Serving the people: what is a good ‘man’?

IT WILL be about the “man”, about his morality. The contrasting events of President Cyril Ramaphosa testifying at the Zondo Commission, and the temporary suspension of ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule, arguably sets the tone for political contests for the upcoming local government elections.

Policy positions of parties, municipalities’ performance with service delivery, and how ward representatives engaged citizens over time are key priorities. However, political symbolism increasingly trumps these more sober considerations. This refers to the conclusions that citizens draw regarding a party, by only, or mostly, considering the public images and incidents involving members of the party.

Even if citizens’ views are based on public discourse and popular gossip, what these events reveal is that voting may be based on what the most senior leaders of a party represent for the morality of the party – the good

“man” will symbolise a good party. However, perhaps a more fundamental reason underlies a citizen’s increasing focus on the political symbolism that popular readings offer of a senior party leader, namely what he sees reflected of himself in images of his representative.

Simply put, when the symbol he clings to is that of a good “man”, a virtuous “man”, or not, the citizen knows himself also as virtuous, or not – to vote for the good “man” is to vote for the virtuous self. This type of symbolism then offers an additional layer of judgement for citizens to navigate the developing bombardment of election campaigning.

Three distinct ways to answer the question of what makes the good “man” offer productive tools to do so. More classical (Western) philosophical traditions define the good man in terms of ethics and morality, and in relation to the “upright citizen” and the “ideal city”.

Man is good, so goes the argument, when he enacts his role as citizen in the politics of a city and a society, does so ethically, and to achieve good moral goals and build a virtuous society.

This perspective arguably builds a continuum with the good citizen on the one end, and the virtuous society on the other – the voter will judge his symbols for being and building social virtue. A second continuum argues that goodness and virtue are judgements that can only be made within the context of a unique community of people – an ethno-theory of “man”.

This means that the good “man” can only be considered as such by members of his own social “tribe”, since what is morally and ethically good is particular to the unique culture, social structure, and political symbols of that one collective.

A third scale with which the citizen could weigh the goodness of his political symbols, is to view the “man” as part of a broad social structure that cuts through the boundaries of groups, and builds a broader collective beyond the individual or exclusive group – it is the broad view of the “Afropolitan”.

This refers to goodness of “man” in the context of a global and cosmopolitan world. The good and moral man is the man that finds his roots, his sense of self and purpose, his cultural performance and citizen action, as part of a diversity of collectives.