A Relational Model of Public Discourse

The African Philosophy of Ubuntu

Leyla Tavernaro-Haidarian

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351108614
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Contemporary democratic discourses are frequently, though not exclusively, characterized by an attitude of 'pro and con' where the aim is to persuade others, a jury or an audience, of what is right and what is wrong. Challenging such procedures, this book teases out an alternative model of public discourse that is based in collaboration and deliberation. The African philosophy of ubuntu offers valuable insights in this regard as it implies relational notions of power that contrast and complement individualist facets. It provides the space to think and speak in ways that support harmonious and cohesive societal structures and practices. The book's model of communication rests on the premise that the various interests of individuals and groups, while richly diverse, can be conceived of as profoundly bound-up rather than incompatible. In this way communication enables broader lines of action and a wider scope for achieving diversity and common ground.

1
Discourse, Culture and Ubuntu

In light of some of the more extreme manifestations of contemporary discourses characterized by conflict and contention it becomes useful to ask in what ways discourses can be reshaped, elevated and evolved to promote shared ends. In other words what strategies and values we could cultivate that foreground collaboration and background conflict. With that in mind, I begin this chapter by sketching out how discourses can be conceptualized and why some should be reconsidered. This is followed by a brief overview of how ethico-cultural values play a role in shaping and reshaping them. I specifically highlight the concept of ‘normative adversarialism’ (Karlberg, 2004) as a context or realism that frames many contemporary discourses, discuss some of the reasons it limits us and finally offer the African philosophy of ubuntu as a compelling normative alternative.

Discourses unfold everywhere and all the time. They take shape not only in spoken or written form, on television or in the news, but also through the values expressed in photos and billboards, in fashion and sports. According to Fairclough and Wodak (1997:258), discourses can be understood as a “form of ‘social practice’”, implying “a dialectical relationship between a particular discursive event and the situation(s), institution(s) and social structure(s), which frame it”. In other words, discourses are the way we think about concepts and how we express our thoughts in relation to those concepts. They are shaped by and in turn shape the greater socio-cultural context around them (see also Foucault, 1972, 1980; Phillips & Hardy, 2002). So what we say and how we say it does not only describe or reflect the world around us, it also determines it. We project meaning onto things and those meanings affect the way we see them (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997:258). Discourses are not static or fixed but are constantly evolving as we share ideas and change our values. Therefore, a discourse is “constitutive both in the sense that it helps to sustain and reproduce the social status quo, and in the sense that it contributes to transforming it” (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997:258).

Transformation becomes important when we make limiting assumptions about the nature of an issue. In South Africa, for example, discourses around decolonization have been framed both in terms of ‘dismantling’ strategies (see Booysen, 2016) and ‘reshaping’ or ‘rethinking’ strategies (see Isaacs De Vega, 2017). The first frame can be associated with a student movement that demanded access to education and a change in institutional culture. It was accompanied by phrases and hashtags such as ‘Fees Must Fall’ and ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ (Booysen, 2016) and its resulting lines of action were chiefly characterized by protests, hostage taking, boycotting, barricading, the throwing of petrol bombs and bricks, the burning of books and other reactive strategies (see Metz, 2016:293). While it achieved much in terms of bringing to the fore the pressing inequalities that many South African students face today, framing decolonization as ‘dismantling’, ‘resistance’ or ‘protest’ strategies can only go so far in achieving social transformation. At best, it offers the option of passive resistance, civil disobedience, mass sit-ins and teach-ins or petitions and negotiations (Metz, 2016:298). However, when considering decolonization as a process of ‘reshaping’ or ‘rethinking’, other options become available. These include so-called ‘re-curriculation’ efforts that reshape university curricula not only in terms of their content but also in terms of their wider institutional processes. Students, scholars and other stakeholders pour their energies into the development of new paradigms for transforming and delivering higher education. In this way, constructive innovations can occur that ‘enlarge’, ‘incorporate’, ‘include’ and ‘expand’ (see Isaacs De Vega, 2017) as regards ways of being, knowing, doing, student voices and core changes to the institutional eco-system. In other words, how we conceive of the project determines what we can achieve.

Other examples of limiting discourses include divisive or essentialist ways of thinking about race, culture, religion or gender. In fact, a term such as ‘race’ may carry assumptions about an inherent rather than socially constructed division of the human family into categories and is created entirely through naturalized ways of thinking and talking. In this way discourses may also be un/intentionally aligned with the perceptions and realities of a privileged few and in particular with those in positions of authority. Journalists, for example, frequently side with elites (political, economic or military), making their positions seem natural and inevitable. This may “take place unintentionally as a result of established journalistic routines and practices” (Wasserman, 2013:69). Yet when the press is aligned with those who have disproportionate access to the means of cultural production, the established maps of meaning that exist in society are strengthened (ibid.:68) and those who are sidelined by them remain so.

