tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post406152029203483225..comments2024-03-28T06:07:03.667-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: MEMOIR VOLUME THREE CHAPTER ONE SECOND INSTALLMENTRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-26671777915993872282010-06-13T21:02:58.599-04:002010-06-13T21:02:58.599-04:00Off topic but I ran across a recipe for rabbit tha...Off topic but I ran across a recipe for rabbit that might be of interest during your stay in France. Occasionally we get tender young rabbit delivered to our back door by our 18 year old cat, who still occasionally makes forays into the countryside here and brings back tender young rabbits once they've ripened to a suitable size for her palate. Even though we are presented them as a prize, we usually leave it to her to finish off the creature, however since you're in France where humans do the same work, this recipe for two rabbits might be helpful. <br /><br />http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2010/06/foodie-friday-cute-animals-with-mustard.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-17098877200857811632010-06-11T16:34:12.878-04:002010-06-11T16:34:12.878-04:00Good grief, I thought what I wrote was clear. She...Good grief, I thought what I wrote was clear. She later became my very good friend. She couldn't stomach him! After everything I have written about my struggles against the discrimination suffered by my first wife, I would have thought that was clear!Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-90958981377093301542010-06-11T16:08:45.786-04:002010-06-11T16:08:45.786-04:00Bob - When you speak of Vincent's "sexual...Bob - When you speak of Vincent's "sexual harassment of a woman studying at Wits who later became a very good friend," do you mean <i>his</i> friend or yours?Pathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08231884081795622556noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-4358923364153668792010-06-11T02:56:04.147-04:002010-06-11T02:56:04.147-04:00The article on culture has never been published. ...The article on culture has never been published. I will see whether I can find a copy of it in my file drawer of un published papers when I get home from Paris in two weeks.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-46271832247712749912010-06-10T22:10:16.168-04:002010-06-10T22:10:16.168-04:00I would be interested to read your article on cult...I would be interested to read your article on culture as an ideological rationale for domination. I was curious what the title and journal were?analyticphilosopherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10436885120241314043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-29774311697695659302010-06-10T11:21:58.726-04:002010-06-10T11:21:58.726-04:00Marinus, as you will discover in the next week or ...Marinus, as you will discover in the next week or so of posts, I not only fell in love with South Africa, I have been deeply involved with the country and the people for twenty-four years. I agree completely with you. Although I travel there only once a year [it used to be twice], I think of it as a second home.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-86191839763147028942010-06-10T10:45:09.264-04:002010-06-10T10:45:09.264-04:00Dear JP, as I understand it, the justification go...Dear JP, as I understand it, the justification goes something like this: reason can grasp intuitively certain immediately presented wholes or essences, and according to the apartheid apologists, among these essences are the cultural wholes that are identified with the differing racial groups. Thus, by a purely philosophical act of consciousness, one can apprehend the essential difference between, say, he Afrikaner essence and the Zulu essence, or the Xhosa cultural essence and the Asian cultural essence. This in turn justifies the separation of the different cultural groups from one another so that each one can develop separately, etc etc. It is all madness, but the theoreticians of apartheid seem to have needed some pseudo-philosophical rationale for what they were enacting into law. All of this was extended to the educational sphere in the guise of Fundamental Pedagogics and its embodiment in Christian National Education, or CNE, as it was always referred to. It was in reaction to this that I wrote a paper attacking the concept of Culture as an ideological rationale for domination.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-85554089584494130972010-06-10T10:03:32.692-04:002010-06-10T10:03:32.692-04:00Thank you for that, it was amazing (and surreal) t...Thank you for that, it was amazing (and surreal) to read it while sitting at my desk in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Please do tell any and all SA stories, if only in the comments. <br /><br />I was also going to point out the Afrikaans/Afrikaner thing and the Malay slave/coloured thing, but I see Marinus beat me to it. Mind telling how a Husserlian justification of Apartheid would go? I have never heard that one and am morbidly curious.<br /><br />Quite a few of the great and good in philosophy were here under apartheid. I won't mention those who were pretty untroubled by political matters. But Rorty, for one (this is second hand, I was about eight at the time) was very outspoken on the matter and insisted on donating his lecturing fee to some anti-apartheid organisation.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13068383050573818153noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-42073428800974371752010-06-10T09:54:31.813-04:002010-06-10T09:54:31.813-04:00Thank you for that, it was amazing (and surreal) t...Thank you for that, it was amazing (and surreal) to read it while sitting at my desk in Stellenbosch, South Africa. I was also going to point out the Afrikaans/Afrikaner thing and the Malay slave/coloured thing, but I see Marinus beat me to it. Mind telling how a Husserlian justification of Apartheid would go? I have never heard that one and am morbidly curious.