Often when writing this column, I have to debunk some of the annoying stigmas attached to artists and the arts: self-indulgent, effete, irrelevant, boring, obscure, pretentious, a drain on the economy, a waste of resources — these are the more idiotic and trite dismissals.
But there are numerous variations on the theme. A particularly persistent set of false assumptions regarding “arts” emerges when that word is prefaced with “bachelor of”. This week, the BA badmouthing rodeo was back in town. Step right up, folks! Same show, same horses and same riders.
This time, however, the pretext was different. It started with the news that DA chief whip John Steenhuisen doesn’t have a university degree. The EFF rubbed its hands with glee; the media landscape is filled with unflattering articles about the party and its leaders, so they took the opportunity to remind everyone how many degrees they have between them.
Steenhuisen’s defenders fought back, rightly saying that he is an excellent parliamentarian regardless of his lack of formal qualifications. But there are always those who take it too far. The defence of Steenhuisen turned into an attack on the humanities at SA universities — ostensibly because the EFF’s triumvirate of Julius Malema, Floyd Shivambu and Mbuyiseni Ndlozi have degrees in the social sciences.
This echoed a refrain regularly spouted by the more reactionary voices in the DA and by a small, but shrill, group of pseudo-intellectual conservative pundits (they might mistakenly call themselves “classical liberals”, but that’s a debate for another day).
These Jordan Peterson types have become particularly fond of using the term “grievance studies” as a flippant shorthand for what they see as the humanities-in-decline. They are alluding to an attempted hoax by three academics who sought to critique an apparent obsession with race, class, gender and sexuality in social sciences research — and, by implication, teaching — by exposing a supposed lapse in the standards of scholarly publishing in the field.
That the “grievance studies affair” was built on a straw foundation of contradictions appears to be of little interest to the local antihumanities brigade. In the wake of the “Steenhuisen affair”, it seems necessary to get a few things straight.
First, studying at university does not necessarily make you a better citizen, give you greater moral insight or motivate you to act ethically. If the EFF is run by people who bully journalists, and who hang out with thieves — this reflects neither well nor ill on their area of academic study.
Second, it’s not the having of a degree that matters; it’s what you do with it. Take my academic discipline of literary studies, for example. Career counsellors make the mistake of telling young people that studying “English” prepares them to be teachers, editors, copywriters ... and, of course, it does. But they can also become bankers, business consultants, IT specialists, entrepreneurs. A humanities degree is an open door, not a dead end.
Third, there are many vocations for which studying at university does not automatically make you better or worse qualified. Being a politician is one of these, if Steenhuisen’s 20 years of “on-the-job training” are anything to go by. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t want our parliamentarians (as well as bureaucrats, policy advisers and party apparatchiks) to have evidence of their technical knowledge and their critical thinking skills in the form of university degrees — or to seek to increase these by pursuing further qualifications.
What would happen if Steenhuisen applied to undertake, say, an honours degree in one of the much-maligned arts or social sciences? I’m pretty sure he would be accepted; universities have mechanisms for recognising professional experience equivalent to formal study.
What if, as he tackled history, philosophy, languages, economics, psychology or sociology, managing to avoid the Kool-aid of “grievance studies”, he nonetheless developed a more nuanced insight into race and gender in SA? What if he could explain to his colleagues in the DA why it is not completely inappropriate to factor white male privilege into his degree-less rise through the party ranks, his individual merit notwithstanding?
I can’t help thinking this would make the DA stronger as a party, more effective in opposition, and maybe — just maybe — better prepared for national governance.
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