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.
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. Continue reading »
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”. The recently completed pilot of the National Benchmarking Tests Project (NBTP) indicates that only 7% of university entrants are proficient in mathematics, while 47% scored as “proficient” in the academic literacy tests. In both cases, not being proficient means that the universities need to provide “extensive support in language development, for almost half of registered students”, and support would likewise be called for in the case of mathematics for 93% of students. So says Nan Yeld, Dean of Higher Education at UCT. And as the UWC Vice-Chancellor points out, seeing as UCT attracts the best students, the situation would be even more dire at other institutions. Continue reading »
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. Continue reading »
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