Posts from my blog, Questions Arising. As in “Are there any questions arising from the minutes?” I find there generally are. Each is under 500 words, just enough to buzz around your head in a curious, friendly fashion.
A couple of notes about word use:
When I say “we”, I don’t mean anything royal or universal. It’s just first person plural: me plus any of you who want to sign on. (And sometimes irony, in conjunction with groups. When it comes to clubs, I’m with Groucho.)
Likewise, “you” is anyone listening who feels addressed. Hello, you!
I tagged posts as “everyday philosophy” or “philosophy as emancipation” to make an example of myself and invite you to play. Questions arise in life; it’s what they do. They call you to engage, to wake up to your senses.
Disclaimer. All opinions expressed are valid at the time of writing.
There is no us and them, only us. The white supremacy thing, the patriarchy thing, the class thing: binary structures of inequality and violence. The antidote? Affirming equality already here and getting ourselves together, mixing it up, messing with it….
Like consciousness is always consciousness of something (if you believe Husserl), making sense is always to someone, to some particular first-person singular. It’s interior, private, personal. That makes sense to me. But I have to ask you, Does this make…
If black lives mattered, then all lives would matter. If women’s lives mattered, then all lives would matter. If Jewish lives mattered, then all lives would matter. Black in the racialised sense of “not white”. Such that mattering would mean…
So I find myself thinking, if there’s this group of people, who are being labelled “essential”, but are being treated as sacrificial, [and] then there’s this other group of people, who are at home – like us, right? – who…
I am so tired of all the posturing. The lines drawn to keep everything in its place and everyone accountable. The absurd insistence that people do not change. Consider the Anthropocene. A couple of centuries of industrialisation and empire –…
Last week, I had the pleasure of addressing a conference of family mediators in Cape Town on the topic of “Wisdom in mediation”. Two stories First story. An ethics professor once said to an undergraduate philosophy class, “If you believe…
Beating the opponent at his own game. The pluck and courage of the underdog to outwit and overcome. Why does this strike everyone (I’m talking to you, Western culture) as a good trope? Underdog becomes top dog, it’s still a…
These “mixed feelings” of yours. If you have no reason to feel the way you do, and yet you do, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no reason (you are irrational), or that you’re wrong to feel that way (you are…
What did it mean: to join the Party? Brecht says it best. I was not an exploiter, so I could grasp it. To dedicate oneself to a more human society. For justice and peace, bread and roses. Against exploitation and oppression….
Annals of philosophical counselling/practice with others “But it doesn’t work like that!” I say this in response to some proposed scheme or strategy of yours. I mean that, in terms of what you want to achieve, what you are doing…
Between 1987 and 1990, my husband Rob and I ran a safe house for the liberation movement in apartheid South Africa. We were part of what we would later learn was named Operation Vula, short for Vul’indlela (“Open the road”…
For Nelson Mandela’s birthday, and because I’m reading Thula Simpson’s Umkhonto We Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle, thinking about and respecting the lives of everyone who stood against apartheid, those whose names are known or unknown, remembered or forgotten. Thinking…
I’m still here philosophising, counselling, writing… just tending other fields so long… Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) 24 Paragons of Filial Piety: Taishun Tending the Fields Assisted by Elephants, 1840. Oban yoko-e.
Tenebrae (the Latin word for “darkness”) is the only Christian service I ever trusted. It’s made up of psalms of grief and lamentations of the lost and forsaken. The evening of Holy Saturday. The messiah is crucified, god has abandoned his…
The student movement that flashed into life this year in South Africa, from #Rhodesmustfall at the University of Cape Town to the extraordinary #Feesmustfall protests last week in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Stellenbosch, Grahamstown and Pretoria, is a complex and dynamic phenomenon. Lots…
Still thinking about the need for a new mode of thinking… What is the proper relation between philosophy and science now? Last year, citing Stephen (Philosophy-is-Dead) Hawking and Martin Heidegger, I wrote about “the end of philosophy” in the triumph…
One image that can be seen in two distinct ways, but never both at once. Faces or a vase? Duck or rabbit? Crone or maiden? Someone shows you: See, the old woman’s chin is the young woman’s throat! All of a…
A funny thing happened at the Philosophy Café last month. I got lost. We all set sail on a conversation about “sadness”, but I didn’t know what they were talking about. My mind was clear and present. I just couldn’t relate,…
A motley crew is a cliché for a roughly organized assembly of characters. Typical examples of motley crews are pirates, Western posses, rag-tag mercenary bands, and freedom fighters… characters of conflicting personality, varied backgrounds and, usually to the benefit of…
Heidegger says you must be born again. No, that was Jesus. Even Heidegger, then. As philosophy will be born again from a thinking mother. Philosophy’s first birth was attended by the son of a midwife. He himself practiced husbandry. A ranchero. Pedagod…
In 2010, Stephen Hawking pronounced philosophy dead: “Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.” But he had not kept up…
Last week’s philosophy café offered another conversation about confidence. As noted before, confidence has two levels. One is conditional: the conscious trust in one’s abilities or worth, developed through experience and familiarity (“or entitlement”, as someone pointed out, referring to…
I’ve been thinking about confidence and security: how they are related, how they operate within intimate relationships, how we get it wrong and how we could do better. “Getting it wrong” is when one person’s insecurity undermines the other’s confidence,…
For months I’ve been like a hound dog barking at a rabbit hole. Then I think I fell in because things got kind of strange. Here’s how it went… Step 1 (QA 44). The development of philosophical practice as ethical…
