Reply to comment

It is a good post. My view is that all societies are pretty much as complex, but for most societies there is a dominant narrative that helps us recognise "familiar" patterns. In South Africa there are stridently competing narratives in public life, none which is dominant. The government thinks the media is a tool in the hand of its liberal bourgeois enemies, the media think the government doesn't understand the social democratic/liberal constitution, and the Malema-style populists think that the ANC government has already sold out to the liberal bourgeoisie, who aren't that liberal anyway. And any number of variants and cross-currents. The gap between narratives is large, yet many citizens stray from one to the other, depending on the prevailing national mood. This confusion is symptomatic of a young, unequal and still divided society. Perhaps as South Africa leaves its teenage years its view of itself will mature a little.