The Wrongs of “Rights”
On almost any political topic we can expect these days to find talk of ‘rights’. We hear of human rights, women’s rights, fathers’ rights, civil rights, gay rights, polygamy rights, immigrants’ rights, religious rights, animal rights, the right to choose, the right to life, etc. And if a particular right does not now exist, be patient; it is probably only a matter of time before it does. An entire ‘rights industry’ has sprung up. Pick a cause, and someone will find rights to defend therein.
Whence does this avalanche of rights come? Prior to the Enlightenment, we heard very little of ‘rights’ as they are now construed. There previously existed natural law, whose legitimacy existed in nature and God. God’s law was the basis of society, to which the religious laws of the state conformed and from which the legitimacy of rule was derived. But natural law is quite different from the modern rights inundation.
Cicero provided the first systematic articulation of natural law (1). He associated natural law with right reason, with the mind of God, and finally as something already instantiated in Roman law, history and custom. Traditional Roman laws accorded with nature, and it was custom (mos maiorum) that nourishes these laws for citizens. The average citizen did not need to perform an algorithm in his head to determine right action. He had only to defer to customary practice.
Mos maiorum underlined most Roman moral thought. The mos maiorum, however, was not an abstract ideal to overturn historical precedent. It was historical precedent. And not only was this their moral tradition, it was also their ancestral tradition. It comprised the customary, time-tested ways of their ancestors as transmitted by blood and progeny. The modern rights industry, however, sees history not as a manifestation of time-tested truths, but rather as one of oppression. These new ‘rights’ are not products of history and ancestral tradition. Rather, they are convenient tools to overturn and abolish historical precedent and ancestral custom.
Modern rights are creations of the Enlightenment. Created by philosophes, rights were perpetuated (often violently) by revolutionaries, Jacobins, and other radicals. Some based them in nature; others, in the god Reason, or yet others, in the state. But they all adhere to a Procrustean universalism. These rights are “natural, imprescriptible, and inalienable” said the revolutionary French National Assembly in 1789. These ‘rights’, always in opposition to long-standing tradition or community custom, require large governmental, if not international, force to institute their authority.
For these new rights to exist, they had to supplant the older authority, often with the help of a centralized government to do so. Natural rights eventually replaced ancestral traditions, statute supplanted customary law, and entitlement usurped obligation.
Universal rights have permeated most aspects of modern life, even Christianity.
Although the Bible never criticizes inequality or even the institution of slavery, Christians today find an entire plethora of civil and human rights in scripture. Pope John Paul II often championed human rights, although 19th century popes dismissed rights wholesale as perversions of the Enlightenment. And now Protestants have also furthered the baptism of the rights industry. Peter Toon, in “Christianity & Subjective Human Rights” states:
“[C]onservative Protestants and biblically-minded Evangelicals...have absorbed much of the ‘rights talk’ of Western culture. This can be seen via a careful analysis of some of their modern biblical paraphrases where ‘rights talk’ comes into the translation” (2).
And as Christianity has conformed to the rights industry, so has the other great bulwark against the Enlightenment: conservatism. Although the Old Right opposed the emerging rights industry, modern ‘conservatives’ have largely been co-opted. So-called conservatives have been compelled to replace tradition with abstract rights.
Much of what we hear today in terms of political debate is but the pitting of one Enlightenment right (eg, liberty) against another (eg, equality). So-called conservatives rarely evoke tradition or ancestral precedent, but rather seek to play the rights industry at its own game – where the left has the inbuilt advantage. The neoconservatives, using the bogeymen of historicism and relativism, have supplanted traditional conservatism with a liberal rights-based ideology.
Leo Strauss spent considerable time and ink refuting ‘historicism’, which has become the bête noire of much neoconservative journalism. Open any neoconservative publication and you can probably find an attack upon either relativism or historicism. In his essay, “The real cabal”, Sam Francis noted:
“The attack on ‘historicism’ is intended to reject the Burkean appeal to tradition.... [Straussians] seem to deny the distinction and adopt an antihistorical universalism based on natural rights that leads them to embrace what is, at bottom, the worldview of the left.”
Not that moral relativism is a good thing, but any form of moral relativism becomes so riddled with contradiction that hardly anyone (except a few postmodernists) takes it seriously. But an historical consciousness can both elucidate and sustain certain truths. Traditional historicism, such as one finds in Edmund Burke or Joseph de Maistre, provides the signposts for those seeking to conserve certain traditions and institutions. In reality, historicism poses no real threat and complements universal truths.
The real enemy for the neo-Jacobin, as Claes Ryn has pointed out, is “the ancestral” (3). They want to replace the real America, with its British and European past, with a theoretical construct, a proposition nation, based upon liberal, abstract ideals.
And not just the past, but the present too must be transformed. Genophilia, the word Chronicles editor Thomas Fleming has coined for instinctive attachment to family and tribe, must be expunged (4). This time-honored loyalty, the basis of older, more conservative civilizations, has no place in the liberal proposition state of the neoconservative – at least not in any Western country. All conservative loyalties must make way for the abstract ideals of the Enlightenment.
Although Strauss himself claimed the ancients as a source of authority, his portrayal of the Greek and Roman thinkers is devoid of any real content. The Greeks were proudly an ethnocentric people. Athens was organized upon tribes, and Roman morality was based upon ancestral custom. Strauss’s political society, however, made of ‘natural right’, resembles more the modern rights industry than anything we would associate with Plato, Aristotle or Cicero. He uses the ancient world as a backdrop upon which he superimposes modernist rights theories.
And the students of Strauss have furthered the assault upon Western civilization with Enlightenment abstractions. Harry Jaffa seeks to “celebrate revolution” and invent “radical break[s] with tradition”, while Michael Ledeen supports “creative destruction” and endless war in the name of democracy (5).
