THE late French philosopher Jean Baudrillard had a unique take on knock-off wristwatches. Basically it went something like this: 

A man spends a fortune, let's say, on a Rolex. As the owner of one of these top-of-the-range precision-made chronometers, he enjoys a certain cachet of prestige. When those in the social circles in which he moves notice he owns a Rolex, they regard him as successful; they may even suspect that he is a powerful political figure.

But another man buys a fake Rolex from a vendor somewhere in Thailand. It's dirt cheap but it's a good copy and because it looks exactly like the real thing, this man enjoys exactly the same cachet of prestige as the man with the genuine Rolex, and he too may even be regarded as a powerful political figure.

Therefore, Baudrillard argued, because both watches came with the same prestige cachet, the fake was real - and if that was the case, then it was also true that the real was fake.

There was probably more to it than that, post-structuralism being a bit beyond our ken here at the Mahogany Ridge. But it brings us neatly to this upsetting matter of Pallo Jordan's academic qualifications.

Upsetting, that is, to only some of us. For there are, perhaps unsurprisingly, many out there who feel it irrelevant that a former cabinet minister and a man widely regarded as one of the ANC's foremost intellectuals could mislead us in such a manner. If, as claimed, he has no doctorate, or indeed any postgraduate or undergraduate degrees at all, well then, so what? 

He never needed the qualifications but he enjoyed the prestige that came with them so . . . the fake doctorate was real, not so?

One of Jordan's fiercest supporters is Sandile Memela, his former spokesman in the department of arts and culture. In fact, the devotion and loyalty is such that it is impossible to think of Memela other than as a lolloping retriever puppy. The eyes do moisten, you know, they really do.

Memela wrote a peach of a defence on the Mail&Guardian website, painting a rosy picture of a young Pallo raised by parents who were "highly gifted intellectuals and critical thinkers". 

It matters. "Without a vibrant tradition of critical engagement influenced by reading and a culture of debate at home, there can be no nurturing of a future critical thinker," Memela wrote. "Only academically qualified individuals who cannot think or pronounce beyond their field of expertise."

It's like that old graffito, isn't it? "My mom made me a doctor." "Well, if I got her the wool, will she make me one, too?"

There was a lot of that thinking, that Jordan was a clever clogs, the thinking man's thinking thinker, and certainly didn't need the paper to prove it. And what's a degree worth anyhow? 

New York Times contributor TO Molefe made the point on Facebook that we shouldn't "wholly dismiss the fact that our society fetishises formal education as the singular mark of actual ability."

Fair enough, but no-one fetishised formal education as much as Jordan. Journalist Stephen Grootes has commented that the title of "doctor" was clearly important. "Jordan," he wrote, "seemed to almost demand to be called ‘Dr'. . . [he] prided himself on it. It was clearly important to him."

"Gargantuan" is perhaps too twee a word for Jordan's sense of self-worth. In his SMS exchanges with the Sunday Times, he certainly came across a bit delusional in this regard. 

Consider, for example, his offer to the newspaper's Gareth van Onselen that, if he ignored the story, Jordan would give Van Onselen the opportunity to write his biography - a book that Jordan felt would be as important as Mark Gevisser's work on former president Thabo Mbeki. "Or," he added, "you could go for a Profumo story that burns out in month or less." 

All of which made me laugh. In an ugly way. 

The 1963 Profumo affair was one of the biggest political scandals in post-war British history and probably led directly to the downfall of Harold Macmillian's Conservative government in the 1964 general election. No storm in a teacup that, I'd argue.

The thing is, this wasn't about Jordan's intellect at all - but whether he had lied to us. The former Gauteng Premier, Mbhazima Shilowa put it best: "If [his PhD] doesn't exist, then he surely is a fraud. It is not whether he has benefitted from it or not. Simply that if one lies about such matters, what else can they lie about?"

Jordan, we have heard from all quarters, was one of the good guys. If that's the case, then he's let us down. It's a shame.

This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus.

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