Comments on: Apathy http://www.resistentialists.com/2006/03/22/apathy/ because this could also work... Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:50:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Jean-Pierre http://www.resistentialists.com/2006/03/22/apathy/comment-page-1/#comment-48 Jean-Pierre Sun, 26 Mar 2006 10:52:01 +0000 http://www.resistentialists.com/2006/03/22/apathy/#comment-48 Perhaps these two observations about two subjects are united in the geography and psychology of Cape Town - we have a visitor mentality, always talking (sometimes bitching) but are comforted by a sense of not having to stay, so it's someone else's problem. How to address this (palpably false) notion is a subject for the dinner table. Perhaps these two observations about two subjects are united in the geography and psychology of Cape Town – we have a visitor mentality, always talking (sometimes bitching) but are comforted by a sense of not having to stay, so it’s someone else’s problem. How to address this (palpably false) notion is a subject for the dinner table.

]]> By: Slack2Slack http://www.resistentialists.com/2006/03/22/apathy/comment-page-1/#comment-46 Slack2Slack Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:26:30 +0000 http://www.resistentialists.com/2006/03/22/apathy/#comment-46 Yes, the apathy around the electricity problems is strange. I've always thought that people generally will be spurred on to action ONLY if a matter touches them directly or if it is about penguins. Here then was an actual issue touching all Capetonians (and people in the broader Western Cape), and yet... Could it be because we see the issue not as a social or political or environmental issue? Instead, we see it as a consumer issue. And the South African consumer is a notorious dinner-party critic (myself included); i.e. will not complain about bad service to the relevant party and rather hold it over for dinner conversation. As to the recent plagiarism contoversy: One way in which to read it is that the ball is really in the Krog court. Either she sues for libel or defamation (challenges the accusation) or she lets it die down (accepts the accusation?). But it seems like the general tolerance of plagiarism in South Africa is merely the literary or cultural equivalent of all forms of corruption in South African life. And in some ways Watson's Accusation (sounds like a Beryl Bainbridge novel, doesn't it?) should cause reflection also on the ways in which universities - the place where 'tomorrow's leaders' are trained (god help us) - have tolerated plagiarism among students (admittedly universities are acting on it now, from what I hear, but belatedly, in my book). Just imagine, all those plagiarists, who got firsts and slipped the broken net, now in office or captains of industry... And then again, the idea 'South Africa' has been a corruption, really, since 1652. In Watson's Ph.D on South African poetry, for instance, the 'imaginative and metaphysical deficiencies' (8), and the 'spiritual malaise and spiritual poverty in the poetry itself' (290) appear as the literary parallel to 'a kind of deficiency which is also present in South African culture as a whole' (19). (1993. 'Bitten-off things Protruding': The Limitations of South African English Poetry Post-1948. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Cape Town). Surely he should not be surprised and so exercised over plagiarism occurring in our cultural vacuum? Yes, the apathy around the electricity problems is strange. I’ve always thought that people generally will be spurred on to action ONLY if a matter touches them directly or if it is about penguins. Here then was an actual issue touching all Capetonians (and people in the broader Western Cape), and yet… Could it be because we see the issue not as a social or political or environmental issue? Instead, we see it as a consumer issue. And the South African consumer is a notorious dinner-party critic (myself included); i.e. will not complain about bad service to the relevant party and rather hold it over for dinner conversation.

As to the recent plagiarism contoversy: One way in which to read it is that the ball is really in the Krog court. Either she sues for libel or defamation (challenges the accusation) or she lets it die down (accepts the accusation?).

But it seems like the general tolerance of plagiarism in South Africa is merely the literary or cultural equivalent of all forms of corruption in South African life. And in some ways Watson’s Accusation (sounds like a Beryl Bainbridge novel, doesn’t it?) should cause reflection also on the ways in which universities – the place where ‘tomorrow’s leaders’ are trained (god help us) – have tolerated plagiarism among students (admittedly universities are acting on it now, from what I hear, but belatedly, in my book). Just imagine, all those plagiarists, who got firsts and slipped the broken net, now in office or captains of industry…

And then again, the idea ‘South Africa’ has been a corruption, really, since 1652. In Watson’s Ph.D on South African poetry, for instance, the ‘imaginative and metaphysical deficiencies’ (8), and the ‘spiritual malaise and spiritual poverty in the poetry itself’ (290) appear as the literary parallel to ‘a kind of deficiency which is also present in South African culture as a whole’ (19). (1993. ‘Bitten-off things Protruding’: The Limitations of South African English Poetry Post-1948. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Cape Town). Surely he should not be surprised and so exercised over plagiarism occurring in our cultural vacuum?

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