Strauss’s current acolytes are more interested in utopian rights and nation building than sustaining traditional European-American customs and values. Rather, they seek to supplant tradition with radical absolutes. Anne Norton aptly summarizes their lack of conservatism (6):
“Appeals to history and memory, the fear of losing old virtues, of failing to keep the faith with the principles of an honored ancestry, came to seem curious and antiquated. In their place were the very appeals to universal, abstract principles, the very utopian projects that conservatives once disdained.”
With friends like this, who needs enemies? Conservatives, the one-time sworn enemies of the rights industry, have been supplanted by rights peddlers. And other than pockets of orthodox Christians and traditional conservatives, the rights industry no longer confronts any opposition. Liberals and neoconservatives alike (is there any difference?) are in lockstep advance to further the enshrinement of a Procrustean liberal universalism.
Hopefully, as the rights empire expands, it will reach ‘rights overstretch’. As the causes become more absurd, so will the rights. Like overpopulated bacteria eating each other in a petri-dish, competing rights will turn upon each other and ensure the fall of the rights industry. Then perhaps we will be able to build from the remaining fragments of our assailed traditions.
----
Matthew A. Roberts writes from Kansas City, Missouri. This article has been reprinted from Quarterly Review with permission. Photo of “Pope Dementia” of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
NOTES
1. Republic 3.33; Laws 1.18-19; Laws 2.8-10; Inv. 2.162
2. Peter Toon, “Christianity & Subjective Human Rights”, Touchstone 11, no. 6 (1998). Also available online at http://www.touchstonemag.com
3. Claes G Ryn, “Where in the World Are We Going?” (Lew Rockwell, 4 April 2006) http://www.lewrockwell.com
4. Thomas Fleming, The Morality of Everyday Life: Rediscovering an Ancient Alternative to the Liberal Tradition (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004), p58
5. Claes G Ryn, “Jacobin in Chief”, American Conservative, 11 April 2005. Claes G Ryn, “Which American?” (Lew Rockwell, 5 May 2004) http://www.lewrockwell.com. Michael Ledeen, “Creative Destruction” (National Review Online, 20 September 2001) http://www.nationalreview.com
6. Anne Norton, Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), p174
Comments
Some years ago the “Mother Goose and Grimm” cartoon strip showed a policeman reading someone his “Carmen Miranda Rights”: “You have the right to wear fruit on your head!”
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15 years ago in the UK it was still possible to argue in respectable company that moral/human rights were ‘nonsense on stilts’, to quote Bentham. Now that’s probably an arrestable offence. Still, teaching my Law students I try to point out how Rights-speech is the product of Western individualist Enlightenment tradition and that its Universalism is not necessarily accepted by everyone. My Muslim students are happy to agree that Free Expression is just a made-up thing (one said ‘a plot against Islam’) but they’re keener on the neo-Marxist rights. We agree that Lockean property rights are a good thing, though.
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Mr Newman, very interesting. Paradoxically
I taught the same thing to my Chinese law students in recent years, often contradicting THEIR misapprehension that as an American I believed in the universality of “human rights”. That’s how and why I remained welcome to teach Law in Communist China, because I stuck to the true conservative position of non-interference in internal affairs of other states. Mutatis mutandis, by paying that consistent tribute to the sovereignty of my host country, I was permitted full license to teach them First Amendment jurisprudence, always reminding them that “this is what works for us, but you gotta do it your own way.”
Whenever a Chinese student asked me for advice on how to be “patriotic”, I would reply, “I can’t tell you how to be a Chinese patriot, because it’s not my country.”
Q: “What do you think of the June 4 incident? (That’s a euphemism for the Tienanmen Square Massacre.) Do you think those protesters were patriotic?”
A: “That’s not for me to say. It’s your country. But I will say, they could have used firehoses instead of tanks and bullets if they just wanted to clear the streets.”
Q: “Some cult members in China refuse to use modern medicine. Do you think this violates the Human Rights of their children?”
A: “I think it’s stupid and immoral for them to deprive their children of medical care. But does that mean the government should monitor and control everyone’s religious beliefs? In America we only prosecute people for what they do, not for what they believe.”
Q: (this one was ludicrous) “Professor Ball, there is no air-conditioning in our dormitories! Our Human Rights are being violated!” (They were serious about this - and that’s an example of how diluted the concept of “Human Rights” has become all over the world - in today’s China, many students think it means a right to air-conditioning, but NOT freedom of religion!)
A: “No your rights are not being violated. When I was a student in America in the 1980s, I had no air-conditioning, no TV, and no computer.
I used a manual typewriter.” (Actually I used a vintage 1962 manual typewriter throughout law school too, until 1988.)
Response from young Communist Party members: “You had no TV in your college dorm? YOUR HUMAN RIGHTS WERE VIOLATED!” Yet those same students believe it makes perfect sense for the Communist Party to imprison Roman Catholic Priests. Hmmm......
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A good thought provoking post and one I will read again. Allow me to make one comment: you say “the Bible never criticizes inequality” - indeed, it positively encourages it. The established Christian religion seems, at least in part, founded on Roman culture, unsurprisingly since it was largely spread by the Romans. In Roman culture women were not equal to men and that inequality had the endorsement of God in societies founded on the Christian religion, such as Britain. And if we refer to the Bible we see that “There are at least 8 different types of marriage sanctioned in the Bible (listed here), 6 of which directly include rape (in practice all 8 probably would) and 6 of which directly subjugate women (again, in practice all 8 would). In fact, if a man was lacking a wife he simply had to find himself an unmarried virgin, rape her, pay 50 shekels, and she was obliged to marry him” Charming! So I think a few human rights were well overdue. (source of quote: http://web.mac.com/targetine/iWeb/Sepher%20Ha'eleph/Blog/96031C19-4B3B-418C-9B64-0FADCB33D9D4.html)
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Excellent Article. Rights almost seem like a cancer eating away at our well being.
