To fail at becoming South African: Moral blindness, liminality, and Rainbowism

In an effort to move away from Apartheid and its evils -South Africa and South Africans have committed to a shared moral project -the Rainbow Nation-Building Project (RNP); a project that confers certain moral duties and responsibilities upon its citizens, including a joint commitment to robust inclusivity, equality, and unity. Importantly, however, our environments –be they physical, social, or psychological –are such that they (actively or passively) obscure our awareness of some morally relevant facts about our society, and thereby hinder us as moral agents and therefore threaten our abilities to fulfil our moral project and commitment.What does it mean for us -a society ostensibly committed to the RNP -to be plagued by racism, sexism, queerphobia and xenophobia? What is it that contributes to our complicity regarding social practices and ideas that we would otherwise find morally objectionable? What does it say about our commitment to our publicly-exalted ideals and values (of inclusivity, diversity, reconciliation, justice, and unity) when we are unwittingly complicit in the marginalisation and social exclusion of members of our society? And how can institutions such as universities work to overcome this?In this work, I argue that the obscuring of, and failure to perceive, morally relevant facts that call on us for ethical attention and/or action -a phenomenon I refer to as ‘moral blindness’ -is responsible for at least some of our behaviours and practices that run contrary to our moral ambitions; and therefore has profound implications for us as moral agents and our ability to succeed in our moral goals. Moral blindness, then, is both an epistemic and ethical concern that enables socially unjust systems to perpetuate themselves; and is thus a threat toallmoral projects.I argue that, for South Africa, much of what can be identified as moral blindness is the direct result of the shifting and conflicting socio-cultural conditions the nation finds itself liminally caught amidst in its transition from its Apartheid past and towards its promised inclusive Rainbow Nation future. Commitment to the RNP, I argue, involves a self-transformation and habituation of certain supportive virtues on the part of South Africans to become the kinds of people who are compatible with the Rainbowist society -whom I call Rainbow Citizens. But this self-transformation itself is also a moral project, and therefore subject to the threat that moral blindness presents, and so too can be failed. If all this is true, then it seems that if we do not take moral blindness seriously, we could ultimately fail to become South African.Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Philosophy, 202