dressed up in academic garb.
And then there is the undermining of the vegan proposal - yet again. I was one of the main proposers, and one of the persons who spoke at the October 2015 meeting. My main concern then and now has been that the real victims - the animals - have been completely ignored. Prof Attwell's review adds to this ongoing wilful moral blindness, and it is extremely upsetting that someone of his calibre perpetuates this moral indifference. Prof Hambidge says in her comment that the vegan "debate ... caused a fracas and divide between white and black staff members". I'm afraid I must disagree with this reading. There was no debate; the proposal was soundly defeated. Only 8 members of the Faculty supported the proposal. Opponents of the proposal certainly racialised it but this racialisation was entirely manufactured. There are many reasons for this, which I won't discuss here, but certainly one of the reasons was that many people - including academics - who are justly sensitive to the injustices of racism are nevertheless quite happy to support speciesism. Indeed, I suspect that our proposal made some people uncomfortable by reminding them that they were perpetrators of unjust discrimination, and their accusations of racism were nothing more than a reaction formation against us for daring to point this out. It is a great great pity that academic staff in a supposedly progressive Faculty at (to date) the best university on the continent have little moral compunction against the continued torture and slaughter of sentient beings for trivial purposes.
Dear Elisa
You write: "Prof Attwell repeats the claim that there is "more at stake" than Prof Benatar seems to understand, and yet he fails to show what this "more" is, and how it answers to Prof Benatar's concerns about the failure of UCT. It's easy to say that a position is missing something important, but if one fails to point out what this failure is, then the accusations comes across as little more than an ad hominem dressed up in academic garb."
I fail to see the Ad Hominem attack, or accusations "dressed up in academic garb".
You are correct on the vegan "debate". It was an unfortunate incident. But it did highlight the differences in the Faculty.
I will respond later on all your concerns. I think this is an important debate.
Maybe David Attwell could respond at this stage?
Dear Joan
Many thanks for your comments, and for engaging the issues. Let me try to explain my views more fully.
Re the vegan debate ‒ I personally don’t think that the issue highlights differences in the Faculty. Pretty much everyone - bar 8 supporters - opposed the motion. Only one other person in the Faculty - A/Pof Fritha Langerman - defended our concerns regarding the ethical treatment of animals. Could you perhaps clarify what you mean by ‘highlight these differences’?
Re my claim that Prof Attwell is launching an ad hominem attack against David’s book: well, it seems to me that is you say that X’s argument is wrong, but you fail to spell out the ways in which it goes awry, then, in effect, this is an ad hominem attack. It appears to be attacking an argument but in essence it’s attacking a person. This is further highlighted by Prof Attwell’s criticism of David for using reason in his arguments. I don’t see how criticising anyone’s arguments on the basis that they are *rational* can be anything other than an ad hominem ‒ because one effectively is taking oneself out of the reason-giving game *and* claiming that this is a virtue. That’s either just disingenuous or not a serious engagement with the arguments.
I see Prof Benatar has also responded on LitNet (https://www.litnet.co.za/on-the-fall-of-the-university-of-cape-town-a-further-discussion/), so it would be great if Prof Attwell could respond at this stage.
All the best
Elisa
Dear Elisa,
Thanks for inviting me to respond. There is nothing ad hominem in my review of David Benatar’s book. It is respectful of him and of his discipline. The form of the review is one measure of this, among others.
You write, ‘it seems to me that if you say that X’s argument is wrong, but you fail to spell out the ways in which is goes awry, then, in effect, this is an ad hominem attack. It appears to be attacking an argument but in essence it is attacking a person.’
But I do say what I think is missing from the book. The context. By which I mean the historical, social, mythic, psychoanalytic, mad human drama of it all. One philosopher commenting on my review said that I was right to point out that analytical philosophy has often struggled ‘to get humans into focus.’ I guess you know the argument though you might not agree. The misgiving is widely known in philosophy.
You say that I criticize David Benatar for over-reliance on reason. I don’t. What I do say, teasing out what I see as the underlying ethical direction of the book, is that his reliance on reason is admirable as an investment in the idea of the university, against the odds.
Your questions about whether or not you need philosophy to recognize various forms of bullying or abuse or violence are rhetorical. I think you know that I agree with you.
On the vegan proposal, let me state what I think will be obvious to many readers. The issue itself has undeniable moral weight. Whether it was a good idea to try to get the Faculty to eat only vegetarian food, is another thing altogether. By David Benatar’s account, there was miscalculation of the possible consequences and everyone lost. It makes sad reading. I wish we had been able to discuss the proposal before you embarked on it. I would have backed you in a number of other possible forms of activism around the issue. Speaking personally, I would be interested in a project involving hardcore journalism on the subject of Cape Town’s abattoirs, or a philosophical paper on how difficult it is to get animal rights on the agenda in a culture such as ours.
My best wishes,
David
Prof Atwell, you state: "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?".
Would you please provide some examples of such fortification with cultural symbols that I might understand?
Thank you.
Kato van Niekerk
Dear David
Thank you for *your* response to my comments, and for taking the time to engage on these important issues.
