Why are rights expanding?
October 31, 2015 7:57 AM Subscribe
Does anyone know why people are increasingly receiving rights now rather than at other points in history? Like, women's rights, Civil rights, gay rights, trans rights, animal rights, etc.? Jon Haidt talks about how Western liberals (among many others) have a morality loosely based on reducing harm, but how has that developed? Why now? I'm looking for any literature on the topic, ranging from academic to loose conjecture.
i think partly it's political expediency and can be traced to experience at the UN, where the "original" human rights were added early on, motivated by unanimous revulsion of WWII.
that unity decayed over time, and the UN works (or doesn't) via consensus, so framing things in terms of vague "rights" became a useful practical tool - something everyone could agree on, because it's abstract and not critical of any single actor.
that proliferation, fragmentation and weakening of rights then made them more accessible to other groups, where they were adapted for similar reasons. now that they're largely meaningless (look at discussions here on free speech for example), they can be used anywhere, and for anything.
posted by andrewcooke at 8:10 AM on October 31, 2015 [4 favorites]
that unity decayed over time, and the UN works (or doesn't) via consensus, so framing things in terms of vague "rights" became a useful practical tool - something everyone could agree on, because it's abstract and not critical of any single actor.
that proliferation, fragmentation and weakening of rights then made them more accessible to other groups, where they were adapted for similar reasons. now that they're largely meaningless (look at discussions here on free speech for example), they can be used anywhere, and for anything.
posted by andrewcooke at 8:10 AM on October 31, 2015 [4 favorites]
Lynn Hunt's Inventing Human Rights gives an account through the rise of the novel, as making us aware of each other's interiority/humanity.
posted by felix grundy at 8:20 AM on October 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by felix grundy at 8:20 AM on October 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
You could start with the Human Rights and Animal Rights books in the OUP 'Very Short Introduction' series.
posted by James Scott-Brown at 8:37 AM on October 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by James Scott-Brown at 8:37 AM on October 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
Justice Holmes may have some answers for you:
posted by Little Dawn at 8:39 AM on October 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
The first meaning was expressed over a half-century ago by Mr. Justice Holmes in Missouri v. Holland with his customary felicity when he said:Another keyword for your research could be "penumbra," particularly as it relates to the discovery of fundamental rights. An optimistic approach to the U.S. Constitution answers your question with a variation on Moore's Law of doubling capacity.
. . . When we are dealing with words that also are a constituent act, like the Constitution of the United States, we must realize that they have called into life a being the development of which could not have been foreseen completely by the most gifted of its begetters. It was enough for them to realize or to hope that they had created an organism; it has taken a century and has cost their successors much sweat and blood to prove that they created a nation.
posted by Little Dawn at 8:39 AM on October 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
You want historian Lynn Hunt's book Inventing Human Rights. She has a good framework for how I understand this process, which she calls the "internal logic of rights." It's been several years since I've read it so I'm probably glossing over the nuance, but she traces the evolution of universal human rights, rather than a model where rights originated based on a person's citizenship to a country. She ends at the French Revolution, I think, but creates a persuasive argument that the doctrine of universal rights creates a snowball effect: it is always expanding to new groups.
Another big turning point is World War II, where documents like the Atlantic Charter used the language of universal rights to justify the fight against Hitler. Historian Elizabeth Borgwardt studies this in A New Deal For the World, but it's not as accessible as Inventing Human Rights. (I absolutely loved it, but my peers did not.) The Nazis were able to justify violence against Jews, communists, etc. by stripping them of citizenship -- and therefore denying them access to the rights others had (the Nuremberg Laws are a great example of this). Historian Timothy Snyder has a new book out called Black Earth that argues the collapse of the government in Poland was what created the conditions for the Holocaust. (He points out it was much safer to be a Jew inside Nazi Germany than in Poland, for example, because Germany had a functioning state with laws while almost anything could happen in Poland.) He gave a great NPR interview a few weeks ago; I'd link if I wasn't on mobile. Anyway, the Allies used the language of universal human rights to fight those ideas, and they were later codified in documents like the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
This is where Lynn Hunt's framework is most useful, I think. The "internal logic" of universal rights means that they apply to everyone, otherwise they're not universal. So even groups of people that everyone agrees at the time don't qualify for rights (the founding fathers were still totes cool with slavery; I'd imagine FDR and Churchill didn't foresee GLBTQ rights) will eventually demand access to universal rights based on the "internal logic" of them.
