Mental Impediments to Desirable Social Transformation in Contemporary Africa

Abstract

Africa’s current socio-economic predicament is often solely attributed to political and economic mismanagement. However, such an analysis is far from comprehensive, as it fails to account for the historical, sociological and psychological causes of the current unsatisfactory social conditions in the continent. Consequently, using the critical and prescriptive techniques of philosophic reflection, this paper examines four apparent mental impediments to desirable social transformation in contemporary Africa, namely, conservatism, feeble social consciousness, blind acceptance of the white-black dichotomy, and a fixation with foreign paradigms of managing public affairs. The paper calls for an interdisciplinary approach to the verifying, mitigating and/or eliminating of these impediments.