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@ Philipa,
Although the Bible never criticises “inequality” - certainly not in the way “equality” is defined in the West today - your conclusion that ancient Christianity, because of its Roman foundations, encouraged “inequality” between the sexes, is ahistorical. Early Christianity was especially popular among women, and among slaves, because of its message of ultimate transcendence of temporal politics and social classes.
(Will some better Biblical scholar than I help me out here? How many of the recipients of St Paul’s epistles - and how many personal friends and supporters of his whom he mentioned by name - were women? Quite a lot, as I recall.)
One of the most persuasive logical, historical reasons to believe in the “credibility of the witnesses” of Christ’s resurrection, is that his resurrection was first witnessed and reported by women, at a time when the testimony of women was considered worthless among Jews (and not very credible among Romans either.) If the story of the Resurrection was a hoax, the
hoax’s “publishers” would not have said that the first witnesses were women.
The first Christians were, literally, women, the women who discovered the empty tomb, whose testimony was considered worthless among their fellow Jews at the time.
Jesus Christ was the first REAL feminist.
“Son, behold thy mother”, he said to my patron Saint, John the Evangelist. (Gloss, I broke with Catholic convention and chose St John for my confirmation name, because he was, and remains, my favourite saint. I guess that disregard of strict convention was my
bit of English Protestantism coming out
:-)
Jesus defended an accused prostitute (or adulteress, it’s not clear) from stoning. Many of his first supporters - including financial ones - were women. And thank God the “cult of Mary” was revived around 900 years ago, so much so that many American Protestant fanatics accuse Catholics of being “Mary-worshipers.”
On that note, here is a photo of the “Miraculous Medal” of BVM Mary, which I wore around my neck every day from age nine to 16 - for which I was occasionally teased/taunted in the showers at my (mostly Protestant) school’s Phys-Ed classes, although, to be fair, most of my Protestant classmates expressed a mixture of envy and admiration for my wearing it.
(Admiration for my refusing to take it off even when taunted for it, and envy because the Protestants suffer a kind of spiritual poverty by being deprived of the veneration of Mary.) Hm. Now that some of my friends here have dissuaded me from my recent temptation to convert to Protestantism, maybe it’s time for me to begin wearing this medal again. Here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/Miraculous_medal.jpg/800px-Miraculous_medal.jpg
“Inequality between the sexes”, my ass.
(Apologies to Boyd Cathey who asked me to
refrain from foul language, but hey, as
our BVM Mary might say, “boys will
be boys”, yeah? ;-) :-) I’ll bet Mother Mary might have even had a word with her Son after He cursed the den of thieves at the Temple with more eloquently “foul” language than I could ever come up with.... :-)
Oh, and if any Cultural-Marxist-Feminist might come around to comment here that “Mary was (or is believed to be) a Virgin, but women were not REALLY liberated until the 20th century”,
well, all I can ask is, “How much of a ‘liberation’ has it been for women to have the ‘liberty’ to have sex on the internet like Paris Hilton?” Like our host Taki, I’m an admirer of beautiful women and won’t be a hypocrite about it.
But let’s keep it real and don’t pretend that Western women of today are more “free” for having the liberty to be sluts than the BVM Mary was for being, simply,
a beautiful soul who, according to the Catholic Church, is closer to Christ than any daughter OR SON of Adam, ever.
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There is one problem in the article, when it defines the
standard of right and wrong as mos maiorum. Consider that when
mos maiorum was prevalent, it included the exposure of newborns
in dumps (specially girls), and gladiator games. Somehow it
does not seem a very reliable guide.
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John Ball - your argument is hostile and ad hominem enough for me to want to avoid answering it in detail for then I would have to enter into protracted argument with you, which I don’t want to do. I simply suggest you didn’t get my point. I’ve always thought Jesus Christ a good bloke and I certainly don’t put him into the same category as Hitler. However, Hitler was popular with women but that doesn’t make a good argument for fascism now does it? Or for Mein Kampf as a political ideology. The basis for my point was the Bible, all of it, and the laws and customs based upon it, not whether Jesus was considered a nice or popular chap or that his mum was allegedly a ‘beautiful soul’.
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Philipa,
You just don’t “get it”.
Christianity is a religion that gives women the “right” of Salvation.
According to how Christianity defines itself, that is the only thing you could
ever possible need or want in this world: the Salvation of Jesus.
No matter if you are a washwoman slave, never able to own property, raped and
beaten by your owner, or other abuses, you still have the Salvation of Jesus.
You might ask: but how does this help a person’s life? Well, it doesn’t. The only
thing that would help that poor woman is if her owner had a Conversion to the Faith,
and the only Person that can do that is what we call the Holy Spirit.
The world’s a tough place, it always has been, and it always will be, until Jesus
establishes His Kingdom.
In the meantime, all we have is our Salvation to keep us satisfied. Don’t expect
Christianity to save you from such things as being smotherd in a coal mining
disaster, but DO expect it to save you from Eternal Death.
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FYI - the picture included with this article was not my doing. I did not intend to be disrespectful towards the Pope.
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Ok, got that, so the Christian religion saves me from the injustices and prejudices enshrined in the Christian religion but that’s ok cause when I die I won’t have ‘Eternal Death’. Even though I will actually be dead. Forever. Er.. right. Presumably my soul or spirit or whatever will ascend to some mythical place? And I have your word this exists does it? Ok… But I also have the word of some old book of hearsay that was compiled by a different group of people who left bits out but that’s ok too cause we can trust them. Can’t we? But the world is flat society were obviously wrong. Got it. I’ll live a lousy life and end up dead but that’s ok. Right.
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Dear Matthew,
Sorry if the picture offends--it was meant as an illustration of the perversions which emerge from the distorted religion of “rights.” So I chose a mock-pope from a gay rights parade as an instance of those perversions....
