Today’s edition of the Mail and Guardian carries a disturbing article about the growing influence of religious groups – in particular Ray McCauley’s National Interfaith Leadership Council – on South Africa’s Government. Ever since the unlikely figure of Jacob Zuma launched the Moral Regeneration Movement, thinking South Africans should have been concerned about how much influence organised religion would continue to have on policy in this country. Now that danger seems set to increase, with talk of revisiting laws legalising abortion and same-sex marriage. I’ve sent a letter in response via the Free Society Institute – if you are as concerned as I am, please also protest this incursion of nonsense into a domain which really doesn’t need more confusion.
Author: Jacques Rousseau
Jacques Rousseau teaches critical thinking and ethics at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and is the founder and director of the Free Society Institute, a non-profit organisation promoting secular humanism and scientific reasoning.
Yesterday the Doctor and I went to the V&A Waterfront, expecting it to be relatively peaceful, given that the vast majority of Capetonians were expected to be watching some SA sporting triumph or another. In the end they weren’t, and it was apparently no triumph either, but that’s besides the point. After an unsuccessful shopping attempt and some lunch (Sevruga sushi, decent), we walked out towards the car, where locals would know of the two pedestrian crossings before you reach the parking garage.
The first was successfully navigated, with the drivers doing the typical (hence, expected) thing of slowing/stopping to allow pedestrians to cross. The second was less so: I had my first foot on the crossing, and as I moved my other leg (plus attached foot) towards the “planted on crossing” position, a young woman in a blue Fiat Uno sped up to get across the crossing before I could impede her progress. So I kicked her car.
The inaugural conference of the Free Society Institute was held on August 29, 2009. I recently launched the FSI with the intention of providing an umbrella organisation for the various atheist/secular/etc. organisations in South Africa, much as the IHEU does internationally. What follows is the speech from which I no doubt deviated at the conference.
While some readers may want to argue against my oft-repeated claims that specific types of woo (religion) – and woo more generally (pseudoscience/quackery) – help to make us stupid, it’s regrettably the case that regardless of the role religion may play in our dumbing-down, for whatever reason our students certainly arrive at university unprepared for “higher learning”.
A month or so ago, Thelma’s father died. Thelma cleans our house every week, and has done so for 7 years. So when she asked to borrow some extra cash to travel to and arrange the funeral, we had no hesitation in helping out, and also resolved to tell her on her return that she should consider the money a gift. Today was her first day back, and at some point in the late morning, she handed S. a piece of paper – a certified copy of her father’s death certificate.
Having experienced a similar bereavement myself (semi) recently, I know the need for such bits of paper well, in terms of winding up estates and transferring bits and pieces of a life into another name. But in this context, it seemed little more than an index of mistrust – the mistrust that many of the people Thelma encounters still today feel towards people in her socio-economic class and – to not beat around the bush – people of her race. Some of her employers may have demanded such a piece of paper – and I couldn’t help wondering if, over the years I’ve known her, I’ve ever given her reason to think I might demand one too.
I think not, and I certainly hope not.
While I have no data on this, my impression is that the average person takes a somewhat fundamentalist or absolutist view on morality, by which I mean that they subscribe – in theory, if not in practice – to a core set of fundamental or foundational principles, where “being good” is a matter of maximising their adherence to those principles. This may however be a mistake, and furthermore, a mistake that can result not only in decreased happiness for the person herself, but also in their incurring increased harms on others.
As is customary for omnipotent beings, the Christian god has a deep concern regarding what you wear, as John van Heerden reminds us on his News24 blog. Five crucial questions need to be asked and answered to god’s satisfaction before you can present yourself to the world with your virtue and dignity intact, and your soul unthreatened. As was recently the case with Frontline Fellowship, though, god doesn’t seem to care much about what us non-believers tend to think of as genuine moral issues, such as plagiarism or lying. This, at least, seems to be the message that John van Heerden is attempting to convey through presenting someone else’s article as his own – the advice on attire is entirely cut-and-pasted from Momof9’s place.
In August 2008, an angry 18 year-old schoolboy in Krugersdorp killed a fellow pupil with an ornamental sword, bought by his father 3 or 4 years previous to the incident. The schoolboy, Morne Harmse, also attempted to kill a three other people during what some papers referred to as his “rampage”, including another pupil and two gardeners.
The reason I’m writing about this nearly a year after the incident is that sentencing is due to occur this coming Monday (see end of post for a correction of this date), and the newspapers are reporting that “expert witnesses”, including “occult crime specialists”, will be called to testify before sentencing. At this point, you’d be justified in wondering what the hell an “occult crime specialist” is, and how the testimony of one could possibly add value in a case like this (or any case, for that matter).
After leaving Cape Town at noon on Saturday, I finally arrived in Lake Tahoe at around 9pm (SA time) on Sunday. That’s too much flying for one weekend, and not an experience I’ll want to repeat anytime soon, especially considering that American toddlers are even noisier than normal ones. Furthermore, American parents seem somewhat reluctant to shut the damn things up. In this case, perhaps that’s because the parent in question was too busy changing the nappy of one of her noisy brood, right there in the seat, two rows ahead of me.
Just back from a lunch at Geisha, of which food24 says:
Michelin-star Irish chef Conrad Gallagher has introduced fusion sushi to ensure Geisha Wok & Noodle Bar remains firmly at the forefront of global food trends.
The first in Cape Town to take it to this level, Geisha’s menu is the culmination of months of work and research with chef colleagues, regular customers, foodies and sushi lovers who tasted, sampled and gave valuable input and suggestions.
Having eaten there a month or two after it opened (at the previous venue), and having been impressed by the attention to detail in terms of both service and food on the plate, it’s sad to report that “global food trends” seem to now include a winelist where only one of the 6 listed chardonnays was available, and where the food was mediocre at best. It’s another link in the chain of evidence which is telling me to simply boycott restaurants that are offering specials, or at least to ignore the specials and order off the main menu.
Cape Town is a strange beast in terms of dining out – most patrons seem to consider a “good meal” equivalent to a good experience, and thus conflate the pleasures of the company or the view with the quality of what was served, and how it was served. This is surely the only explanation for the continued survival of all those horrible eateries on the Camps Bay strip (surely better placed in an airport departure lounge, at least in terms of food quality), and part of the explanation as to why a Michelin-starred chef can associate himself with this sort of mediocrity.
I’ve got no problem with a good view, and certainly enjoy good company. But most of the time, I go to a restaurant hoping for a good meal – and increasingly often, only find that at places that a) don’t serve half-price sushi/cocktails, and b) aren’t positioned in some sort of ready-made Kodak moment.