Is Rights Talk Beneficial for Advancing Social and Political Change - Literature review Example

IS ‘RIGHTS TАLK’ BЕNЕFIСIАL FОR АDVАNСING SОСIАL АND РОLITIСАL СHАNGЕ? Name: Institution: Name: The principle of human rights is considered to be the one that serves as a foundation for rights within any society. Rights are morally necessary as backup provisions against things that can happen to individuals in communal settings, whether or not they actually do. It has been argued that without rights there are no grounds pressing strong claims by individuals. The protection of rights may only be a second-best option, to be activated should the communal arrangement fail to provide the conditions of decent human life, but it is not thereby insignificant. Rights talks have their supporters and critics. Scholars, human rights activists, and a wide body of literature have attempted to examine whether rights talks play any role in the advancement of social and political change. For example, Maihofer and Sprenger (2011) have stated that there is no logical necessity for rights-talk to play a role in the political discourse of a society that respects individual rights. Recognition and respect for human rights require that there not be widespread rights violations, not that they are talked about. These authors continue to argue that rights do not have to be exercised in order to be ascribable. A state of affairs where persons live in harmony with a family or other community and no one feels a need to assert a claim of individual right against the whole is not necessarily a society in which there is no place for the concept of right. According to this argument, absence of explicit claims of right does not imply neither that there is no concept of right within that society, nor does it imply that there are no rights violations. However, there are others that disregard such arguments. Williams (1987) details his discomfort with such arguments and others that reject the rights-based theory. He particularly disregards the part of debate and critique that is mounted on the black struggle for civil rights. The source of critique against black’s struggle for civil rights is in the belief that the pursuit of rights can bring social and political change. Most blacks have desisted from turning away from the pursuit of rights premised on helplessness and inequality despite the criticism that has increased in recent years. Williams (1987) further argues that the significance of rights is different for blacks and whites. The rights dialect in many countries is distinguished not only by what is said and how it is said but also by what is left unsaid. According to Glendon (2013), there have been numerous attests to the current propensity to speak of whatever is most important to most people in regard to rights in radio broadcasts, newspapers, and television programs, and to their predilection for overstating the absoluteness of the rights they claim. The habitual tendencies to remain silent concerning responsibilities are more likely to remain unnoticed. Therefore, Glendon (2013) contends that unless people enter into a relationship that gives rise to duties, the law will continue treating them as strangers to one another. The rights talks that predominate in American politics are those that involve an attempt to induce government action. Rights-talks are everywhere in American society. Glendon (1992) stated that Americans take rights very seriously. What she meant was that the discourse of rights is very pervasive in American society. Glendon’s (1991) discussion is based on the observation that discussion about rights talks has become the principle language that individuals are using in public occasions to explore weighty questions about what is right and what is wrong. However, concern has expressed this romance of rights could be detrimental to the broader society. Although not all people share this concern, commentators have concurred in the prevalence of rights talk. According to Silverstein (1996), the society is full of people who see themselves as rights-bearing beings and in which legal, political, and social relationships are commonly defined in terms of rights. In celebrating rights, Walker (1998) noted that the daily discourse of people is pervaded by rights talk which represents the habit of automatically thinking in terms of individual rights. The prevalence of rights talk is generally understood as a reflection of their importance. Rights range from women’s rights to abortion rights to criminal rights to speech rights and so on. Walker (1998) and others claimed that rights talks have contributed to fundamental changes being witnessed in the American society. Most discussions championing for rights suggest that rights have been most famously asserted in the United States and other countries by those on the political left. The ones taking part in rights talks have asserted rights on behalf of the relatively disadvantaged to win equal treatment, limit arbitrary governmental authority, and widen and deepen access to shared societal benefits. There is both a longstanding and a more recent critique of the political efficacy of rights from many on the political left. Critical Legal Studies’ theorists argue that rights are state-dependent something that makes them of dubious value for groups that fight for social change (Polletta 2000). However, these rights talks were found to have played a role among the Southern civil rights organizers in the 1960s because they enabled them in their political organizing efforts. However, there are others who have remained hostile to rights-talks. Some of this hostility stems from Marx’s critique of liberal rights as merely the rights of the individual, alienated, bourgeoisie. As such, these talks can play no role in the march toward revolution. Based on this view, the politics of rights is illusionary, incapable of bringing about more than token change, and diversionary. Some of the left’s hostility can also be traced to the political right’s reliance on rights. Historically, claims of rights have traditionally been used against the forces of progressive change. This has been the major source of the critique from the left. There are other individuals who either are deeply committed to the importance of rights for social change or have developed a more nuanced and subtle understanding of them. One emotionally powerful defense of rights has come from some minority scholars who essentially argue that the critique of rights (particularly the CLS critique) undervalues the experience of people of color. For instance, Matsuda (1987) argues that the standard critique is too abstract and needs a bottom-up perspective because the ones who have experienced discrimination speak with a special voice to which everyone should listen. Some have argued that, at times, rights give pause to those who would otherwise oppress others. Such statements have led to the