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A very interesting essay. I would nitpick with you on blaming cultural Marxism and the “rights industry” for the rise of the “Rights Industry.”. Constantly neo-conservatives are refusing to connect the rise of secular humanism, with the absolute worship of the “free market” on the “libertarian” side of the house.
If your “individuality” is reduced to your role as a consumer or a producer---ironically an idea shared by Karl Marx and Ayn Rand (who deserved to be buried in the same tomb)---then you must have a “right” to equal pay, to equality of outcome, etc, etc.
If sexuality and gender roles are reduced to a form of recreation, pleasure and consumerism (Playboy Philosophy/Cosmo Magazine), then anything standing in the way of your “right to be yourself”, becomes the “right to pleasure yourself”, and we have the modern internet, and the morality of a gay bathhouse, or Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. To pharaphrase John Ball and others: Is that what you call “Sexual Liberation.”
In fact, you blame the rise of ex-Leftists for the neo-conservative movement, when if fact, neo-conservativism believes in the “free market”, minimizes the “social issues”, and worships globalization, rationalizes “destructive” capitalism, ridicules the idea of a national identity, and worships globalization, outsourcing, and open borders. So what is neo-conservativism, but just plain practical expression of libertarianism?
You might find interesting that much of your position is shared by the neo-Marxist
Christopher Lasch in his books, “The Culture of Narcissism”, and “Revolt of the Elites”.
Those infatuated with “libertarianism” persuasion might re-read neo-Marxist James Burnham’s book, “The Managerial Revolution” where he predicted the rise of the CEO classes and the financial technocrats who founded hedge funds---empowered by the State---would rewrite history. For what is the modern multi-national corporation but a extention of the state?
Nice essay, though.
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F.J. Sarto,
Oh, no, I’m not questioning your judgment, nor did it offend me. I think your choice demonstrates the decadence of our culture and our religion of rights. Someone had just emailed me and accused me of being “anti-Catholic.”
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Excellent piece. “Rights” are the bread and circuses of
the tyrannous State. Basically, it enables the
State to evade accountability, because everyone
gets to talking ‘rights’ and no one mentions obligations.
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I agree with Adriana. There must be some other standard of right and wrong than mere tradition since the world was (and is) full of abominable traditional practices. The caricature of conservatives as mindless supporters of the status quo has been a priceless boon for revolutionaries.
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Philipa said,
“John Ball - your argument is hostile and ad hominem enough for me to want to avoid answering it in detail for then I would have to enter into protracted argument with you, which I don’t want to do.”
But what is “hostile” or “ad hominem” about
my simply saying that the BVM Mary is more worthy of veneration than, say, the so-called “liberated” Britney Spears?
Recent picture of Britney Spears, here:
http://www.killsometime.com/Pictures/images/Pic1282.jpg\
“Feminism”, my ass!
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Ok, got that, so the Christian religion saves me from the injustices and prejudices enshrined in the Christian religion
I still think you don’t quite get it. Those injustices and prejudices were not “enshrined” in the Christian religion - they were enshrined in the surrounding culture for millenia. The Christian religion took many millenia to seep in and retain what was good of the former culture and remove what was not good (and as new good and bad arrive, it continues to do the same, sometimes with success, sometimes not).
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Matthew,
Excellent piece.
As the causes become more absurd, so will the rights.
Are we there yet?
All who are interested...here is a wondeful treatment by Thomas Fleming;
http://www.amazon.com/Morality-Everyday-Life-Rediscovering-Alternative/dp/0826215092
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c matt - I find your comment most interesting and agree with what I think you mean; the evolution of the Christian religion over time. I’d like to make sure I understand and would ask you to clarify your point but don’t wish to hijack the thread. I wonder if that’s a contradiction in terms; the evolution of ideas/religious interpretation and the absolute authority enshrined in scripture as the word of God? Suffice to say that I believe in the separation of church and State, which means that I also don’t hold with worshipping a dictator as in N.Korea. Neither do I agree with the catholic church blackmailing British MP’s to vote a certain way in parliament. I think it is their right to vote with their conscience without being told what it should be by some Bishop in a fancy hat. Sometimes these human rights are required fair and moral protection, I think, from the surrounding culture but I agree with the author that they have now gone overboard.
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A common term used by corporate media journalists is “abortion rights”. The former term was pro-choice. Corporate media journalists deny a liberal bias but their choice of words reveal their true leanings.
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The phenomenon being observed in this article of conservatives being drawn into the arguments for rights is a dynamic that has resulted from the previously new age concept of political correctness coming of age. Now it is considered acceptable by some on the right to invoke politicaly correct rights speech as if it were time honored natural law. It only makes sense that conservatives turn this to their advantage. Kind of the way Horowitz on C-span the other day manages to inject a comment on gas chambers into a conversation about American foreign policy in the middle east.
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Philipa,
I never expected YOU to convert to the Faith (although I pray you will), I was
just explaining why Christianity isn’t all too concerned with “social activism”.
As Jesus says, we will always have the poor with us. There’s nothing we, as
individuals, can do to eliminate poverty. No government program, nothing. The
poor, oppressed, sick, elderly, hungry, imprisoned, etc. will always be with us,
and it is our duty to minister to them, to help them as much as we can, but never
expect to eliminate their plight.
All of this ties into the idea of “rights”. You don’t have the “right” not to be
hungry, sick, imprisoned, etc. You have the “right” to Salvation through Jesus.
THAT is the backbone of Traditional Western Culture. No matter what, you have the
right to Salvation, which means the Sacraments, which means you have the right to
have access to the Church, which means a lot to those who are suffering.
So, in short, Traditional Western Culture, that is, Catholic Culture, is
pre-Enlightenment, which is why it really is in oppostion to the values of America, a
country founded upon the values of the Enlightenment, and most of the rest of the
world.
