Post by midcan5 on Dec 15, 2009 14:58:18 GMT -5
Often on Rant Forum and other sites the question over whether rights are natural or created causes great debate. Starting points are difficult as primitive women didn't bother writing down how they handled rights at the dawn of consciousness. Lynn Hunt's view is they evolved as womankind evolved. An interesting perspective as it challenges the nature argument with interesting analyses of the changes, which leads me to the question do societies address rights differently and/or separately. Review is below.
By Gordon S. Wood
"The 18th-century American and French declarations unleashed “an implacable logic” that expanded rights to all sorts of individuals and groups, including Jews and other members of minority religions, slaves and women. In the 19th century, however, rights became attached to particular nations and ethnicities, and they lost much of their equal and universal character. “It took two devastating world wars,” Hunt writes, “to shatter this confidence in the nation.”
Only following the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which “crystallized 150 years of struggle,” did rights once again come to dominate the conscience of much of the world. Human rights, Hunt concludes, have now become “our only commonly shared bulwark” against the brutalities and cruelties that still afflict much of humanity."
www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/books/review/Wood2.t.html?_r=1&ref=review
www.amazon.com/Inventing-Human-Rights-Lynn-Hunt/dp/0393331997/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259805588&sr=1-3
By Gordon S. Wood
"The 18th-century American and French declarations unleashed “an implacable logic” that expanded rights to all sorts of individuals and groups, including Jews and other members of minority religions, slaves and women. In the 19th century, however, rights became attached to particular nations and ethnicities, and they lost much of their equal and universal character. “It took two devastating world wars,” Hunt writes, “to shatter this confidence in the nation.”
Only following the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which “crystallized 150 years of struggle,” did rights once again come to dominate the conscience of much of the world. Human rights, Hunt concludes, have now become “our only commonly shared bulwark” against the brutalities and cruelties that still afflict much of humanity."
www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/books/review/Wood2.t.html?_r=1&ref=review
www.amazon.com/Inventing-Human-Rights-Lynn-Hunt/dp/0393331997/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259805588&sr=1-3