Mark your X in the box labelled “stereotype”

As submitted to The Daily Maverick

Democracy and liberty are not equivalent, despite the fact that they are so often conflated in popular discourse. There is no logical obstacle to a dictator being democratically elected and then leaving us with little freedom. Likewise, a dictator could in theory be benevolent, and allow for more freedoms than we currently enjoy in South Africa.

This is why being silent in the face of oppression, tyranny, or abuse of power by the state should not be considered an option by those of us committed to both democracy as well as freedoms of various sorts. Fortunately, democracy and liberty are often positively correlated, so that an increase in the one tends to coincide with an increase in the other.

But because this connection is not a logically necessary one, we are sometimes required to fight these battles on independent fronts. Among the dilemmas and difficulties presented by these battles, we can identify the tone of our arguments as a significant complication, because sometimes struggles for liberty involve butting heads with majority sentiment – in other words with impulses arising from democratic discourses and ideals.

Is freedom of the press that important?

The original text of my most recent column for The Daily Maverick:

As Opinionista Sipho Hlongwane reminded us on World Press Freedom Day, not only is the extent of press freedom a matter for debate, but much also still needs to be done in terms of bringing the benefits of a free press to most South Africans. This is not simply a matter of what goes unreported, or even of the potential stifling of a free press via intimidation of journalists or other forms of political interference. These are important concerns, but ones which presume an interest – as well as the ability – on the part of South Africans to equally engage with the issues discussed.

Our concerns should go deeper, in that for a developing country such as ours, the focus should perhaps more appropriately be on whether most South Africans have anything to say at all.

Bad educations, bad science, bad students…

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”.