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A couple points to shore up and elucidate Mr. Robert’s thesis that the rhetoric of rights undermines traditional political order and morality which I think is right on:
1. Rights are things that are almost always predicated of individuals. They are born of the early modern “philosophies” which posit the centralized power of the State over against a spray of atomistic individuals. This ideology is death to the traditional and realistic political order consisting of persons nested in a widening circle of intermediate organizations, a body politic which is organized naturally like a body with cells making up organs, organs making up organ systems and so on up to the fully perfected body. The rhetoric of individual rights tears apart this order, and paradoxically leaves individuals more helpless in the face of state power.
2. I think Adriana is right, it is not enough to repair to the traditional law of a people because over time these laws can become corrupt. Natural law and right reason are participations in the divine law, and therefore by their nature are open to the correction and perfection of revelation. Revelation is necessary because fallen man left on his own cannot for long keep pure the tenets of the natural law. The natural law and the revealed law which perfects it are universal (are for the perfection of every human being) but not in the same way as universalist Enlightenment rationalism is said to be universal. The “universal” of the Enlightenment refers to its propensity for abstracting from the particular circumstances of peoples, but the universalism of divine and natural law work on and perfect that which is innermost in a man, that which makes him to be a man and therefore works with in his particular circumstances. In a similar way Enlightenment “reason” is also false in that thinks itself not to participate in any higher order, but cuts itself off and pretends to an impossible and self-destructive self-sufficiency.
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Thanks abelio
Indeed, the appeal to tradition in itself is fraught with
danger, because that may lead to the conservative version
of multiculturalism and moral relativism. I do not know
of a single conservative thinker who would damn the Spaniards
for not respecting the Aztec traditions of human sacrifice
and cannibalism. But it was truly their own traditions,
born of their history, and binding their culture, and all
other good things that tradition brings about.
On the other hand, if we do not agree on the existence of rights,
and let’s later determine how they apply or their source, we may
end up without a leg to stand on when we want to protest the
persecution of Christians in a Muslim country (it is after all their
traditional way of life), or more mundanely, when an interesting
article gets spiked, as if the right to be published was an absolute
one.
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Andy Capp
Indeed, as Christ said, the poor you will always have with
you, but then he was warning his disciples that there could be
no overnight solution. But he certainly encouraged them to chip
away at it, with the standard of doing unto others as you would have
others do unto you.
And of course, the final test in St. John’s revelation, as to how
he would separate the sheep from the goats “what you did for the least
of these you did for me”.
But it is supposed to take time, not half-baked schemes.
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Adriana,
I think we agree, but you keep a more positive attitude about what we can do to help those that suffer, whereas I take a more pessimistic attitude.
In the end, as people of the Faith, all we can do is keep the Faith, and feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit the imprisoned; on this we agree.
It would take A LOT more than “half baked schemes” to cure the world of these problems (which will be with us forever).
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Andy Capp - thankyou for your response, I found your comment most interesting if a little pessimistic - why do you suppose I will never convert to the Faith? It would be more accurate for you to hope I returned to it :-)
Adriana - I would agree but would add that not all schemes are half-baked. My understanding of global population control, and in particular in Africa, is scant but I believe that much good is being done with these schemes. Those who sit in comfortable homes and consider higher morals must not forget the persuasion of human nature. You are right, we must chip away not just at the problem but at those who have the power to fix it. Have we become immune to the plight of the poor I wonder? It is not sensible to get pregnant in a famine but we always see babies do we not? Perhaps seeking the comfort of someones arms is more powerful than we can imagine? And perhaps the breakdown of law and order in such places combined with a weak victim makes rape an easy hobby - who knows? Not me. I think there should be basic rights and freedoms and, for example, the law should protect a woman against rape, even in her own marriage. But the problem with establishing rights and freedoms is.. who is going to make it so?
And now I really must do some work - Taki, your site is very distracting in the best way, many thanks y’all.
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America’s rights have been nullified by those who purchased their elections.
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As a Nietzschean Anarchist, I believe in neither “rights” nor
authoritarianism. Ideally, political institutions should be
decentralized to such a degree that membership in a community is
either completely voluntary or quasi-voluntary (sovereign towns,
counties, neighborhoods, city-states) with the obligation to obey
being contingent on the freedom to emigrate. This principle would
de-legitimize slavery, human sacrifice, etc., while avoiding the
“tyranny of rights” inherent in liberalism and democracy.
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@Keith
In your scheme, the freedom to emigrate is just
another right, to be upheld somehow.
What makes you think that if you do n not recognize rights on a generala level the right
to emigrate will be recongnized?
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I wouldn’t describe emigration as a “right” as much as a convention.
It will be “upheld” to the degree the general dispersion of power
makes it possible. There’s certainly no guarantee it will be upheld.
It’s not upheld in Cuba or North Korea today.
I take can’t credit for this view. I lifted it from Socrates, who
said the citizen is obligated to obey the laws of the city so long
as he can exit with his family and property.
What I’m basically arguing for is a theory of legitimacy based on
“freedom of association” as opposed to either “popular sovereignty”
in the Rousseauan tradition or representation in the Lockean
tradition.
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Lord knows I’d love to return to “natural law” as practiced by the ancient Romans. How much better than our skewed version of rights these days, to be crucified for simply speaking my mind. I’m also all for a narrower definition of “The Pursuit of Happiness” to mean whatever some paleocon thinks it means. As long as we’re saved from libertarians who don’t tsk tsk Britney Spears and Paris Hilton enough for their routine violations of Roman “natural law” and old-time traditions, I’m all for it.
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@Keith
Well, if the liberty to move away is a maybe thing, then how, pray, will such associations not fall prey to slavery or human sacifice?
Do not forget that there is a class of people who cannot move away on their own: children. Do I need to remind you of the Phoenicians habit of
buning children as sacrifices? That or selling
their children as slaves.
It seems to me that too many of those theoretical constructs part of a base of a 30-year old populaion which arises by spontaneous generation, and remains in their thirties until they spontaneously combust.