dig ni ty [L. dignus ‘worthy’] n. the state or quality of being worthy of honour or respect “Dignity comes from using your inherent human resources, by doing things with your own bare hands – on the spot, properly and beautifully. You can do that…
But the poet’s task, Kafka says, is to lead the isolated human being into the infinite life, the contingent into the lawful. Anne Carson The contingent: what sommer happens to be and could just as well be otherwise. South Africans…
A brief reading of the essay by Emmanuel Levinas Phenomenology What is the lived experience of suffering? To an extent, it’s like any other sensory experience, like seeing green or tasting sweet. What sets suffering apart is the way it…
Walking into the waiting room at the Fish Hoek Driving Licence Testing Centre, I look around to see where I’m supposed to sit. A woman in the third row calls out that I’m after the Navy man in the second…
Last week I attended “Phenomenology and Its Futures”, the inaugural conference of the South African Centre for Phenomenology – and a splendid conference it was! I spoke on “Philosophy as a practice of emancipation”. Followers of this blog will know I’ve…
“We have a duty to change our mode of thinking,” said David Harvey in a 2010 talk on the crises of capitalism, and I’ve been chanting it ever since. Recently, someone took me to task. “Do you really believe thinking…
Education systems that render people stupid, mental health treatment that renders people mad, religions that render people wicked, economies that render people poor, political systems that render people powerless. How is it that our social systems break down (render) precisely…
2012 has been my tenth year as a “philosopher in private practice”. I’m a bit surprised to find that what began with a hunch and a leap of faith has developed in unanticipated directions, yet stayed true to its roots….
Someone recently pointed me to Philosophy v science: which can answer the big questions of life? (The Observer, 9 Sept 2012), a conversation between Julian Baggini, philosopher, and Lawrence Krauss, physicist, both well known for accessible writing on complex topics….
It starts off very personally, very intimately. You’re going about your business and then – for some unknown reason – you can’t carry on. Maybe there’s a choice you don’t know how to make. Maybe you’ve reached a dead end…
I’m walking down Plein Street when he catches my eye. He offers a packet of sewing needles. “No, thank you”, I say, not breaking stride. That could have been the end of it, but he turns after me. Please, mummy!…
It is often forgotten that (dictionaries) are artificial repositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature. Jorge Luis Borges The hard drive of my laptop crashed two days…
In an interesting recent article, “The Brain on Love”, Diane Ackerman discusses some findings of “interpersonal neurobiology”, an offshoot of neuropsychology, which uses brain-imaging technologies to explore the relationship between behaviour, emotion and brain function. According to Ackerman, it is…
This was published in the Cape Times as “Time to make one class fit everyone on Metrorail and get rid of snobbery between coaches”, 5 December 2011. (Apologies to non-South Africans for local content. Will return to more universal matters…
It’s Tuesday night, and I’m just home from a philosophy café. I have hosted these monthly gatherings since I started my philosophical counselling practice in 2002. This year, we’ve been generously offered space in the lovely village bookshop, after hours…
(This is the original of an opinion piece published as “Identity does not depend on race” in the Cape Times on 11 October 2011) Who are we? is the question posed in a timely series presented by the Cape Times…
* My first blog post in a couple of months – been busy launching my book. Thanks to all involved and those who sent good wishes. It was a jol!This is the original of an article for Psychologies magazine, published…
(or A taste of my own medicine) * A small taste for those who have wondered how philosophical counselling/practice works. You might notice the constant inter-play of feelings, words, images and ideas, and how different strategies are utilised. Disgruntled, grumpy,…
If the old model is broken, what will work in its place? The answer is: Nothing will work, but everything might. Now is the time for experiments, lots and lots of experiments. Clay Shirky We have a duty to change…
The Cape Times (Cape Town) published an edited version of this as “If we are cynical about our politicians, we will get the leaders we deserve”, 1 November 2010 Against the horizon of the media tribunal disputes here, I have…
This is the original version of an article published as “A formula for wisdom” in Psychologies (South Africa), August–September 2010 Every society venerates the wisdom of its elders, at least in principle. Wisdom is seen as a consolation for the…
Friday afternoon I board a train at False Bay. The carriage is quite full and a man gestures me to the empty seat beside him. I smile and shake my head. I’m happy to stand. “Why? Tell me why?” It’s…
Three recent reviews published in the Cape Times (Cape Town, South Africa) 1. Re-imagining the Social in South Africa: Critique, Theory and Post-apartheid Society (Jacklin and Vale, eds)2. Nurtureshock: Why everything we think about raising our children is wrong (Bronson…
Nurtureshock: Why everything we think about raising our children is wrongPo Bronson & Ashley MerrymanEbury Press Reviewed by Helen Douglas (Cape Times, 12 February 2010) It’s a close call to say whether Nurtureshock manages to be more informative than it…
Africa: The Politics of Suffering and SmilingPatrick ChabalUKZN Press and Zed BooksReviewed by Helen Douglas (Cape Times, 8 January 2010) As a Canadian immigrant to South Africa, I have struggled mightily to understand post-colonial African politics. I have a feeling…
Samantha Vice, a philosopher at Rhodes University, has been thinking about the moral condition of white South Africans. Is it possible to live a virtuous life here, given the continuing privilege that comes with whiteness? Believing that this will be…
Talk about racism moves like a veld fire. It flares up, is spread by strong winds, then hunkers down until the next spark ignites. It would be best to stop feeding it, but mostly we keep on producing more wind….
