Robert Paul Wolff (gebore in 1933) se A Life in the Academy (Wellington, NZ: Society for Philosophy & Culture, 2013, 692p, $8; slegs elektronies beskikbaar), bied interessante leesstof aan diegene wat in die akademiese lewe belangstel; des te meer as hulle in die vak filosofie en Amerikaanse universiteite geïnteresseerd is. Wat meer SêNetters se belangstelling sal prikkel, is Wolff se Suid-Afrikaanse konneksie, waaroor ek weens gebrek aan ruimte eers volgende keer sal skryf. Om dieselfde rede lewer ek bitter min kommentaar op Wolff se uitlatings.
Die teks is aanvanklik van 2003 tot 2011 op die outeur se blog gepubliseer. "These memoirs are devoted primarily to professional rather than personal reminiscences" (Kindle 4019). Al was dit volgens Wolff nie die bedoeling nie, is daar naas akademiese sake heelwat inligting oor ander aangeleenthede, insluitende outobiografiese besonderhede. Hy besef "life is not infinite in importance or extent" (K 2079). Die omvang van die teks toon dat die outeur nie die vermoë het om duidelik te onderskei tussen wat vir hom interessant is en wat moontlik vir ander mense interessant is nie.
'n Mens het hier met 'n outeur te make wat radikale, sogenaamde progressiewe, waardes aanhang. Dit is "Marxist rhetoric that gets my juices flowing" (K 10573). Hy is nie net ateïsties en marxisties gesind nie, maar ook feministies en anargisties: "No organised government is morally legitimate" (K 3070). Hy beskryf die Amerikaanse Republikeine Party bv as "the association of reactionary bigotry, religious fanaticism, modern-day racism, and crony capitalism" (K 1515).
Daar is interessante mededelings en verwysings in die teks. Hy haal bv twee sinne uit Zora Neale Hurston se roman Their Eyes Were Watching God, oor 'n gemoedsverandering aan wat my bybly: "She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was" (K 1437). Franz Kafka word soos volg aangehaal: "It is enough that the arrows fit exactly the wounds they have made" (K 2285). Van bv die hemel kan ons dalk soos Gertrude Stein sê: "There is no there there" (K 3809). Dan is daar Oscar "Wilde's immortal judgment on Dickens' Old Curiosity Shop - 'One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing'" (K 6115).
Wolff begin deur te vertel dat hy 'n ouer suster, Barbara, het en dat hulle in New York City opgegroei het. Sy ouers en grootouers is afstammelinge van Oos-Europese Jode en deurtrek van sosialisme. Sy pa, wat 'n alkoholis was, was egter sterk anti-kommunisties gesind. Die outeur het eers in 1948 begin om in die politiek belang te stel en 'n "committed activist" geword (K 1329). "I became an engaged, vocal, political active critic of American society and governmental policy" (K 3536).
Religie het geen rol in sy opvoeding gespeel nie. "My mother once said to me, 'Robby, you are the product of a mixed marriage - your father is an agnostic and I am an atheist'" (K 646). Hy was altyd "rebellious in the face of authority" (K 758). "I had been rebellious, angry, a constant challenger of authority" (K 3205). "Capitalism rests on exploitation" (K 8142). "Women are exploited not just oppressed" (K 8004). "Male authority" is deel van wat afgebreek moet word (K 5540). "I have never had any problem with female authority figures" (K 5547). "I adopted the practice of rigorous alternating male and female pronouns in any sentence I was uttering in which one or the other was not required by the actual gender of the person being referred to" (K 6827). "I never lost my suspicion of bureaucratic or political authority" (K 5559). Ook: "I have no gift for friendship" (K 1129). "I am not a terribly sociable person by nature, and making friends is, for me, rather difficult" (K 4233).
Wolff het in 1957 aan die Universiteit Harvard 'n doktorsgraad in die wysbegeerte verwerf nadat hy aanvanklik meer in wiskunde gelang gestel het. Willard Quine (1908-2000) se logika-lesings het hom oorgehaal. Wolff se suster het in 1958 haar doktorale proefskrif in biochemie aan die Universiteit Stanford voltooi. Anders as hulle voorgeslag, het hierdie twee kinders dus 'n sterk akademiese tradisie in die gesin begin: "My home life ... encouraged intellectual curiosity" (K 871).
Die outeur het hom ook in musiek uitgeleef deur 'n viool en later 'n viola te bespeel. Hy noem "three forms of activity which are, for me, totally self-rewarding ... social intercourse ... intellectual activity ... listening to music ... Bach or Handel or Vivaldi, etc" (K 1945). "I am unable to appreciate sculpture or painting" (K 1959). "Instead, music, as structured alteration, provides a perfect balance of rational comprehensibility and sensuous variability" (K 1961).
Wolff was meer as vier jaar met sy jeugliefde, Susie Shaeffer, bevriend voordat die verhouding ontspoor het. Sy het 'n graad met filosofie en plantkunde as hoofvakke behaal. Wolff se eerste vrou, Cindy Griffin, 'n Rooms-Katoliek, was 'n dosent in Engelse letterkunde. Sy het, anders as Susie, geen aanleg vir wysbegeerte gehad nie. Hierdie feit en dat sy nie 'n Jodin is nie en haar ouers teen hierdie troue van hulle enigste kind gekant was, verduidelik moontlik deels waarom hierdie huwelik skipbreuk gely het. Maar daar is ook die feit dat albei jare lank sielkundige terapie ondergaan het. Na 23 jaar en die geboorte van twee seuns, Patrick (in 1968) en Tobias (in 1970), eindig hulle huwelik in 1985. "My sister and I had not been at all close for years, in part because Cindy was so unwelcoming to her in our home" (K 7051).