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I suspect localized communities could only maintain severe practices of the
kind you mention only at considerable cost to themselves in terms of economic
prosperity and cordial relations with surrounding communities.
To put it in more concrete terms, let’s say the US was devolved into regional
confederations of cities and counties. To the degree any supra-community government
existed at all, it was only for common defense or sharing of resources like a reservoir or highway system. All other matters are local.
So some county somewhere decides to set up a Taliban-theocracy. Imagine the costs
to that county in terms of its relations, political, economic or otherwise, with
surrounding areas. Imagine the flood of dissidents pouring over the county line.
If the tyrants tried to simply eliminate emigration by killing those who attempt to
exit, imagine what a pariah such a community would be. It may be subject to economic
boycott. Obviously,a serious tourism industry would be out. Most persons of quality
would never seek to immigrate there. Such a county might well be expelled from any
larger federation it belonged to and be left to fend for itself so far as defense and other such matters.
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@Keith
Read a bit about Warren Jeffs, his group of old style Mormons, the girls he foucred into polygamous marriages and the young boys he xpelled so that they did not compete withe the older men for wives, and explain how, in the absence of State coercion (which in our world led to his arrest and conviction), in your scheme would be prevented from doing what he did.
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Adriana,
I don’t know much about the case you’re referring to. I would say
that I don’t object to Mormon polygamy per se (or Islamic or Jewish
or Hindu polygamy). I believe different cultures and different
communities should set their own standards on these kinds of matters.
Nor do I object to communities expelling those who are incompatible
with community norms. The only issue I would raise is the question
of to what degree these girls were “forced” into these relationships.
Were they physically prevented from leaving? If not, then they weren’t
really forced, IMO. If so, then this fellow you’re describing is
simply a kidnapper. Could not local crime control services (militias,
posses, constables, neighborhood watches, private security agencies,
common law courts) not handle such a matter? Was this fellow in control
of the local government? If he was, so what? How would that be any
different than the many states around the world with incompetent
or corrupt leadership?
Local criminals no more justify a central government than tyrannical
nation-states justify a world government. Yes, perhaps in a
decentralized system, criminals might get control over some local
communities. In fact, if you know much about municipal politics in
many American cities, they’re already running things. Yes, some
local leaders might ignore or fail to prevent local crime. Like
that doesn’t happen in the present system.
I am not a utopian, nor do I believe that everything that is “wrong”
can be prevented or should necessarily be illegal. There are prototypes
for the kinds of decentralist, intentional nations around the world
today, whether in the form of micronations like Liechtenstein or
Andorra or anarchistic communities that are no well-known or recognized.
http://tinyurl.com/2hk5pc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities
What I favor is the creation of intentional states, subdivided into
particularist enclaves, as an alternative to the modern state. How could
a civilization organized on the basis of autonomous city-states,
townships, counties, communes or even fiefdoms possibly be more
tyrannical than what we have seen over the past century, whether
in the soft totalitarianism of present day mass democracy (which is
a sort of synthesis of plutocracy, mob rule and bureaucratic
collectivism under a managerial elite) or in the hard totalitarianism
of other states (fascism, communism, nazism, etc.)?
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Read a bit about Warren Jeffs, his group of old style Mormons, the girls he fourced into polygamous marriages.... and explain how, in the absence of State coercion...
Polygamy goes on with or without state coercion. The state only targeted Jeffs because he made a nuisance of himself.
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@Keith
By your answer I see that you in your design for a perfect society manage to forget the state of childhood, which is based by extreme dependency on one’s elders and enforced obedience.
Of course, the girls were underage, but udner the authority of their parents, who gave them in
marriage and expected obedience from them, with
punishments provided if they did not obey.
So were the young boys, expelled on diverse pretextes, but leading to a situatin in which hey could not compete sexually wih the older men who ran the show.
Is there a mecanism in your utopia to prevent parents from making bindinng decisions on the futgure of the children? Any mechanism that prevents child abuse? That prevents incest?
And if they happen to control a valuable resource, the rest of the other groups would just look away. I mean, look how tender ther are of Saudi’s succeptibilities....
Sorry, your utopia would only work if humans generated spontaneusly in their thrites, did not
grow old and feeble, and turnd to dust on their eightieth birthday.
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Adriana,
You’re beginning to sound like the Clinton administration-"Do it
for the children”. Apparently, children managed to survive before the
rise of modern Leviathan states, given that the human race continued
to reproduce for thousands of years prior to the 19th century.
The argument that the justification for an overarching state is to
prevent child abuse or elder abuse strikes me as rather shallow. I
get these kinds of arguments from leftists as well, who insist a world
government is necessary to stamp out sexism and homophobia in Islamic
countries, or to make sure a restaurant owner in Alabama doesn’t
discriminate against minority patrons.
I do not see why rules or norms against child abuse cannot be enforced
just as easily by communities as by overarching states. In my community th
there have been several prosecutions for animal cruelty recently.
And most CPS services (which merit much criticism, IMO) are operated
locally as well. If no such norms exist in a civilization, the state
won’t be of much help anyway.
May I suggest Hans Hermann Hoppe’s “Democracy: The God That Failed”
as an introductory criticism of the kind of paternalistic welfare
state you apparently endorse?
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@Keith
Do not descend to name calling because I point to a problem with any utopian scheme; how to make sure that it perpetuates itself through the generations.
Adults can make whatever choices they wish about themselves, but should they have the right to make them for their children? Children, being dependnet and of limited understanding they have to be under adult authority. But is there a way to guarantee that those adults will not abuse heir authority.
Like it or not the only thing that stops anyone from abusing his or her authority is a higher authority with the power to punish.
Sure, all through the ages children have grown up, even under conditions that would horrify us,
but then human beings have survived and made a life of sort even under the most inhumane and brutal regimes. Surely to say lamely that “they managed to grow up” is not the best description of an utopia, is it?
