Of rights and Culture...
Again Kevin from Smallest Minority continues his discussion on the nature of rights. In the past I haven't been convinced his philosophy was entirely correct, choosing to stand more with his ideological sparing partner Dr. Danny Cline...
Times may be changing. Not completely, but Kevin has made an argument that may just have convinced me that rights may be societal based. He did this around a simple concept of mutually exclusive ideals. If "all men are created equal" and have similar rights, where does our right to kill them come from.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not changing my mind on use of force or the "right of self defense." Violence has a place on this earth, I can only hope I'm part of a "just" violence if need be.
My revelation originating from Kevin's essay, is that maybe the cute Chinese girl I knew was right. We had really great discussions about the nature of freedom, and she believed the Chinese don't have rights and don't even want them. To her, my ideas on property and rights were not universal. I assumed she was just... well wrong. Her Chinese "society" doesn't accept or have "natural" or "God given" rights...
It's hard for me to even type that. It's not something I WANT to believe. I want to believe in rights as described as Locke described.
Anyway, read the above post. It's worth the time.
Otter
Times may be changing. Not completely, but Kevin has made an argument that may just have convinced me that rights may be societal based. He did this around a simple concept of mutually exclusive ideals. If "all men are created equal" and have similar rights, where does our right to kill them come from.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not changing my mind on use of force or the "right of self defense." Violence has a place on this earth, I can only hope I'm part of a "just" violence if need be.
My revelation originating from Kevin's essay, is that maybe the cute Chinese girl I knew was right. We had really great discussions about the nature of freedom, and she believed the Chinese don't have rights and don't even want them. To her, my ideas on property and rights were not universal. I assumed she was just... well wrong. Her Chinese "society" doesn't accept or have "natural" or "God given" rights...
It's hard for me to even type that. It's not something I WANT to believe. I want to believe in rights as described as Locke described.
Anyway, read the above post. It's worth the time.
Otter
posted by The Management at 9:42 AM
1 Comments:
It's hard for me to even type that. It's not something I WANT to believe. I want to believe in rights as described as Locke described.
I've been working on that post since May, and it's taken that long, I think, for the same reason you found it hard to type those words.
But, in the end I'm a realist.
Thanks for the kind words. Hope I didn't screw with your mind too much.
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