| "The facts are always less than what really happened" Nadine Gordimer | |||
| Just for the record: the most I will try and sell you is one of my books; I have no other agenda; I’m not a teacher, a preacher or a double glazing salesman. Neither do I aspire to be any of those. | |||
| Which is not to say that I have nothing to give; I believe that the events that shaped (and continue to shape) my life have resonance beyond the (meta)physical presence of Pisces Iscariot. We are all involved in history. | |||
| With this in mind, anyone expecting guidance, enlightenment, epiphanies or healing might as well leave now. | |||
| Some basic facts: | |||
| • I was born in Durban in 1962. | According to the rules of the game this makes me a South African. | ||
| • I am a pacifist | I don't want to get killed in anybody's territorial/resource war | ||
| • I am an atheist | I owe my soul to no god | ||
...to put it in precise Kantian terms, when
we reflect upon our ethnic roots,we engage in a private use of reason, constrained by contingent
dogmatic presuppositions; that is to say,we act as “immature” individuals, not
as free human beings who dwell in the dimension of the universality of reason.This,
of course, does not in any way entail that we should be ashamed of our ethnic roots;
we can love them, be proud of them; returning home may warm our hearts—but the
fact remains that all this is ultimately irrelevant ~ Slavoj Žižek