Biggest thinkers don ’ t think so anymore
There is a question (a set of questions, actually) that has been tugging at my sleeve for a few years now. It is more in the realm of philosophy and history than political economy as conventionally seen. Readers of this column probably know by now that I avoid labelling myself “an economist ”, unfettered by things such as “history ”, “philosophy ” and even reality.
Let me get back to the question above: can people change their minds over time? The answer is, of course, “yes ”. Except, it seems, when it comes to ideology, romantic idealism, fundamentalism and, well, magical realism.
I should confess that I was thrilled — in the haze of tear gas, dust, death and dying that was so part of journalism in my 20s
— by the literary work of Toni Morrison ( Beloved ) and Gabriel Garcia Marquez ( One Hundred Years of Solitude). The 1980s were a time — with a solid nod to Tony Harrison ’ s A Kumquat for John Keats —“full of bile and self-defeat,” when many of us in the media “wanted to believe no life was sweet ”. Never mind.
The question I have in mind is largely a response to the romantic lingering of unflinching loyalties and stubborn belief in the words, deeds and imaginings of longdead women and men. And perish the thought if anyone challenged those beliefs. Before we get to Steve Biko, Karl Marx or Adam Smith, I should explain the “philosophical ” and the “historical ” referred to above.
In my limited academic career I always insisted on telling students to refer to passages by people such as, say, Marx or Smith, in the past tense. Philosophically, we have to believe they may have changed their minds over the past century or more. Historically, they are no longer around to explain themselves. I should explain one (kind of) exception. At the University of South Carolina, I was confronted by a student who told me that whatever was written in the Bible was eternally valid.
So, setting aside religious texts — if only to protect one ’ s wellbeing — we have to believe that if Biko were alive today he may have different views to those he promoted in the early 1970s. Let ’ s face it, the world has changed significantly over the past 40 years. For instance, there is a video clip of Biko insisting that Africans had to benefit from mining asbestos (among other things). With what we now know about the dangers of asbestos, it is safe to assume Biko would have changed his mind on this. There are many other areas where the world has changed and new ideas and information have forced us to assume new positions.
The same can be said about any of the “great thinkers ” of the past, as well as the great revolutionaries of yesteryear. Some of these characters are dead, and we would have expected their ideas (the good and the bad) to die with them, yet they persist. Pick any thinker, philosopher, revolutionary or any woman who was alive 2,000 years ago (or 40), and we can be almost certain that they would, by now, have changed their minds.
From Attila, who legend has it ruled the Huns of central and eastern Europe from 434 until 453, to Thomas Sankara (president of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987), the world has changed significantly. Early in the 21st century we are constantly searching for new ideas, reflecting on the state of capitalism (the reader should expect a landmark work — Capitalism, Alone by Branko Milanovic — to be published within the next few days or weeks), and what may happen next. My sense is that capitalism will survive in different guises, strengthened by the moving of vast amounts of cash into shadow banking — away from the greasy palms of governments. But that ’ s another discussion.
There are, of course, things that have remained the same. Marx was correct, for instance, when he said that instead of interpreting the world we ought to change it. In other words, the way we think about the world invariably stems from real-life conditions, which can be remade. It is almost trite to repeat this — revolutionaries may need to be reminded — but the world in the early 21st century has new anxieties, new material conditions and new threats that Smith and Marx could not have foreseen.
Even latter-day revolutionaries and thinkers who continue to inspire populist revolutionaries — from Frantz Fanon to Biko and Sankara — may have had decidedly different responses to new information and every changing material condition.
Unless, of course, we are biblical about the world, and believe that all things are eternally valid.
THE WORLD IN THE 21ST CENTURY HAS NEW ANXIETIES, NEW CONDITIONS AND NEW THREATS SMITH AND MARX COULD NOT HAVE FORESEEN
● Lagardien, a visiting professor at the Wits University School of Governance, has worked in the office of the chief economist of the World Bank, as well as the secretariat of the National Planning Commission.