At the same time
that we read the five volumes of the Truth and Reconciliation
Report we begin a brief excursion into some recent
issues in Political Theory. The section entitled “A
Brief Contemporary Frame for Political Theory” has
four themes. First there is the critique of Western political
theory from the standpoint of the radical black intellectual
tradition; secondly the critique of the social sciences from
a leading biologist with implications for how assumptions
about human nature are constructed in the social sciences
and especially within Political Philosophy; thirdly John
Gray’s assessment of contemporary ideological challenges
to the Western world with an assessment of Al Qaeda; finally
a look at epistemic challenges to the tradition of political
thinking in the Caribbean. The connections with the TRC Report
will be made by you in the course of the discussions.
Below is a summary of the significance of the TRC Report
by my colleague Mr. Louis Lindsay while I was on a research
fellowship:
“Though in several important respects, a “minutely” empirical
project, Bishop Tutu’s Truth and Reconciliation Report
(TRC) can profitably be used to explore and illuminate virtually
the whole gamut of principles and propositions which provide
the main underpinnings of political thought. Published in
five, mainly thick volumes, the TRC Report inductively forces
us to think deeply about matters pertaining to the state,
justice, equality, liberty, freedom, trust, revolutions and
revolutionary situations, symbolic manipulations, diplomacy
and war among others. And in the more modern and supposedly
pragmatic version of political thought, the TRC work stimulates
conceptual formation and review in areas such as political
culture, political mobilisation, political integration, political
distribution and overall sustainable political development.
Additionally, a substantial body of “secondary source
material in the form of books and journal articles have evolved
from and around the TRC project. This helps further to refine
and clarify the “evidence” which political theory
needs to legitimise its work thereby making it much more
meaningful than it is today.
Tutu’s report can and should also be judged according
to canons of justice which do not normatively conform with
the principles and perspectives which the TRC advocates either
directly or in conceptual undertones. Using the report in
the ways suggested will help to bring political theory closer
to the ground even if this means a loss in some of its powers
of abstraction.
And the truth is the grander the power to abstract the
lower it seems, are the contacts with reality. Powerful abstractions
maintain logical consistency primarily because they float
around in pre or unreal worlds, the state of nature of most
contract and utilitarian theorists. Commonsense requires
that meaningful political theories must be grounded in deep
existential realities.
South African realities differ from the state of nature
as the night the day. As such, it should provide theoretical
back-drop, in the sense of ample opportunities for serious
reflections on complex matters with reality checks every
step along the way.”
Thanks to Mr. Louis Lindsay and Professor Roy Augier for
teaching this course during my absence. |