From the Cape Times, 1 December 2009, in their series on “The Next Economy” No wonder they can’t fix it: it doesn’t exist Helen Douglas It’s another day in the global financial crisis and I’m looking at the front page…
Scene 1. Walking along Vancouver’s False Creek, two joggers stride past me just as one remarks to the other: Entitlement is a terrible thing. Well. I couldn’t agree more. Scene 2. A friend sends pictures of her island cottage. Lucky…
What a mess we make when a person’s worth is measured by their perceived intelligence. The “smart” ones strive to distinguish themselves and the “stupid” ones struggle to get by. It’s precisely a stupid mess, both cruel and irrational. How…
What do you do when someone says something to you that you don’t understand? It happens all the time. The someone may be someone we know or a stranger. The event might be inconsequential or it might be important. It…
I have been explaining, exploring and writing about my philosophical counselling practice since I began in 2002. I’ve presented papers at conferences here in South Africa and in Canada and the US, which are available on my website along with…
What should be the single priority for the new South African government? In his Sunday Times column (3 May 2009), Mac Maharaj invited readers to answer this question, following Peter Bruce’s observation that a government that tries to fix everything…
Michael the teacher was talking about what he says to new classes to disarm them. To disarm them? An ambiguous phrase. Did he mean to charm the children or to take away their weapons? Which reminded me of the philosopher…
“Struggle is ego.” “All ambition is vanity.” “I’ve been meeting my ego a lot recently.” These three comments came my way over the course of a few days. They all seem to express some nervousness, disapproval or dislike of “ego”….
For David and Corinna, 21 February 2009 What does it mean, to marry? Marriage is an event, both simple and extraordinary. Something will be accomplished, here, today. Something will end and something begin. To marry is “to unite intimately”. It…
The other day someone spoke of “maturity”, and I thought how quaint. With all the changes that befall us in the world, and all the changes we try to make, how rarely do we experience – or desire – simple…
Walking by a farm dam, one frog after another leaps into the water ahead of me. Plop! One jump out of danger, a kick underwater into the silt and out of sight. I notice how natural creatures simply do, without…
It’s become terribly unfashionable to be “judgemental”, but the fact of the matter is that life calls for judgement, all the time. So we should learn to do it well. For me, this is the purpose of philosophical practice: to…
Speaking truth to power refers to those brave souls who go up against some entrenched power armed only with the truth. Since democracy’s beginning, this kind of truth-speaking has been honoured. In Greek, it is called parrhesia, which Michel Foucault…
No question about it: responsibility is a burden. It reins in our freedom and threatens our pleasant sense of innocence. On the face of it, responsibility is anything but desirable. We are tempted to wriggle out of it: that’s not…
A friend in Vancouver asks me to “say in three lines why you would rather live there than here, not counting weather”. There are several ways I could answer, but my first quick response was: The people. Something about light….
At heart, desire is pretty simple: we want pleasure and we don’t want pain. To act on our desire is just as simple. It doesn’t take any effort to delight in the laughter of a child or to spit out…
We mostly notice it when we’re losing it, already at the edge. Overburdened camels observing the arrival of one. more. straw. We gird our loins, call out the reserves, hope for a second wind (or a third or a tenth)….
A Cape Town woman, convicted – yet again – of fraud, was sentenced to stand in a public street wearing a sign that listed her crimes, and apologise to those she had harmed. A higher court reviewing the sentence overturned…
Part of my mission as a counselling philosopher is the desire to encourage the revival of philosophy as it was originally practiced, as a way of life. To encourage people to think more deeply about what matters to them. Philosophy…