The Housekeeper’s Tale

Posted by Helen Douglas
On August 2, 2021

International Solidarity in Apartheid South Africa Keynote Address North American Levinas Society “Solidarity and Community” 29 July 2021 Need I remind anyone again / that armed struggle is an act of love? ~ Keorapetse Willie Kgositsile In 1987, my husband Rob and I were recruited in Canada to move to Johannesburg to run a safehouse […]

Posted by Helen Douglas
On March 6, 2017

Between 1987 and 1990, my husband Rob and I ran a safe house for the liberation movement in apartheid South Africa. We were part of what we would later learn was named Operation Vula, short for Vul’indlela (“Open the road” in Zulu). Its aim was to infiltrate exiled leaders of the African National Congress/Umkhonto we […]

Posted by Helen Douglas
On January 17, 2017

South African Journal of Philosophy, 35 (2), 2016, pp 123–131. You can find it here or there. The self-confidence of the human being, freedom, has first of all to be aroused again in the hearts of these people. Karl Marx ABSTRACT: If a time of crisis calls for a new mode of thinking, philosophical practice […]

Posted by Helen Douglas
On March 5, 2014

Last week’s philosophy café offered another conversation about confidence. As noted before, confidence has two levels. One is conditional: the conscious trust in one’s abilities or worth, developed through experience and familiarity (“or entitlement”, as someone pointed out, referring to the social confidence of private-school girls). The other is what John Dewey described as “unconscious […]

Posted by Helen Douglas
On January 25, 2013

Education systems that render people stupid, mental health treatment that renders people mad, religions that render people wicked, economies that render people poor, political systems that render people powerless. How is it that our social systems break down (render) precisely what they are meant to serve (render to)?

Posted by Helen Douglas
On April 9, 2012

In an interesting recent article, “The Brain on Love”, Diane Ackerman discusses some findings of “interpersonal neurobiology”, an offshoot of neuropsychology, which uses brain-imaging technologies to explore the relationship between behaviour, emotion and brain function. According to Ackerman, it is driven by “one of the great discoveries of our era: that the brain is constantly […]

Posted by Helen Douglas
On June 24, 2009

I have been explaining, exploring and writing about my philosophical counselling practice since I began in 2002. I’ve presented papers at conferences here in South Africa and in Canada and the US, which are available on my website along with other published articles. But recently a couple of friends challenged me to cut to the […]

Posted by Helen Douglas
On February 27, 2009

For David and Corinna, 21 February 2009 What does it mean, to marry? Marriage is an event, both simple and extraordinary. Something will be accomplished, here, today. Something will end and something begin. To marry is “to unite intimately”. It is rite of passage in which two lives are transformed. Two singular people say I […]

The Housekeeper’s Tale

QA 57. “Need I remind anyone, again?”

New article: TO CHANGE OUR THINKING: PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE FOR DIFFICULT TIMES

QA 47. Motion of confidence (Part 2)

QA 38. January 2013. Rocking the foundations of thought

QA 32. Apr 2012. Confessions of a neuro-skeptic

QA 15. (June 09) Essence of philosophical counselling

QA 11. (Feb 09) A wedding