Discordant dreams: the spirit of the times in contemporary South Africa

ABSTRACT

In a time of ferment in the national mood, the large body of literature on the rationale and emotions of specific subgroups in South Africa today invites a synthetic account of ideologies and zeitgeist considered together. It is argued that these phenomena are rooted in material processes and that combinations of these discourses are used by people. Patriarchy, neoliberalism, the ANC state, and Christianity are considered as ideology; the “colonial unconscious” is considered as a structuring principle of the fractured presentation of zeitgeist. This includes the ideological popular discourse of whiteness; a single broad social spirit of blackness, though within this are subclusters of survival, retraditionalization, religion, “insurgent yet dependent citizenship,” and loyal citizenship. The common spirit of democratic South Africa is outlined. Lastly, using Hamilton’s account of “public deliberation,” the extent and location of critical public debate is discussed, and linked to the issue of ressentiment. The implication of these forces for the future is finally considered.

KEYWORDS:

• Ideology
• zeitgeist
• South Africa
• ANC
• democracy
• deliberation
• spirit of the times

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Netshitenzhe, “Of Votes, Transition and Radicalism,” 1.

² Tsatsanis, “The Social Determinants of Ideology,” 219.

³ Schotte, Zizzamia, and Leibbrandt, “Social Stratification, Life Chances and Vulnerability to Poverty in South Africa,” 25.

⁴ Chipkin et al., Shadow State, 144.

⁵ Alexander, “Rebellion of the Poor,” 37.

⁶ Mbembe, “Passages to Freedom,” 7.

⁷ This article does not deal in detail with “contender ideologies” of the DA and EFF, nor does it deal with the identifiable subcultures of “coloureds” and “Indians”.

⁸ Alhadeff-Jones, “Complexity, Methodology and Method,” 42.

⁹ Tornberg, “Using Complexity Theory Methods for Sociological Theory Development with a Case Study on Socio – Technical Transition,” 25.

¹⁰ Thompson, Ideology and Modern Culture, 56.

¹¹ Boudon, The Analysis of Ideology.

¹² Larrain, The Concept of Ideology, 14.

¹³ Thompson, Studies in the Theory of Ideology, 247–54.

¹⁴ Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, 393.

¹⁵ Bouaiss, Maque, and Meric, “More than Three’s a Crowd … in the Best Interest of Companies!” 24.

¹⁶ MacDonald, “Schumpeter and Max Weber–Central Visions and Social Theories,” 379.

¹⁷ Schumpeter, The Economics and Sociology of Capitalism, 208–9; 236–37.

¹⁸ Bourdieu, Masculine Domination, 85 ff.

¹⁹ Ibid., 9.

²⁰ Connell, Gender and Power, 245 ff.

²¹ Connell, “Masculinities in Global Perspective,” 306 ff.

²² Gqola, Rape Ch 3; Ratele, Liberating Masculinities, 11–12.

²³ Ratele, Liberating Masculinities, 1–17.

²⁴ Cerny, “Embedding Neoliberalism,” 28–37.

²⁵ Ibid, 39.

²⁶ Thompson, Ideology and Modern Culture, 264.

²⁷ Castells, Communication Power.

²⁸ Ibid, 424–26.

²⁹ McGowan, Capitalism and Desire, 215ff.

³⁰ Mbembe, “Class, Race and the New Native.”

³¹ Posel, “Races to Consume,” 160.

³² Southall, The New Black Middle Class in South Africa, 169–76.

³³ Jones, “Conspicuous Destruction, Aspiration,” 210.

³⁴ Ibid, 223.

³⁵ Leclerc-Madlala, “Transactional Sex and the Pursuit of Modernity.”

³⁶ Ibid, 214.

³⁷ James, “Deeper into a Hole?” S27–28.

³⁸ Chevalier, “Food, Malls and the Politics of Consumption.”

³⁹ James, “Not Marrying in South Africa.”

⁴⁰ Chipkin, “Capitalism, City, Apartheid in the Twenty-First Century”; Steyn, Whiteness Just Isn’t What Is Used to Be.

⁴¹ Suttner, “The African National Congress Centenary,” 720–35.

⁴² Booysen, The African National Congress, chaps, 1,2 & 13.

⁴³ Marais, South Africa Pushed to the Limit, 395.

⁴⁴ Paret, “Contested ANC Hegemony in the Urban Townships”; ooysen, Dominance and Decline, 292 ff.

⁴⁵ Hook, “The Mandela Imaginary,” 48 ff.

⁴⁶ Santner, The Royal Remains, 61.

⁴⁷ Booysen, The African National Congress, xv; 86.

⁴⁸ Hudson, “Liberalism, Colonialism and National Democracy,” 95.

⁴⁹ Chipkin, “The Decline of African Nationalism,” 221–23.

⁵⁰ Hart, Rethinking the South African Crisis, 181–85; 197–215.

⁵¹ Ibid, 228 ff.

