Our Mutual Freedoms

The South African philosopher Mabogo More’s body of work has been produced in fidelity to the event of the emergence of the Black Consciousness movement among Black students in South Africa in the early 1970s. Among many other contributions his work affirms the often neglected importance of Paulo Freire in the politics of this period. The commitment to mutuality, to the recognition of the openness and freedom of every consciousness, that marks Freire’s work is strongly present in More’s work where it is most fully elaborated via his engagement with Jean-Paul Sartre. The application of these ideas to questions of praxis, and in particular to encounters between university trained intellectuals and grassroots activists and workers, was central to the political successes of radical university trained intellectuals in the 1970s and 1980s. The general although not absolute absence of similar commitments among the new generation of left intellectuals that accumulated institutional power in the academy immediately after apartheid is a central reason for the failure of the bulk of this generation to be effective political actors. This is one reason, among many others, for the intense contemporary relevance of More’s work.