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13068383050573818153noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-77016650066313897522010-06-10T09:54:11.889-04:002010-06-10T09:54:11.889-04:00By necessity all South Africans tend to have well-...By necessity all South Africans tend to have well-developed views on race, even the most unabashed racists. The atmosphere is so politicised, and has been for decades, that you can't help it. Debate about ethnicity in SA is very different, and more sophisticated (though perhaps in the Socratic use of the term, 'mingled with sophistry') than similar debate in other places I've lived, all with their own ethnic tensions: New Zealand, the Netherlands and (to a lesser extent) Norway.<br /><br />As you might have discovered, schooling in SA makes no mention of politics of any kind, South African or otherwise -- there are no civics classes and classes like history and geography tiptoe around the subject -- and it has been that way both during and after apartheid (though perhaps the curriculum has changed in the decade since I've left school). You're expected to pick up an understanding of these matters from your surroundings. And you do. With the predictable consequence that you tend to pick up the politics of those around you wholesale. Whether people are separated on racial grounds, like before, or economic ones, like is increasingly true, is something that I fear might make precious little difference.<br /><br />My country has its problems, but it is my home (though my studies have taken me away from there for four years now) and it is a special, special place. Despite how people trumpet the arrival of multiculturalism, I have been nowhere else where different cultures are not only visible, but actively part of public life, where business gets done in different languages not only in ghettoes and enclaves but in parliament and the high streets. Imagine the furore if Obama gave a speech in Spanish (if he was able!), whereas Nelson Mandela held rallies and made broadcasts in English, Xhosa and Afrikaans. And significant addresses as well.Marinushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13492009758043047531noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-7847175419544698252010-06-10T08:50:42.907-04:002010-06-10T08:50:42.907-04:00Marinus, Thank you very much for that much more a...Marinus, Thank you very much for that much more accurate and knowledgeable account of the racial complexities of S. A. I know that the Koos Pauws of the world still exist, but they are quite good at concealing themselves, as I found out at Cape Technikon.<br /><br />Matt, I have had very little personal interaction with the Analytical Marxists, but one of the essays I am asking the readers of my Formal Methods blog to read is a long piece I did criticizing and analyzing Jon Elster's book on Marx. If you hunt up my blog [Formal Methods in Political Philosophy] you can click on a link to it. I think it does a good job of critiquing that school.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-88984465017603510352010-06-10T08:14:19.420-04:002010-06-10T08:14:19.420-04:00There are many interesting parts to this section, ...There are many interesting parts to this section, but I hope you'll not mind my asking a somewhat tangential question. Did you ever interact with the "analytic Marxists", the "September Group", in particular? I wonder what you think of that line of work. There's a lot of similarity between some of their work and Bowels and Gintis's stuff, but the only one you've mentioned, briefly, is John Roemer. (Your P&PA piece is briefly mentioned in the volume _Analytical Marxism_ edited by Roemer, in one of his contributions, but not really discussed, so I don't get much indication from that if you've had much interaction with that group of people.)Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01446428606119200980noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-31595878355613766802010-06-10T07:12:26.768-04:002010-06-10T07:12:26.768-04:00I feel churlish pointing it out, but it's '...I feel churlish pointing it out, but it's 'Afrikaner', not 'Afrikaaner'.<br /><br />The Cape Coloureds do more than speak Afrikaans, they were probably the first to do so. The first example of Afrikaans writing is in Arabic script by a coloured imam. You say they're the mix of intermarriage between whites and Africans, which is only partly true. The Cape Coloureds are a mix mainly between the Dutch and the Malay/Indonesian slaves they shipped over in the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as the aboriginal people of the Cape, the Khoi-Khoin and Khoi-San (also called bushmen and, more rudely, hottentots). The Malay influence is seen these days mainly in the cuisine and the fact that there's a strong and well-established Muslim community among the coloureds to this day. The Cape wasn't at that time inhabited by Africans. When the settlers moved further inland, they met blacks and from there on separate intermarriage communities (the Griqua, the Namaqua, etc.) sprang up. The distinctions between these were smudged not only as distances in SA became easier to cross (and it is a large, open country) but as people tried to jockey themselves into a better position in the hierarchy of races set down by apartheid law.<br /><br />That law had many, many bizarre effects. Breyten Breytenbach, undoubtedly the most accomplished Afrikaans poet (and pretty good all things considered) was jailed for marrying a Frenchwoman of Vietnamese descent, under the 'Morality Law' which made sexual relations among the races illegal. It got downright silly when you see that Japanese, South Koreans and Taiwanese counted as white, but mainland Chinese (especially the descendants of indentured labourers brought over by the British) counted as black. <br /><br />I'm an Afrikaner who grew up in KwaZulu Natal, and I can say that I have known many, many people like Koos Pauw in the course of my life. They no longer get elevated to government positions, but you can still find them quite easily today.Marinushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13492009758043047531noreply@blogger.com