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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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Have we had a discussion on South Africa yet?

Recently, Andre de Ruyter, the now-ex CEO of the state owned power provider ESKOM, did an interview that basically said the corruption and everything was so bad that he and ESKOM cannot do their jobs properly. He himself was a target of assassination (cyanide pill in his coffee or something?), and after the interview has been removed from his post (he put in his resignation before the interview). He has since left the country.

There are many reports that the grid can totally collapse soon, despite the "load shedding" that they have been doing. Apparently this may lead to civil war?

Unemployment is apparently 35%, clean water access and supply is apparently unstable. Crime is apparently extremely high. If you go on /r/southAfrica, there are frequent discussions of home invasion and other crimes (70 carjackings a day, 2500 home invasions a day...). One post I saw last week was a question asking "Dogs been poisoned, both dead. Typically how many days before robbery hit?"

See this recent thread for more issues: https://twitter.com/k9_reaper/status/1630436052723720193

Some blame this all on the ruling ANC party, on their policies like BBBEE (from a few years ago: https://www.revolver.news/2021/07/south-africa-riots-looting-critical-race-theory/).

In general, SA's situation is not looking good...

"Truth and Reconciliation" was the darling of progressive legal academics the world over back in the 1990s. I had one colleague who made it the center of a course he taught on "restorative" justice. He's been dead for a while now, so I'll never know what he would have to say about all this, but my impression generally is that academics are most comfortable absolutely ignoring the reality of what is happening in South Africa and continuing to blame colonialism for everything. The fact that they were dead wrong about "Truth and Reconciliation," and it failed, will not be taken as a lesson of any kind.

Wait, is this where Bungie got their spaceship names? That’s a little bleak.

Given ominous sounding zealotry by omnicidal maniacs was always the theme, I think it's a perfect match. Better than Undiminished Entelechy and more subtle than Triumphant Declaration.

Plus, one of the big battles in the lore was in Mombasa on Earth, no? And the sniper rifle from that series bears a resemblence to the South African NTW-20.

High or little charity, Mombasa is rather far away from Joburg.

So, your claim is that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission somehow caused the current problems in SA? Because there would be more consistent electricity if all those people never confessed? Or that crime would have dropped even more rapidly during that era than it did, had those people not confessed? I don’t get what the causal mechanism is supposed to be.

So, your claim is that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission somehow caused the current problems in SA?

Where did I say that?

I said that "Truth and Reconciliation" failed to do what its proponents claimed it was doing--providing a peaceful path to replacing racial apartheid with multicultural liberalism. One worry of white South Africans circa 1990 was that they couldn't relinquish their dominance, because the inevitable result would be vae victis justice: widespread confiscation of property at minimum and, very possibly, outright genocide. "Truth and Reconciliation" was packaged as the way forward: once everyone had admitted their misdeeds and made their apologies, the country could heal and move on. Certain Western scholars (like my deceased colleague) were especially excited about the possibilities presented by a genuinely wealthy, progressive, modern, secular nation-state potentially arising in sub-Saharan Africa.

And to be fair, for about a decade it appeared that this might actually occur! But all along there was ample evidence that most regular people (as distinct from politicians and foreign diplomats) did not regard "Truth and Reconciliation" to have actually reconciled the black and white communities. My guess is that, while I am always annoyed to have words put in my mouth, I can perhaps steel-man your concern, which may be that I look a bit like a Copenhagen ethicist here. Yeah, "Truth and Reconciliation" failed, but its advocates shouldn't be blamed for noticing the problem, much less for trying and, for a limited time, succeeding in making things better.

But notice that I did not blame the "Truth and Reconciliation" advocates for trying, and I don't even particularly blame them for failing. What does bother me is that people praised them even when it became clear that the facts did not support such optimism, and my expectation that people will continue to praise and emulate them, even though we have seen that their approach does not, in fact work. In particular, the failure of "Truth and Reconciliation" generalizes to much of what is done under the banner of "critical theory" in the United States today.

Where did I say that?

Oh, I thought you meant to imply that because you wrote in response to a post about current problems in SA.

I said that "Truth and Reconciliation" failed to do what its proponents claimed it was doing--providing a peaceful path to replacing racial apartheid with multicultural liberalism. One worry of white South Africans circa 1990 was that they couldn't relinquish their dominance, because the inevitable result would be vae victis justice: widespread confiscation of property at minimum and, very possibly, outright genocide. "Truth and Reconciliation" was packaged as the way forward: once everyone had admitted their misdeeds and made their apologies, the country could heal and move on. Certain Western scholars (like my deceased colleague) were especially excited about the possibilities presented by a genuinely wealthy, progressive, modern, secular nation-state potentially arising in sub-Saharan Africa.