Plese tell me what mechanisms, if any are in your scheme to prevent and punish child abuse.
What denies the right of parens to mutilate
their daughters genitally so that they do not become sexually promiscuous when they grow up?
What tells parents, your children are not your posession, to do as you see fit?
Plese explain how would you solve that problem, or at least acknowledge that it is a problem.
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What names have I called you? “Shallow” perhaps, meaning only
that I think you’re rebuttal is shallow, not that you are a
shallow person. If you were a shallow person, you wouldn’t be
reading Taki, Paul Gottfried or Justin Raimondo.
You still haven’t explained why a centralized state as opposed
to a community is necessary for the prevention of child abuse.
Presumably, any community would have rules against assault, rape,
murder, etc. with those who transgress being subject to imprisonment,
execution, banishment or some other kind of sanction. Presumably,
those who rape, murder or assault children are just as guilty of
these crimes as those who inflict such crimes on other adults.
Presumably, raping your daughter is just as criminal as raping
someone else’s daughter. Why should there be any legal distinction?
I’ll grant you that some cultures view children as the property of
their parents, to be used in whatever way the parents wish. In such
a cultural environment, how will the state be of any use, given that
the laws of the state typically reflect cultural norms?
Yes, in conservative African societies genital mutilation may well
be considered legitimate, just as the purdah may be in a strict
Islamic society. But these kinds of norms are largely absent in the
West, outside of certain subcultures like Islamic immigrants.
Once again, you could apply this argument to any social practice
others find horrific. Perhaps the UN should ban abortion on a world
wide basis. Perhaps the US should invade China to force them to
give up their one child policy. Perhaps there should be sanctions
imposed on countries that practice factory farming or allow child
labor. Or those who discriminate against homosexuals. The examples
you cite are selective in nature.
I understand where you’re coming from. You’re a conscientous person
who doesn’t want children to be mistreated. Neither do I. I think
spouse abuse is pretty crappy as well, but I don’t think the UN,
the US Congress, the Justice Department, or even state goverments
need to be involved with it.
Institutionally, I favor autonomous local communities within a
broader framework of federated, decentralized particularism. Matters
like abortion, childrens’ rights vis a vis their parents, the death
penalty, marital customs, “age of consent” for sexual relations,
animal rights, defintions of property rights, inheritance from
the deceased, euthanasia, public sexual displays, religion in
public institutions, etc.
Yes, some communities may sanction practices that others find hideous.
Such is the price for keeping Leviathan at bay. Much of this
is subjective. For instance, pro-lifers consider legal abortion to be
a crime against humanity. Feminists and liberals think the
illegalization of abortion is a violation of human rights. While
child slavery and genital mutilation aren’t much of an issue in our
own culture, there are other issues that are comparable, like
parents who deny medical care to their children for religious reasons.
Do I personally disapprove of this? Yes. Should the state interfere?
I’m not so sure it should.
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Hmm. Looks like part of my post got cut out. I said that such issues
as abortion, childrens’ rights, capital punishment, et. al. should
be a matter of community standards. It’s basically the same rule the
Supreme Court uses with regards to pornography.
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@Keith
You know that it is impractical to use other means other than persuasion, example, and economic incentives to change cultural practices in other countries - and cultural practices do change given the right incentives. That is due to the lack of a central authority that those populations regard as legitimate.
Why then would you throw away that central authority where it exists and which can employ other means besides peersuasion, example, an economic incentive among the people who recognize it as legitimate? Why remove the one protection inadequate as it is from children?
If you think that we are too fine, too well disposed, too rational, too benign not to fall into the same practices, then I advise to read more on the concept of Original Sin. Or contemplate the case of the Edmundson Sisters, slaves which were redeeemed before they could be sold to a brothel. The interesting case was that the man who was to sell them was a Christian, who noted that his “property” read the Bible and prayed, but that evidence of Christian devotion did not change his desire to make a profit by selling her into prostitutiion.
Sadly, when there is a profit to be made, too often our principles, our beliefs, our most cherished vision of ourselves fall by the wayside, and reason, religion, or society pressure may not be enough.
At some point there needs to be coercion. And a legitimate authority to carry it out.
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You and I seem to have an equally negative view of human nature. I
agree that modern people in the West are by no means immune to
barbarism. In fact, I think there’s a great deal of barbarism that
goes unrecognized in modern societies.
It is for this reason that I distrust the state. I recognize Hayek’s
dictum that “the worst get to the top”. I don’t trust “the worst” to
protect children or do anything else of value. Concentrated power is
best avoided. What about the children being slaughtered in the
neo-Jacobins’ war of conquest in Iraw? What about the children
slaughtered by the federales at Waco? What about the children who
are abused, molested and even killed in the state’s juvenile
institutions? What about the children terrorized by the paramilitary
police during drug raids on private homes? What about the kids who
have been killed in the state’s pseudo-military “boot camp”
concentration camps? What about the children removed from their
families by fanatic do-gooder social service bureaucrats? What about
the children with no parents because the folks are in jail for
smoking pot or having a unregistered firearm or violating some
arcane tax or environmental law? I could continue this list
indefinitely.
If the state is removed, I’m not sure so local communities are
going to rush out to sanction selling children into prostitution.
Yes, cultural norms can change according to changing economic
situations and so forth. It’s an imperfect world. But I find this
to be a very unconvincing argument for an overarching state system.
I know of no nation whose constitution has as its first article:
“The purpose of the state is to protect children from abuse by
private individuals.” States simply aren’t that rosy in my view.
Your motives are laudable enough. But I really don’t think we’re
on the same wavelength in our respective understandings of
political theory and the nature of the state and its relationship
to society at large. I agree to disagree.
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@Keith
No, all communities will not rush to sell their children into
prostution. A few will.
A few will use child prostitutes and sell their children.