Not that this journey doesn't have significant bumps and roadblocks along it that impede the story. And this doesn't explain why the journey seems to have sped up in the last few decades, which is maybe more what you're looking for. But you should really start with Hunt's book.
On preview, I was too slow: now I'm just seconding her book!
posted by lilac girl at 8:42 AM on October 31, 2015 [19 favorites]
Another big turning point is World War II, where documents like the Atlantic Charter used the language of universal rights to justify the fight against Hitler. Historian Elizabeth Borgwardt studies this in A New Deal For the World, but it's not as accessible as Inventing Human Rights. (I absolutely loved it, but my peers did not.) The Nazis were able to justify violence against Jews, communists, etc. by stripping them of citizenship -- and therefore denying them access to the rights others had (the Nuremberg Laws are a great example of this). Historian Timothy Snyder has a new book out called Black Earth that argues the collapse of the government in Poland was what created the conditions for the Holocaust. (He points out it was much safer to be a Jew inside Nazi Germany than in Poland, for example, because Germany had a functioning state with laws while almost anything could happen in Poland.) He gave a great NPR interview a few weeks ago; I'd link if I wasn't on mobile. Anyway, the Allies used the language of universal human rights to fight those ideas, and they were later codified in documents like the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
This is where Lynn Hunt's framework is most useful, I think. The "internal logic" of universal rights means that they apply to everyone, otherwise they're not universal. So even groups of people that everyone agrees at the time don't qualify for rights (the founding fathers were still totes cool with slavery; I'd imagine FDR and Churchill didn't foresee GLBTQ rights) will eventually demand access to universal rights based on the "internal logic" of them.
Not that this journey doesn't have significant bumps and roadblocks along it that impede the story. And this doesn't explain why the journey seems to have sped up in the last few decades, which is maybe more what you're looking for. But you should really start with Hunt's book.
On preview, I was too slow: now I'm just seconding her book!
posted by lilac girl at 8:42 AM on October 31, 2015 [19 favorites]
Honestly?
Because people are fighting for them.
There have been various social changes that have happened over the last century and change that have made groups of marginalized people aware that they were being systematically kept down.
For example, with the Civil Rights Movement, it was black soldiers' experiences in WW2 that made them more aware of the injustices of Jim Crow. Historically, feminism has been tied to women being encouraged to volunteer in Civil Rights oriented causes, which then led them to understand their own oppression. Gay men looked around and realized that if other groups were resisting, there was nothing keeping them from doing the same, while lesbians within the feminist movement realized they could use the same tactics to fight their own specific types of oppression. Other racial minorities saw what African-Americans were able to accomplish by fighting back and started movements of their own.
Yes, a lot of this can be tied to the rise of media technology, the shrinking world (black soldiers' experiences in Europe during war helped them realize that the segregation present in the US was an aberration), and people's ability to learn more about the world and where they stand.
And, yes, there is also a component of classical liberalism. Something like the fight for gay marriage just couldn't happen without the French Revolution, the Napoleonic era, and the arrival of liberal ideas in the West.
posted by Sara C. at 9:54 AM on October 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
Because people are fighting for them.
There have been various social changes that have happened over the last century and change that have made groups of marginalized people aware that they were being systematically kept down.
For example, with the Civil Rights Movement, it was black soldiers' experiences in WW2 that made them more aware of the injustices of Jim Crow. Historically, feminism has been tied to women being encouraged to volunteer in Civil Rights oriented causes, which then led them to understand their own oppression. Gay men looked around and realized that if other groups were resisting, there was nothing keeping them from doing the same, while lesbians within the feminist movement realized they could use the same tactics to fight their own specific types of oppression. Other racial minorities saw what African-Americans were able to accomplish by fighting back and started movements of their own.
Yes, a lot of this can be tied to the rise of media technology, the shrinking world (black soldiers' experiences in Europe during war helped them realize that the segregation present in the US was an aberration), and people's ability to learn more about the world and where they stand.
And, yes, there is also a component of classical liberalism. Something like the fight for gay marriage just couldn't happen without the French Revolution, the Napoleonic era, and the arrival of liberal ideas in the West.
posted by Sara C. at 9:54 AM on October 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
+1 UN and the end of WW2
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948, was the result of the experience of the Second World War. With the end of that war, and the creation of the United Nations, the international community vowed never again to allow atrocities like those of that conflict happen again. World leaders decided to complement the UN Charter with a road map to guarantee the rights of every individual everywhere.