You claim that you do take aim at David's arguments by pointing out that what is missing is the context - "the historical, social, mythic, psychoanalytic, mad human drama of it all." Now there are two broad ways in which this kind of claim can be made. In the first way, it's a way of illustrating the focus of an argument - the argument is *not* about A or B, but about X or Y. The other way is to say that the argument is not about A or B but it should be. I take it that this is the kind of criticism you are leveling against David's book. But if this is so, unless you say why he should take into account all the mad human drama of it all, then it's not so much a criticism as an accusation. A criticism of his arguments would show how these other factors are relevant to the argument at hand - what they reveal, or highlight, or explain. But your criticism of David doesn't do that - it points out that his argument focuses on X and Y, says that this is a mistake, but then fails to explain why it is a mistake. You also seem to imply - although this is not baldly stated - that David's book lacks a kind of empathy towards the fallists and their sympathisers; this is highlighted by a comment that you made on his piece in LitNet and also by your comment that "#FeesMustFall came closer to addressing the underlying issues." But if you are indeed saying this, you don't give a reason why you think this is true, and you don't say why David's book is at fault for not taking this perspective. And if you are not saying this, then perhaps you can expand on just how you think that 'context' plays an important role that David's arguments ignore.
Re the vegan proposal: I am pleased that you think that the issue has undeniable moral weight. But if you do think this, then why was it a mistake to bring it to the Faculty? We did not, for the record, "try to get the Faculty to eat only vegetarian food" - that was not the proposal. And I'm also not sure what you mean by the statement that "there was miscalculation of the possible consequences and everyone lost." Quite frankly, we didn't expect the proposal to pass, but we certainly did expect that we could highlight and discuss these grave moral issues in a manner which their importance deserved. The fact that this did not happen is the fault of the Faculty, not ours. Surely it would be appropriate for anyone who writes on this issue to highlight the moral failings of the Faculty, rather than on the tactical failings of its proposers?
A point about analytic philosophy. Yes, I am aware of the claims made by some about its inability to 'get humans into focus'. I think that this kind of criticism takes aim at a straw man version of analytic philosophy. To lay this charge at the likes of Plato, or Spinoza, Hume, Berlin, Wollheim, to name but merely a few, is absurd. It makes a mockery of a centuries' old tradition of philosophy that lies at the core of much of Western thought. It's also not clear to me how this approach has limited the arguments in David's book. Not to point this out, in detail, does, again, sound less like criticism and more like personal attack. This is not to say that you disrespect him, but the focus of your criticism seems, to me at any rate, not aimed sufficiently at the arguments and issues that David raises in the book.
Finally - I also find it rather odd that you level this criticism at David’s book, which focuses precisely on the experiences of the people involved. From the killing of Professor Hahn to the suicide of Professor Mayosi, from the attacks on Prof Nattras to the damage done to members of staff and students, Prof Benatar’s book is deeply concerned about putting humans into focus. Perhaps you mean that he did not give much sympathy to the *perpretators* of these various injustices? If so, it seems a strange criticism indeed.
Regards
Elisa
Dear Elisa,
This has become more rhetorical than it needs to be. You say, in essence, that I don’t explain why I think context matters; you infer from this that I am covertly in sympathy with the Fallists; you infer further, in your final paragraph, that the failure is mine, for not being sufficiently empathetic with the true victims of the abuse. (Along the way you make other points that I won’t take up, about the analytical approach in philosophy and the vegan proposal.)
These deductions (accusations?) bear little relation to my argument. Do I need to explain why I think context matters? It’s not because my sympathies are one-sided, but because we need all the perspective and understanding that we can get. My discipline, which is literary (I spoke of my interests lying in the cultural narratives in which subjectivity takes root, which is broadly literary but other disciplines are in this space too) often begins by establishing the context (‘Always historicize,’ says Fredric Jameson).
It was no accident, from this point of view, that Fallism took off in the worst years of the Zuma administration. David Benatar calls this a just-so story, which I finds surprisingly dismissive. There was a moral, economic, political and existential dead-end, an abyss I called it, to which the response was displaced rage and a politics of shame and shaming, a desperate and frequently misdirected effort at regaining some kind of elusive dignity and agency. Universities (not only at UCT) became a prime target because they have much sought-after cultural capital. I’ll wager that in ten or twenty years’ time, histories of the movement will routinely start with this observation.
So where do my sympathies actually lie, which is the question that troubles you in the rest of your comment? They certainly lie with the victims of Fallist abuse, whose stories David Benatar tells with much care and detail. Perhaps I should have made this more obvious in my review. These stories are excruciatingly painful to read and in the case of Bongani Mayosi, utterly tragic. In addition to these cases, I found disturbingly compelling David Benatar’s account of the language being used by students in some of the events, the most disheartening of these being, for me, the Whatsapp traffic among our future doctors in the Medical School, whose communications are quoted in alarming detail.
But to get back to the point, I’m also overwhelmed, Elisa, as I’m sure most people are, by the sheer weight and sadness of it all. It is the entire situation that grieves me, and I was not even at UCT (as you know) when all of this took place, so I can scarcely begin to imagine how profoundly heartsore it has left so many of the staff. It is for that reason, mainly, that I would call for the broader view. As I began by saying, we need as much understanding as we can get. In fact, we need a Dostoevsky, who had little sympathy with the Fallists of his day but who understood their history, psychological condition, political morality, and motives exceptionally well.
I hope this helps. Before we take it any further, I would ask that we consider the overworked content managers at LitNet.
Kind regards,
David
Hi David
I did not mean my comments to be personal so I'm sorry you took them that way.
Disputatio finit.
Regards
Elisa