The Incompatibility of Humanism in the South African Constitution with Neoliberal Governmentality

Abstract

The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa is a momentous text in the history of South Africa’s liberation from the apartheid regime. It marks a break with the old regime, which sought to protect the prosperity of the country’s white minority while oppressing the black majority. The shift posited in the Constitution was clearly legal, but it was also conceptual. It was written with the intention to change the normative structure and principles of justification. As I will argue, it puts forward a normative discourse based on humanism. Since humanism has a rocky history, rife with exclusion and subjugation, it is important to clarify the sort of humanism contained in the Constitution of South Africa as one which understands the human as a site of potential. Although the Constitution may place value on such a humanism, it is not clear that our other social discourses cohere with this apprehension of the human. Specifically, I claim that the tendency in South African discourse (in various realms) to deploy neoliberal reason is at odds with the humanism outlined in the South African Constitution and therefore also does not allow for its actualisation.