One way to transform such discourses is to clarify and question some of the deeper assumptions that inform them and to unveil and reconsider the power relationships at work (see Derrida, 1978). These can be thought of in terms of their larger cultural and ethical context or realism. Of course cultures are not static and do not exist in silos. Since the beginning of time cultures have evolved and cross-pollinated, be it through force or through voluntary exchanges. They reflect the developmental stages of societies and contain many currents, crosscurrents and sub-currents of attitudes, ideas and behaviors. For example, not all aspects of life in the global North are individualistic or adversarial. There are many expressions of collaboration, symbiosis and mutualism, which emerge from such fields as development studies, feminism, ecology, international law, journalism, mediation and peace studies (see Karlberg, 2004).

According to Karlberg (2004), however, these efforts are often constricted by or subordinated to a larger realism that is ‘normative adversarialism’, where the unconscious assumption is that human affairs are mutually exclusive and a contest for power is seen as the best way to organize. From within this realism, economics, governance, justice and related social institutions and practices are mainly negotiated in competitive and conflictual terms. This does not always pan out as brash competitiveness or cutthroat competition. It can also unfold in courteous and civil ways. Adversarialism simply refers to a ‘culture of contest’ (ibid.) and is descriptive of a particular and naturalized style of social organization that can indeed be respectful and dignified. However, it does exercise some considerable hegemony over the way alternative paradigms are perceived. Harmonious, cohesive and relational values often seem naïve from within its realism (see Karlberg, 2004). This explains the prevalence of ‘argument culture’ (Tannen, 1998), which can be witnessed in political and academic debates, reality shows, social media exchanges and other, even softer, spaces. It “urges us to respond to the world—and the people in it—in an adversarial frame of mind [and] rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done” (ibid.:3–4).

Of course there are exceptions, such as the various models of public and community media, for example (see Dahlgren & Sparks, 1992; Filson, 1992; Habermas, 1962), which strive to overcome the more extreme forms of adversarial debate yet do not necessarily or always transcend inherently conflictual ways of conceptualizing human affairs. Other exceptions are found in the mainstream, where there has been a surge of collaborative reality television programs. These offer a refreshing alternative to their more conflict-driven counterparts but their deeper conceptions of power are also problematic as they reveal adversarial underpinnings. They suggest that power is something to be had and then bestowed—albeit benevolently. In some home renovation programs, for example, a deserving family who has suffered personal tragedy and struggles with its housing situation might receive a high-end home from the broadcaster with some help from the community. In a staggering number of cases, however, the family’s financial situation worsens once camera crews leave and it is left with a home for which it has no means or habits of upkeep (see Grondahl, 2011). This betrays material understandings of power, where power resides in the hands of some at the expense of others. Though I provide a more comprehensive discussion of this in the next chapter, I want to mention here that the ubuntu concept of power as co-created and mutually empowering force or as “power-sharing” (Louw, 2010) offers a refreshing alternative that distinguishes itself from predominant conceptions in noteworthy ways.

So even efforts to collaborate are often couched within and restricted by the greater reality of normative adversarialism, the roots of which may lie in Kantian and utilitarian ethics. These are characteristically (though not exclusively) individualist and locate “basic moral value in properties intrinsic to a person” (Metz, 2014a:147). In contrast, the ethical thought that is salient amongst sub-Saharan peoples and those in many other countries is chiefly relational (Metz, 2014a:146). Without denying that conflict exists or that conflictual discourses may have merit, such values can provide an alternative realism from which to reshape discourses.

One such value is ubuntu. While some will question the link (see for example Richardson, 2008), ubuntu is often associated with the more or less non-violent transition of South Africa from apartheid to democracy. This process was “the result of the emergence of an ethos of solidarity, a commitment to peaceful co-existence” (Louw, 2010:2). Though the idea of ubuntu is more prominent in sub-Saharan belief systems (Metz, 2015), it is not merely African but has a universal dimension and addresses some fundamental principles about human nature, which are helpful to contemporary social thought (see Shutte, 1993:xii). According to Ramose (2002:230–232), “Ubuntu is the root of African philosophy”, upon which “the fundamental ethical, social, and legal judgment of human worth and human conduct is based”. Ubuntu is an expression of daily living and a way of knowing that fosters a journey toward “becoming human” (Vanier, 1998).