I think you are conflating a couple of things. Whatever your colleague might have thought (and can I ask what his or her area of expertise was?), the TRC was the solution to a political problem: How to deal with competing claims regarding justice for those who committed apartheid-related crimes while ensuring stability for the new regime. It seems to have succeeded reasonably well in that regard: There have been no coups, elections are held regularly, etc. I am dubious that many people at the time thought the TRC would have the effect of establishing a liberal democracy, except in the negative sense of reducing the chances that the new system and its liberal democratic constitution would be strangled in its crib. It might have been seen as necessary for the development of a liberal democracy, but certainly not as sufficient (at least not by political scientists, which is why I asked about your colleague's expertise). So, we can't know if it was successful in that sense; it is an unanswerable question. One would have to look at a larger dataset and see if the process is associated with positive outcomes.

I thought you meant to imply that because you wrote in response to a post about current problems in SA.

I have no idea what you can possibly mean by this. Are you of the view that the current problems in South Africa are not reflective of any past failures?

I think you are conflating a couple of things. Whatever your colleague might have thought (and can I ask what his or her area of expertise was?), the TRC was the solution to a political problem...

Law professor. People rarely get political scientists to inform their political solutions; it's always the lawyers who end up writing the documents and holding the tribunals. Before the Great Awokening, critical legal studies' most recent peak was probably the 1990s, when Clinton was appointing federal judges.

I am dubious that many people at the time thought the TRC would have the effect of establishing a liberal democracy, except in the negative sense of reducing the chances that the new system and its liberal democratic constitution would be strangled in its crib.

...really? I mean, I don't have any sense of literally how many people thought this way, but like, consider the first sentence of the abstract of this paper from 2001:

One of the stated objectives of the truth and reconciliation process in South Africa was the creation of a political culture respectful of human rights.

Or consider this abstract from 2010:

South Africa’s transition to democracy was met by the global audience with at first, disbelief, followed later by applause. After fifteen years of democracy big questions remain: has a more democratic regime also lead to a more liberal society? And has democracy made for a more peaceful society?

You may well be right that only a select few people--namely, academics--actually believed any of this, but I'm not sure what that actually gets you. The people calling the shots seem to have either believed it, or considered it very important to be perceived as believing it. My point was that people who doubted the critical theory approach from the start were clearly right to doubt it, so your doubt that "many people at the time thought" it would work appears to refer to the critics of critical theory who I am saying were right all along.

It might have been seen as necessary for the development of a liberal democracy, but certainly not as sufficient (at least not by political scientists, which is why I asked about your colleague's expertise). So, we can't know if it was successful in that sense; it is an unanswerable question.

You appear to be asserting that, essentially, we can't know whether Truth and Reconciliation really failed, because maybe it was an essential (and successful!) ingredient, but some other essential ingredient failed. This seems willfully benighted. Truth and Reconciliation clearly did not accomplish what it was intended to accomplish--South Africans are still murdering each other like it's going out of style, and substantially blaming white colonialism for it. So your response is--well, maybe it was successful but something else was missing? No. If something was missing from the program that would have made it successful, then including it in the program would have made the program successful. If this was a "necessary but insufficient" effort, then it was still a failed effort, and that is not remotely "unanswerable." Your response is nonsense on the order of "what do words even mean?"

I have no idea what you can possibly mean by this. Are you of the view that the current problems in South Africa are not reflective of any past failures?

  1. ? So, now you are saying you meant to imply that the TRC caused the current problems? That is the opposite of what you said before.

  2. Regardless, obviously I am not of the view that the current problems are not reflective of past failures. Rather, I am asking you why you claim that the specific event in question is a cause of the specific problems in question. As I said before, what is the causal mechanism?

Consider the first sentence of the abstract of this paper from 2001: .. Or consider this abstract from 2010:

  1. The second abstract has nothing to do with the purpose or effect of the TRC. It is from a book entitled, "Liberal Democracy and Peace in South Africa: The Pursuit of Freedom as Dignity," a review of which summarize the book thusly: "This book asks whether democracy has made South Africa a more liberal and more peaceful society." It is about the effect of democracy, not the effect of the TRC

  2. Even the first abstract is weak evidence: creating "a culture respectful of human rights" is a far cry from creating a "genuinely wealthy, progressive, modern, secular nation-state." As an article written in 1994, about when the TRC was created, put it, the point of truth and reconciliation commissions is to '“allow[] a society to learn from its past in order to prevent a repetition of such violence in the future”; Priscilla B. Hayner, Fifteen Truth Commissions- 1974 to 1994: A Comparative Study,

16 HUM. RTs. Q. 597 (1994), Maybe the SA TRC was an exception, or maybe your colleague's hope and dreams were not representative of those who created the SA TRC.

You appear to be asserting that, essentially, we can't know whether Truth and Reconciliation really failed, because maybe it was an essential (and successful!) ingredient, but some other essential ingredient failed. This seems willfully benighted. ...

