Defiant public intellectuals in South Africa

Abstract

This is the second volume in a developing series focused on public intellectuals in South Africa. In the first volume, The Fabric of Dissent: Public Intellectuals in South Africa, we framed what we mean by who and what constitutes a public intellectual, what constitutes the public good and the ways in which the public intellectual is a force for good. Central therefore is the idea that the 'public' (which we view as comprising a dispersed, disparate and changing set of interests formed by people) gives rise to social capital and resources arising out of ideas, change, cultures and interventions in the public realm. In several ways this volume draws on some of the shaping ideas of Frank Lentricchia's Criticism and Social Change to show that the 'the authority and power of intellectuals ... in their work in and on culture, involve themselves inescapably in the political work of social change'. If culture is broadly understood as the learned and shared beliefs, practices, values and ideas in a society, then criticism and social change are central to history, politics, power and the radical work of transformation as exemplified by people who, through their ideas and actions, steer change in public ways. The inaugural volume highlighted the project of 'dissent' as a shaping driver of intellectual thought and liberation. More than that, we suggested that dissent is often viewed with apprehension, scepticism, even suspicion, as a negative foundation of society. Yet ironically, dissent resurfaces - as we motivated - to be a necessary condition of society that also advances knowledge. It has a global presence. And more than that, we motivate now, as we did then, that the recovery, repositioning and recuperation of public intellectuals in South Africa simultaneously engages and marks a departure from dominant paradigms about intellectuals in the global metropole.