Of course there are those who maintain that ubuntu as a moral philosophy is too vague, “cannot be codified” and is to be understood only on an intuitive “know it when I see it” (Mokgoro, 1998:2) basis. Yet others have attempted to theorize it as a normative moral theory and it is in this context that I see ubuntu as a compelling alternative to normative adversarialism. In other words, my focus is not on how ubuntu has played out. I am well aware that it has been invoked at times to condone violence in respect to non-conformity (see Mbigi & Maree, 1995). Marx (2002), for example, criticizes how ubuntu has been appropriated to sustain a conformist nationalist ideology that glorifies an imagined past. And there are other historic applications that are problematic, such as the exclusion of women from traditional indabas, or community gatherings. From today’s perspective, these practices contradict ubuntu’s egalitarian premise. Yet they are not unique to African societies. Women elsewhere in the West and beyond have also been disenfranchised and it is only since the latter half of the 19th century that collective consciousness has evolved in this regard. As all peoples of the world, “Africans, who are associated with an ubuntu philosophy […] are paradigmatic victims” (and perpetrators) “of violent regimes of grotesque acts of war” (Chasi, 2014a:293). Therefore, precisely because we struggle with our lower nature “it is worthwhile that the African moral philosophy of ubuntu says people should seek the beautiful, great and good” (Chasi, 2014a:287). As such, I believe that the scholarship on ubuntu goes far in discrediting the prevalent assumption that human nature is exclusively and inherently marked by oppression and conflict. It suggests that cultural contexts and discursive formations can also favor collaboration and cooperation. It is simply a matter of choice and nurture. This is reflected in the fact that not all journalism and media and certainly not all aspects of Western liberal society emphasize conflict. Therefore, my interest lies in how ubuntu “should […] be understood and utilized” (Louw, 2010:17), which is an ongoing project. “Ubuntu is open to interpretation” (Blankenberg, 1999:43) and is “still in the making” (Wiredu, 1980:36).

Ubuntu, which also means ‘humanness’ in Zulu, Xhosa and other Nguni languages of Southern Africa, implies that the purpose of human existence is “to belong and to participate” (Mkhize, 2008:39–40). “Individuals consider themselves integral parts of the whole community. A person is socialized to think of himself or herself as inextricably bound to others” (Mnyaka & Motlhabi, 2009:69). In this way, Ubuntu is descriptive of our social relationships and has a normative dimension that prescribes self-realization through communal, harmonious or cohesive ways of relating (Metz, 2011; Metz & Gaie, 2010; Mnyaka & Motlhabi, 2005). In clarifying this dynamic, Metz (2015:77) stresses the two recurrent themes of ‘identity’ and ‘solidarity’, one referring to a closeness of “experiencing life as bound up with others” and the other to a commitment towards others’ needs and “acting for others’ good”. The more one exhibits these characteristics, the more human one becomes. What this implies is that there are two ways of living. One is to give way to one’s lower, animal nature and one is to strive toward a higher, genuinely noble way that all humans have the capacity to attain (Bhengu, 1996:27). This (self-) realization of one’s higher nature is achieved by exhibiting other-regard, or more specifically, by nurturing communal, harmonious or cohesive relationships with others (Metz & Gaie, 2010:275; Mnyaka & Motlhabi, 2005:222–228). In other words, “The more fully I am involved in community with others the more completely I am able to realize my own deep desires to the full” (Shutte, 1993:9). Individual identities are thus formed through the social realm.

According to Verhoef and Michel (1997:397), this social realm is negotiated in terms of: “What is right is what connects people together; what separates people is wrong”. This is understood as a harmonious interaction between diverse individuals (Metz & Gaie, 2010), where individuals are valued, enjoy freedom of expression and are “not limited to what elders find agreeable” (Chasi, 2014b:495). Here, the image of a musical piece comes to mind, where each note can only realize its full potential within the harmonious collaboration (rather than competition) of the various musical notes (Tavernaro-Haidarian, 2018). The individual is treated “as special in virtue of her capacity to enter into relationships of identity and solidarity” (Metz, 2015:78). This relationalism is located between ‘individualism’ and ‘holism’ and em...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Discourse, Culture and Ubuntu
• 2 Discourse, Power and Ubuntu
• 3 Argument Culture
• 4 Deliberation Culture
• 5 Conclusion
• Index