Odious strands in our public debate

Public debate around the student protests has become rather odious. And if some of these really unfortunate strands in our public debate don’t disappear soon, the possibility of making any kind of progress in puzzling through the issues confronting our society will get smaller and smaller.

First, the space for disagreement about some issues, while in agreement about some other issues, is getting smaller by the day. Many of us are developing an attitude that seems to say: “Either you agree with my position completely or you’re part of the problem.”

I recall, for example, how writer and commentator Sisonke Msimang was trolled for a piece of analysis in which she merely rehearsed some of her concerns about the destruction of some artistic and other iconography in a context where the instrumental purpose of violent tactics had not been adequately theorised and practically considered by some protesters.

In fact, being the careful thinker that she is, she didn’t even advocate in any adversarial way for a rejection of any particular tactic or strategy as a priori wrong. She made a cogent case, without trying to be a moral coward hovering above the proverbial fray, for complexity. And, in part, her embrace of complexity is a recognition that two people might have overlapping consensus about aspects of the struggle for justice, and yet still disagree on the finer details.

What followed after the landing of her analysis was something of an online lynching. Suddenly she was deemed, by some, to have revealed her “true” self, an older black South African drunk on reconciliation motif and rainbowism, an enemy of the student movement.

The reaction, of course, was simply an instance of the tendency to think that only complete agreement with one’s views is a sign of empathy for one’s position. Msimang handled it all with grace, but it was an exemplary instance of the odiousness of current public debate.

Never mind the fact that Msimang already has an established archive of analysis and activism that show consistency in its commitment to justice struggles.

And, of course, examples exist on both sides. A second feature of the odiousness is a tendency by some to ascribe views to interlocutors that they never expressed to knock down the misrepresentation of their actual views.

In this regard, student protesters and activists are often the ones who are the victims of this particular intellectual vice. It is amazing how little of the writing of the activists is actually read and accurately described before it is engaged with.

There are some commentators who clearly haven’t bothered to talk to students or even Googled their work or followed them on social media with a view to understanding their arguments and viewpoints.

I am astounded how, at times, an article based on a complete straw-person fallacy about the student protesters can go viral. It’s a bit like writing a review of a book you haven’t read.

If you haven’t taken some time out to understand what your opponent in a debate thinks and says, then you shouldn’t be engaging them at all.

I have read some enviously brilliant essays and social media commentary on everything from curriculum reform, racism and feminism to iconography and free education and many other themes that are salient to our contemporary justice struggles, written by South African students, including undergraduates.

Usually, at this point, someone who disagrees with aspects of the student movement will sheepishly ask me: “Oh where?” but after they had already spent hours telling you why the students are a bunch of anti-intellectual militants.

Which raises an obvious question: If you had not actually done your homework to learn what it is students are saying or arguing, then on what basis are you entitled to opine so sharply and confidently for hours on their strategies, tactics and viewpoints?

Asking for the work of some of these students after dissing them is, to extend the earlier analogy, like asking for a copy of a book after you’ve already published your review. It’s shameful.

Finally, I have also noticed a tendency to galvanise support among those who share one’s viewpoints and to ignore those who disagree with us. The clearest example here is to tweet and retweet each other as friends, which isn’t a problem in itself, but don’t then pretend your Twitter echo chamber constitutes the full truth and everyone outside it is an idiot to be sneered at and ignored or laughed at when you meet a fellow echo chamber buddy offline.

The truth is that one’s favourite echo chamber shouldn’t be confused for the entire public domain. It is just that: the digital equivalent of group-think. Our public discourse is poorer because of these odious habits.