conclusion that the impact of rights talks on social psychology is likely, on balance, to be beneficial to some groups such as the minorities. Much of the recent debate about the role of rights in many countries has focused on social movements. In part in response to the CLS critique, some students of social movements argued that rights can make an important difference to the powerless as a protection against oppression, a tool for organizing, and a support for dignity. Often accepting much of the historical and CLS critique of the limited value of rights in producing change, these writers nonetheless argue that rights can have been used by the less powerful to gain resources (White 1992). Some have argued, for example, that rights consciousness can provide the central point of identity for social groups and can build the strength of the community. Others have claimed that rights talk help mobilize people and build movements (Scheingold 2004). As Gabel (1984) argues, the struggle by a rights activist group to increase the strength and energy of a movement can partially result from the acquisition of rights. Still, there are others who have argued that rights’ claims can transform individuals’ beliefs about the world, transforming their consciousness of their lives and their possibilities. Finally, most scholars are aware that rights are only a potential resource that may have different consequences and functions for different groups, at different times and places. On the other hand, Maihofer and Sprenger (2011), the concept of right is both normative and theoretical. The concept of right provides a ground for objecting to things that can conceivably happen to an individual within a community. They further argue that granting such constant attention to individual interests may be destructive of community and communal relationships; that does not preclude holding a conception of human rights as a theoretical idea whose validity does not require that anyone feel called upon to make claims for which it constitutes the moral grounds. The critics of rights talk have also mounted strong evidence that these rights do not play any role in social and political change. These critics have argued that no rights theorist need to concede that a community where there are no rights violations is one in which there are no human rights. In defense of rights talks, rights are part of the fabric of justification. If there were no rights but only duties and obligations, there would be no justification for enforcing anyone’s claims of right. Justifying the acceptance or denial of a claim of right is intelligible only if there is a presumption in favor of non-interference. The justification for denying a rights-claim requires a justification of the rules and practices that make that particular interference with a person’s freedom justified. This explains the reason why the justification of revolutionary practice requires a concept of natural rights. Without the existence of ethical premises, there can be no moral basis for overthrowing a regime on the ground that it frustrates persons’ interests. Without rights talks, revolutions would have no grounding in value. It can be said that, if rights talks did not exist, they would have to be invented because of the important role they play in social and political change. Whether asserted or implied, people’s rights are demanded through rights talks; therefore, it is right to say that rights talks are an important factor in transformation of social and political situation something that can be significantly evidenced by taking a look at some of the rights talks in America. During its existence, the Black Panther Party engaged itself in many rights talks in the United States. The group spurred great changes in American political culture (Nelson 2011). This group is remembered for the revolution it championed for during its existence. The greatest role and the one that is often remembered is the role the party played in health care. Through its rights talks the Black Panther Party managed to advocate and champion for the black’s public health care. This move demonstrated that the group was highly committed to a holistic view of health that was both physical and environmental. The Black Panther Party’s rights talks were meant to champion for the betterment and well-being of African Americans and the entire black community. This is a reflection and evidence that rights talks have played an important role in the transformation of the social and political aspects in America especially those touching on minority groups. Rights talks are not only limited to black communities but are also witnessed across all minority groups. The health status of black Americans started improving and it went hand in hand with improvement in the social, economic, and political status of the black Americans (Nelson 2011). According to the activists in the Party, there was a close relationship between black political activism and black public health activism. The rights talks mounted by the Party touched on the most basic material needs for poor black communities. Despite being rights talks, the Party’s activities were also characterized by programs such as the Free Clothing Program, the Free Food Distribution Program, and the Free Shoe Program. These were received extremely well by the blacks and contributed to significant changes in the social as well as the political system. This represents the reason why blacks have desisted from turning away from the pursuit of rights premised on helplessness and inequality despite the criticism that has increased in recent years. In conclusion, it is important to state that the advantages of rights talks in bringing social and political change outweigh the disadvantages. References Gabel, P. (1984). The phenomenology of right consciousness and the pact of the withdrawn selves. Texas Law Review, Vol. 62, pp. 1563–1599. Glendon, M. (2013). Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse. New York: Free Press. Maihofer, W. and Sprenger, J. (1990). Revolution and Human Rights: Proceeding of the 14th IVR World. Berlin: Franz Steiner Verlag. Matsuda, M. (1987). Looking to the Bottom: Critical Legal Studies and Reparations, Harv CR Civ Lib LR, 22. Nelson, A. (2011) Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Polletta, F. (2000). The structural context of novel rights claims: rights innovation in the Southern civil rights movement. Law and Society Review, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 367–406. Silverstein, H. (1996). Unleashing Rights: Law, Meaning, and the Animal Rights Movement. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Walker, M. (1998). Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics. New York: Routledge. Williams, P. (1987). Alchemical notes: reconstructing ideals from deconstructed rights. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Vol. 22, pp. 401–433. Read More