A few will balk at using childrne for sex, but not to selling
them, for any purpose.
A few will have sex with chilren, but draw the line at their
own.
Before you know, there is a market created.
And the communities that do not participate will tskk.. tks..
of course, they will say, this is abhorent, but these people are
free to live their lives as they see fit, it is not up to us
to protect other people’s children.
And whether or not you can reach puberty beofre being raped will
depend on where you were born.
Is this your definiition of liberty?
Oh, I forgot, there is no longer a State, so they should all rejoice.
Let the six year old who is forcibly raped rejoice that the State no
longer opresses her.
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You seem to be rather one-tracked in the sense of being fixated on
a single issue. Perhaps some localities in a
decentralized system would allow the kinds of practices you mention.
Perhaps some would practice racial discrimination or gay discrimination
or impose gun control or ban the use of alcoholic beverages. Perhaps
some would have compulsory religious observance or permit late-term
abortion.
Once again, the arguments you employ for a strong central goverment
could just as easily be used to justify a world government. You seem
to believe that the first if not only purpose of politics is to
prevent pedophilia. That’s a rather novel position. All states exist
first and foremost to protect a ruling class and its territorial and
economic interests, with “the worst getting to the top.” The protection
of children is usually rather low on the list of priorities.
Your hypothetical six year old could likewise be used as an argument
for a massive socialist state. Why should the six year old care about
liberty when she can have state of the art day care, plush kindergartens,
multimillion dollar playgrounds paid for by Uncle Sam? Why should the
poor want to keep the state at bay when they can have full employment
with a guaranteed government job?
This is a circular and reductionist argument. Politics necessarily
involves trade offs with the realization that perfection is not an
option. The desire to prevent every last incident of child
molestation, every last incident of violent crime, every last incident
of economic deprivation, every last case of drug addiction, every
last case of adolescent suicide, every last remant of racial prejudice,
etc., has to be balanced with what is possible and realistic given
the limitations of human nature and the need to keep concentrated
power under control. The destructiveness of war and modern genocides
have escalated in direct proportion to the growth of the state over the
last century.
I encounter arguments similar to these all the time from those who
think the massacre of six hundred thousand Americans in the Civil War
was justified to prevent slavery from lasting another twenty years or so
before falling apart for economic reasons.
One of the reasons that I am in favor of a decentralized system is
that I believe it would be easier for those who are oppressed or
persecuted to form separatist, autonomous enclaves for themselves.
For instance, in American history blacks who were oppressed in the
south could help themselves be migrating north or towards urban centers
where the racial caste system was not a deeply ingrained. This has much
to do with why we have the large black populations in cities today.
I really don’t think perfection is an option, however.
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Adriana,
This is what an anarchist comrade of mine by the name of Nick Manley
has to say about this. I concur almost completely:
> That’s a very interesting discussion you had there. I was thinking the same
> thing that you did when it comes to “how do you protect the rights of
> children entirely in an anarchy?”. Well, the historical record shows that
> states and other large powerful institutions are capable of doing great harm
> to children. In other words, even in a stateless society populated by mostly
> humane people, you might have some abuse going on somewhere on the planet.
>
> Such a state of affairs is horrifically tragic but history shows that some
> of the most predatory people tend to rise to the top of statist systems. The
> American principles of limited government and individualism—though not
> equally applied due to the treatment of various minorities throughout
> American history—have been severely tarnished in the last 200 years or
> so.
>
> Maybe the best chance for the idea of liberal democracy—in terms of
> everyone having an equal right to run their own lives rather than mass
> democratic statism—or liberal individualism is in a decentralist system
> where the statist esque conservatives don’t have a chance to seize a massive
> state to promote their agenda.
>
> Frankly, in my ideal left-libertarian influenced community, the abuse of
> children would be something taken very seriously. I’ve actually become very
> interested in the idea of trying to open a free school in the tradition of
> the anarchistic modern school movement.
>
> And this interest in a culture of genuine respect for children is only one
> of many other cultural concerns I have. My leftist libertarianism is very
> much a cultural outlook as much as it is a political or economic one. I am
> not sure if I’d entirely dismiss the proposition of liberation actions
> directed at
> say people physically abusing children in the neighboring community or
> something.
>
> On the other hand, that might be far too akin to the idea of invading Iraq
> to promote secularism, human rights, and so forth. And I don’t really want
> to live in a world with constant warfare between different individuals,
> communities, or nations.
>
> But if done left-libertarian commando style then that might be ok. One of my
> objections to the Iraq war was that some of the weapons used were in no way
> capable of being pinpointed accurately and that an imperialist occupation
> followed. If the CIA had simply tried to kidnap Saddam to stand trial before
> an international tribunal or something, then it would have been less of a
> big deal for me, though I don’t see how that would necessarily produce much
> positive change in Iraqi society/culture or even the Iraqi state. The Baath
> regime could just appoint another brutal head honcho.
>
> So; perhaps, it’s best to let cultural change come of its own accord rather
> than employing violence to make idealistic cultural ideas universalized. The
> Iraq war has certainly shown that removing a tyranny in a given territory
> does not necessarily mean that all trace of cultural conservative tyranny
> will be rid of.
>
>
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@Keith
I am afraid that you use flawed math when counting atrocities
against children committed by the State vs. atrocities against
children committed by their families.
Atrocities committed by the State are called by their name, and
thus counted.
Atrocities committed by their families, as long as they are
within cultural norms are dismissed and never make it into
statisitcs.
Thus when a culture practices “honor killings”, which means the
murder of an unmarried girl who got pregnant, or one who was raped,
is seen as a question of “culture” even when the execution is
carried out by burning alive.
So, if I have to choose by atrocities which are called by their
proper name, and thus move people to act against them, and atrocities
which are dismissed as “cultural differences” and therefore none of
any bystanders’s problem, then I know what to choose.
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