Yes, that is what I said. That is the nature of social science when your dataset is N=1. That is why I said, "One would have to look at a larger dataset and see if the process is associated with positive outcomes." All you have done is set forth a hypothesis (and without a suggested causal mechanism, it cannot yet be called a plausible hypothesis)

So your response is--well, maybe it was successful but something else was missing? No. If something was missing from the program that would have made it successful, then including it in the program would have made the program successful.

No, the argument is not that there was something missing from the program. It is that social phenomena are the result of scores of interacting factors. Hence, no single factor is sufficient for a particular social phenomenon to exist. If the success of X is necessary for social phenomenon Y, but not sufficient, then the fact that Y does not exist is not compelling evidence that X failed. A whole lot has gone on in SA since the end of apartheid, from AIDS to Winnie Mandela; to say that because SA is in bad shape today, ipso facto the TRC must have failed, is poor causal reasoning (esp since, if other commenters are to be believed, SA was in better shape just a few years ago

Truth and Reconciliation clearly did not accomplish what it was intended to accomplish--South Africans are still murdering each other like it's going out of style, and substantially blaming white colonialism for it.

  1. As I noted earlier, the murder rate actually fell substantially during the TRC years and after. That is of course not proof that the TRC caused the decline, but it certainly undermines the argument that the high crime rate is a result of the failure of the TRC.

  2. More importantly, you are changing the subject. The high crime rate might well be an indication that it failed at achieving reconciliation (although, unless much of the crime is racially motivated, it is poor evidence of even that). But your claim had nothing to do with achieving reconciliation. It was that the purpose was to create a ""genuinely wealthy, progressive, modern, secular nation-state."

I am asking you why you claim that the specific event in question is a cause of the specific problems in question.

I have already told you that I do not regard the TRC as a cause of the specific problems under discussion, but as a failed attempt to solve/prevent them. I don't know how much clearer I can be about that, and I regard your continued insistence on putting words into my mouth as extremely objectionable. All you had to do was like, just, read the words I wrote, instead of some other words you made up in your head for me.

It is especially irritating since, elsewhere, you do seem to actually understand at some level what is being discussed:

The high crime rate might well be an indication that it failed at achieving reconciliation

I agree. Everything else you've written appears to me at this point to just be deliberate obfuscation and performative doubt, and weirdly persistent attempts to insist that I am saying things I have explicitly told you I am not saying, at the level of "so you're saying." I have no patience for that nonsense, so I will excuse myself from the conversation here.

I have already told you that I do not regard the TRC as a cause of the specific problems under discussion

Then perhaps you need to write more clearly. If that is your position, why, when I apologized, saying "Oh, I thought you meant to imply that because you wrote in response to a post about current problems in SA," did you not simply say, "no, I didn't mean to imply that" instead of "I have no idea what you can possibly mean by this. Are you of the view that the current problems in South Africa are not reflective of any past failures?" Do you see how one might infer therefrom that you are in fact making a claim that the current problems in South Africa are reflective of the failure of the TRC?

And, please don't complain about people putting words in your mouth after you claimed that I said that "the current problems in South Africa are not reflective of any past failures."

This is something of a predictable failure mode of progressivism. The essence of Truth and Reconciliation programs isn't a complete dead-end; there are legitimate use cases. Unfortunately, those legal academics pointed to those particular cases and then proceeded to overapply the approach wildly, to disastrous effect.

In the wake of a horrific civil war, where atrocity has been piled on top of atrocity, and--crucially--the overwhelming majority of evidence is absent, there simply isn't much you can do to appease the demands of justice while picking up the pieces. Sure, some or even many of the survivors may have committed horrible acts, but what do you do if you can't prove it? Some may confess, others may not; how much weight can a simple accusation bear? Do you punish the minor evils that you can prove, and let the major evils pass unaddressed? This is a wicked problem.

The Truth and Reconciliation solution more or less acknowledges that achieving even a semblance of justice is impossible in these circumstances, and appeals to truth instead. In exchange for amnesty, the commissions should seek to gather and record as much evidence as can be found as an offering to history. This isn't a good solution, but in extraordinarily bad circumstances, it might be the best on offer. In less bad situations, it's just an excuse to avoid justice, because justice is hard.

"Truth and Reconciliation" was the darling of progressive legal academics the world over back in the 1990s.

It was also sufficiently large in the American public psyche to inspire a professional wrestling faction called the Truth Commission, though it's perhaps indicative that the wrestling scriptwriters seemed to have no idea what a Truth and Reconciliation Committee was:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_Commission

A lot of folks in SA weren't sure either...

It was also sufficiently large in the American public psyche to inspire a professional wrestling faction called the Truth Commission

If memory serves, the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg even gave an interview in her twilight years where she praised the South African constitution as superior to the US one. So South Africa was the poster child of global liberalism for the older generation. Having it fail in such a public way is of course embarrassing. Though I suspect the usual excuses of "legacy of Apartheid" will be trotted out in perpetuity and no introspection will be allowed for fear of being called racist.

It reminds me of a comment I’ve heard about Spain, where the left just blames the dictatorship for every problem that happens even if it is their own fault.