Eers 34 jaar na hulle aanvanklike verhouding is Wolff en Susie in 1987 getroud; in haar geval 'n vierde huwelik. Hulle deel 'n voorliefde vir barokmusiek. Wolff: "I have two trophy sons" (K 10004). Patrick het 'n uitstekende skaakspeler geword. Tobias is 'n professor in die regte en homoseksueel. Hy is "one of the leading gay legal rights activists in the United States" (K 9993). "He has become an important public intellectual. To say that I am proud of him would be like saying that Mt Everest is a very high hill" (K 10000). Susie het ook twee seuns, Jon en Lawrence. Voor haar troue met Wolff was sy 'n eiendomsagent in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Die Wolffs het hulle na sy aftrede in Chapel Hill gevestig en mettertyd ook 'n woonstel in Parys, Frankryk, aangeskaf. Hy noem homself 'n "marginal French speaker" (K 898). "My French is execrable despite my many trips to Paris" (K 9216).
In my samevatting gaan baie akademiese besonderhede weens 'n gebrek aan ruimte verlore. Daar is bv dalk min mense in Suid-Afrika wat besef dat na die studente-opstande in 1968 "an A of some sort is the customary grade" in die VSA vir studente se akademiese werk (K 2604); drastiese, irrasionele "grade inflation" het plaasgevind (K 5566). Dit word egter deur Wolff gebruik as platform vir kritiek op ander lande: "In post-colonial countries like South Africa, universities fail half or more of their students, and then congratulate themselves on the rigour of their standards. The result, of course, is that universities routinely make a considerable number of their students feel like failures" (K 3224). "The Army pitched its instruction at the dimmest bulb in the chandelier" (K 3322). Blykbaar verlang hy dat universiteite dieselfde moet doen.
Nog 'n ooglopende waarneming: "For undergraduates, the world is the college, but for graduate students the world narrows to the department" (K 2758). "Harvard in those days had a rather peculier student culture, composed in equal parts of exhibitionism and studied indifference" (K 2944). Van die beroemde logikus, Alonzo Church (1903-1995), word gesê: "He uttered each word carefully and precisely, as though he were etching it with a chisel in marble" (K 2797). Die president van Harvard, Nathan Pusey, "looked like a retouched photograph of himself" (K 3870). Soos dit 'n radikale aktivis betaam, het Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) gesê: "In philosophy, unclarity is a virtue" (K 3943). 'n Argument van die filosoof, Sidney Hook (1902-1989), "not realising his own strength, breaks a rabbit's neck when he is petting it" (K 5836).
Wolff was elf jaar as student en filosofie-dosent aan Harvard verbonde. Hy was assistent-professor aan die University of Chicago (1961-1964), mede-professor en van 1969 af volle professor aan Columbia University, New York City (1964-1971), en daarna professor, steeds in filosofie, aan die University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1971-1992). Keer op keer was hy aan die begin entoesiasties oor sy kollegas en daarna baie gretig om 'n ander universiteit as werkgewer te vind. "Teaching is in my cultural heritage" (K 2590). "God, how I hate to write, and love to publish" (K 4394). Maar hy het 21 boeke gepubliseer. Die kern van sy wysgerige vakkundigheid is die wysbegeerte van Immanuel Kant. "I had fixed on Kant as a suitable father substitute" (K 5551). "The study of the Critique changed my entire life" (K 1592). Maar dan hierdie erkenning: "I cannot actually read German very well at all, certainly not well enough to read the entire Critique of Pure Reason" (K 3789). "My German is almost non-existent (a painful admission for a Kant scholar who has also written two books about Karl Marx" (K 9216).
Die outeur noem homself "the best known anarchist in academic American philosophy" (K 4504). "I rapidly acquired a reputation as a brash voice on the left ... a typical ... left-wing public intellectual" (K 6261). "I was growing more and more uneasy about the privilege and social isolation of the elite sector of American higher education" (K 6280). In watter mate Wolff aktivisties en verlinks is, blyk uit die smaak waarmee hy vertel van die voorwaarde wat 'n mede-marxis, Samuel Bowles, gestel het voordat hy 'n professoraat in ekonomie aan die University of Massachusetts [UMass] aanvaar het: "He would only come if [UMass] hired five radical economists, all with tenure" (K 6888). "Overnight, UMass acquired the largest collection of American Marxist economists in captivity" (K 6892). "The next fall, an entire class of top of the line radical graduate students enrolled. Overnight, the programme was transformed" (K 6903). "As the years went by, the Economics Department recruited more and more radical economists, becoming the largest and most intellectually powerful Marxist economics department in America" (K 6917). "UMass was much more exciting intellectually than Columbia and much more politically sympatico as well" (K 8020). Dit is duidelik dat Wolff geen waarde aan ideologiese neutraliteit heg nie. Hy verkies dat die idees wat hy aanhang deur dosente verkondig word.
Wolff erken selfs: "I am not a scholar" (K 4529). Ook: "library research - never my long suit" (K 6997). "I do not actually read very much, and I am incapable of skimming" (K 7233). Hy het wel die 30 boekdele van Marx en Engels se vertaalde werk in sy studeerkamer. "I have never been interested in finding new documents, amassing data, or comparing different editions of the same text. I am also not an ideologue. I actually do not care very much whether the people who read my books agree with me ... I care a great deal more that readers find my books well written and interesting" (K 4529; ook 10022). "I am a story teller" (K 4536).
Volgende keer skryf ek oor Wolff se Suid-Afrikaanse bedrywighede en sy betrokkenheid by African-American Studies.
Johannes Comestor