|
The rise/decline of human rights
A rare critical look at “human rights”: a review of The Rise and Rise of Human Rights, Kirsten Sellars, Sutton Publishing, 2002, which (it appears) treats human rights as an unprincipled attempt to rule the world in the name of principle. “[H]uman rights have not just been on the rise: they have also been reformulated. Sovereignty used to trump human rights, now human rights trump sovereignty. It is this development that has transformed the human rights approach into the potent and destructive force that it is today.” At the end of the review there are several links to related Spiked articles. Posted by Jim Kalb at August 09, 2002 10:48 AM | Send Comments
“Sovereignty used to trump human rights, now human rights trump sovereignty.” This represents the logical and practical culmination of Jacobinism, in which all intermediary human communities between the individual level and the totality of mankind are erased. The world now consists in effect of just two sovereign entities: the individual person, and the disembodied, unaccountable, transnational human-rights enforcers acting in his name. Posted by: Lawrence Auster on August 9, 2002 11:09 AMIsn’t that what the modern project is all about? Man has been separated from God, from woman, from family, from community, from tribe, from race, from nation. It’s very lonely. Posted by: William on August 9, 2002 11:14 AMExactly. The only thing from which Man has not been separated is the State. Posted by: Charlie on August 9, 2002 11:55 AM |