⁵² Mbembe, Critique of Black Reason, 174.

⁵³ Magubane, The Making of a Racist State, 418.

⁵⁴ Bourdieu, Masculine Domination, 85–86.

⁵⁵ Reinhard and Lupton, “The Subject of Religion”; Taylor, Sources of the Self.

⁵⁶ Rule and Mncwango, “Christianity in South Africa,” 197.

⁵⁷ McEwen and Steyn, “Politics of Faith.”

⁵⁸ Comaroff, Jean, “The Politics of Conviction.”

⁵⁹ Bompani, “Mandela Mania”; Kuperus, “The Political Role.”

⁶⁰ Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought, 14.

⁶¹ Hudson, “The State and the Colonial Unconscious,” 265 ff.

⁶² Posel, “Whither ‘Non-Racialism,’” 2169–70.

⁶³ Mbembe, “Class, Race and the New Native,” 1.

⁶⁴ Seekings, “The Social Consequences of Class Formation,” 26–27; and Southall, The New Black Middle Class in South Africa, 62.

⁶⁵ LenkaBula and Makofane, “Women’s Moral Agency,” 13 ff.

⁶⁶ “Coloured” and “Indian” were apartheid-era categories denoting supposed intermediate strata between “white” and ”black” in South Africa.

⁶⁷ Bickford-Smith, “Providing Local Color?” 138 ff; Nyar, “Some New Perspectives on South African Indians,” 95–100.

⁶⁸ Vahed and Desai, “Identity and Belonging in Post-Apartheid South Africa”; Ruiters, “Collaboration, Assimilation and Contestation.”

⁶⁹ Maldonado-Torres, “Decoloniality at Large,” 3.

⁷⁰ Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Empire, Global Coloniality, 188.

⁷¹ Motsemme, “Loving in a Time of Hopelessness,” 72–80.

⁷² Motsemme, “Lived and Embodied Suffering”; Mosoetsa, “Compromised Communities.”

⁷³ Hook, (Post)Apartheid Conditions, 125 ff.

⁷⁴ Shown fictionally in Duiker, The Quiet Violence of Dreams; Rampolokeng, Blackheart.

⁷⁵ Mbembe, Critique of Black Reason, 173–78.

⁷⁶ Ross, “Raw Life and Respectability,” 106.

⁷⁷ Motsemme, “Lived and Embodied Suffering,” 257.

⁷⁸ Ibid, 258.

⁷⁹ Ruti, The Singularity of Being, chap. 3.

⁸⁰ du Toit and Neves, “The Government of Poverty,” 846.

⁸¹ Mosoetsa, “Compromised Communities and Re-Emerging Civic Engagement,” 873.

⁸² Alcock, Kasinomics.

⁸³ Hickel, Democracy as Death, 58 ff.

⁸⁴ Comaroff and Comaroff, “Reflections on Liberalism, Policulturalism, and ID-Ology”; Healy-Clancy and Hickel, Ekhaya; Hickel, Democracy as Death; Ngwane, “‘Real Men Reawaken Their Fathers’ Homesteads.”

⁸⁵ Hunter, “Beneath the ‘Zunami’,” 1118 ff.

⁸⁶ Comaroff and Comaroff, “Reflections on Liberalism, Policulturalism, and ID-Ology,” 464–67.

⁸⁷ Healy-Clancy and Hickel, Ekhaya, 16.

⁸⁸ Hickel, Democracy as Death.

⁸⁹ Alcock, Kasinomics, 105–11.

⁹⁰ Lehohla, “SA Statistics 2012,” 20.19–20.20.

⁹¹ Jarvis, “Gender, Violence and Home,” 126.

⁹² Mbembe, Critique of Black Reason, 175.

⁹³ Bompani, “Religion and Development from Below,” 320–22.

⁹⁴ Alexander, Runciman, and Maruping, “South African Police Service Data on Crowd Incidents,” 24.

⁹⁵ Pithouse, “The Shack Settlement as a Site of Politics,” 195.

⁹⁶ Alexander, “Rebellion of the Poor”; Alexander and Pfaffe, “Social Relationships to the Means and Ends of Protest in South Africa’s”; Pithouse, “The Shack Settlement as a Site of Politics”; Pithouse, Writing the Decline, 22, 180.

⁹⁷ Ferguson, “Declarations of Dependence,” 237–39.

⁹⁸ Booysen, The African National Congres, 129ff; Dawson, “Patronage from Below”; Duncan, Protest Nation, 37–38; Fakir, “Circling the Square of Protests”; Hickel, Democracy as Death, 58ff.

⁹⁹ Dawson, “Patronage from Below,” 538–39.

¹⁰⁰ Dubbeld, “Envisioning governance,” 509.

¹⁰¹ Von Holdt et al., “Insurgent Citizenship, Collective Violence,” 31–32.

¹⁰² Neocosmos, “Transition, Human Rights and Violence,” 393–94.

¹⁰³ Krige, “‘Growing up’ and ‘Moving Up,’” 114.

¹⁰⁴ Alcock, Kasinomics, 172.

¹⁰⁵ Southall, The New Black Middle Class in South Africa, 169–70.

¹⁰⁶ Steyn and Foster, “Repertoires for Talking White.”

¹⁰⁷ Ratele, Liberating Masculinities, 11.

¹⁰⁸ Maldonado-Torres, “Decoloniality at Large,” 2.

¹⁰⁹ Reay, “Psychosocial Aspects of White Middle-Class Identities,” 1085–86.

¹¹⁰ Steyn and Foster, “Repertoires for Talking White,” 46.

¹¹¹ Kruger, “(Dis)Empowered Whiteness.”

¹¹² Steyn and Foster, “Repertoires for Talking White,” 46.

¹¹³ McEwen and Steyn, “Politics of Faith.”

¹¹⁴ Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason, 22.

¹¹⁵ Santos, Epistemologies of the South, 118 ff.

¹¹⁶ Westhuizen, Sitting Pretty, 193; 22–61.

¹¹⁷ van der Waal and Robins, “‘De La Rey’ and the Revival of ‘Boer Heritage’.”

¹¹⁸ Blaser and Westhuizen, “Introduction,” 386.

¹¹⁹ Blaser, “‘I Don’t Know What I Am,’” 18.

¹²⁰ Verwey and Quayle, “Whiteness, Racism, and Afrikaner Identity in Post-Apartheid South Africa,” 573.

¹²¹ Chipkin and Ngqulunga, “Friends and Family,” 67.

¹²² Straker, “Unsettling Whiteness,” 23–24.

¹²³ van Niekerk, Triomf.

¹²⁴ “Why Did Apartheid’s Supporters Capitulate?,” 41 ff.

¹²⁵ Bystrom and Nuttall, “Introduction.”

¹²⁶ Chipkin, Do South Africans Exist? 213.

¹²⁷ Bystrom and Nuttall, “Introduction,” 323–26.

¹²⁸ Posel, “Whither ‘Non-Racialism,’” 2169.

¹²⁹ Chipkin and Ngqulunga, “Friends and Family,” 67.

¹³⁰ Hook, “Love, Artificiality and Mass Identification,” 134.

¹³¹ Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries, 69 ff.

¹³² Chipkin, Do South Africans Exist?.

¹³³ Abrahams, “Twenty Years of Social Cohesion,” 107.

¹³⁴ Zuern, “Popular Organizations in South Africa,” 277 ff.

¹³⁵ Bystrom and Nuttall, “Introduction,” 308.

¹³⁶ Chipkin, “Capitalism, City, Apartheid in the Twenty-First Century.”

¹³⁷ Hamilton, “Uncertain Citizenship and Public Deliberation,” 365ff.

¹³⁸ Ibid, 359–63.

¹³⁹ Ibid, 371.

¹⁴⁰ Sitas, “Beyond the Mandela Decade.”

¹⁴¹ Hamilton, “Uncertain Citizenship and Public Deliberation,” 357.

¹⁴² Ibid, 370.

¹⁴³ On Cosatu, Pillay, “Holding the Centre”; on new unionism, Ruiters, “Spaces of Hope.”

¹⁴⁴ Bhorat et al., “Betrayal of the Promise.”

¹⁴⁵ Habib, South Africa’s Suspended Revolution, 147–51.

¹⁴⁶ Hamilton, “Uncertain Citizenship and Public Deliberation,” 364–65.

¹⁴⁷ Leger, Brave New Avant Garde, 98.

¹⁴⁸ Osborne, The Politics of Time, 196.

¹⁴⁹ Naidoo, “The anti-apartheid generation has become afraid of the future”.

¹⁵⁰ Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 247.

¹⁵¹ Holdt and Naidoo, “Mapping Movement Landscapes in South Africa”; Pithouse, “The Shack Settlement as a Site of Politics”; Pithouse, Writing the Decline, 19–22; 93–97.

¹⁵² Ruti, The Singularity of Being, 52.

¹⁵³ Hamilton, “Uncertain Citizenship and Public Deliberation, ” 365 ff.

¹⁵⁴ Chouiten, “The Other Battle,” 3.

¹⁵⁵ Mbembe, “Apartheid Futures and the Limits of Racial Reconciliation,” 4.

¹⁵⁶ Seedat, Baw, and Ratele, “Why the Wretched Kill in Democratic South Africa,” 21.

¹⁵⁷ Ndebele, “They Are Burning Memory,” 26.

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Peter Dominic Stephen Stewart

Peter Dominic Stephen Stewart teaches Development Studies at the University of South Africa (Unisa). He did his PhD in politics at the University of the Witwatersrand. He the author of Segregation and Singularity. Politics and its context among white middle class English-speakers in late apartheid Johannesburg. He is married and lives in Johannesburg.