This put the idea in people's heads. Then as SaraC says, after a few generations people started acting as though it were true and demanded their rights.
Seriously it's powerful stuff:
Article 1.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 4.
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 5.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6.
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7.
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 7 seals the deal.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:16 AM on October 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948, was the result of the experience of the Second World War. With the end of that war, and the creation of the United Nations, the international community vowed never again to allow atrocities like those of that conflict happen again. World leaders decided to complement the UN Charter with a road map to guarantee the rights of every individual everywhere.
This put the idea in people's heads. Then as SaraC says, after a few generations people started acting as though it were true and demanded their rights.
Seriously it's powerful stuff:
Article 1.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 4.
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 5.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6.
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7.
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 7 seals the deal.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:16 AM on October 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
Post WW2 prosperity in the US made a population boom of individualsnwho had enough to go outside mere survival and have the extra energy to contemplate what were formerly abstractions, equality before the law, rights for women, people of color, alternative faiths or no faith, freedom. Those people did not lose sight of this stuff and their children in many instances were raised to enjoy their freedoms and take them for granted. Seeing that others, their friends, their high school companions don't have these freedoms yet they and their friends have worked to make a world safe to live in. It is not a done deal, it is still being born. The effort is a continuum, that has to live and meet every new form of supression.
posted by Oyéah at 10:16 AM on October 31, 2015
posted by Oyéah at 10:16 AM on October 31, 2015
Daniel Dennett, Freedom Evolves, has one hypothesis.
posted by matildaben at 10:41 AM on October 31, 2015
posted by matildaben at 10:41 AM on October 31, 2015
Technological advances in communication. During the Vietnam war we chanted "the whole world is watching". It wasn't really true at the time, but it's way more so today when even many of the poorest people on the planet have access to the itnernet thanks to cell phones and cell towers.
posted by mareli at 12:03 PM on October 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by mareli at 12:03 PM on October 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
In the case of women's rights, it has to do with technological progress. It's a lot easier for women to insist on getting out of the kitchen now that kitchens are so much more efficient than they used to be, so no one person (male or female) needs to spend that much time in them anymore. Megan McArdle explains:
posted by John Cohen at 2:21 PM on October 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
Women in the 1920s spent about 30 hours every week preparing meals. Thanks to food processing technology and labor-saving appliances, that number has dropped into the single digits.... [E]ven if you add in the culinary labors of our male partners, Americans are still spending less than a third as much time cooking dinner as our great-grandmothers did.Same with washing machines, etc.
Women could never have gone into the workforce in the numbers they did if they had still been expected to spend 30 hours a week feeding their families. They were propelled into careers by the mass-produced modern kitchen, which, with all its flaws, remains one of the greatest feminist advances the world has ever seen.
posted by John Cohen at 2:21 PM on October 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
Some kinds of processes start very slow and then gain speed exponentially. The reason for that curve is that later gains build on the earlier gains. The more you've already won, the easier the next victory.
The best overall example of that is modern science, beginning about the time of Newton. It really began to pick up steam in the 19th century, and look what's happening now.
Technology is the same way; modern technology has gained more ground in the last century than in all the time before that.
Cultural changes can follow similar curves. The push for human rights certainly does. Look at voting rights in the US beginning with the revolution: in the beginning only adult white men who owned property could vote. Then the franchise was expanded to all white men, and then eventually to non-whites, and to women, and the last change was to lower the voting age to 18. The process picked up momentum over time, with each success building on the previous success.
This kind of exponential curve of progress is a common one. It isn't unique to human rights.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 3:04 PM on October 31, 2015
The best overall example of that is modern science, beginning about the time of Newton. It really began to pick up steam in the 19th century, and look what's happening now.
Technology is the same way; modern technology has gained more ground in the last century than in all the time before that.
Cultural changes can follow similar curves. The push for human rights certainly does. Look at voting rights in the US beginning with the revolution: in the beginning only adult white men who owned property could vote. Then the franchise was expanded to all white men, and then eventually to non-whites, and to women, and the last change was to lower the voting age to 18. The process picked up momentum over time, with each success building on the previous success.
This kind of exponential curve of progress is a common one. It isn't unique to human rights.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 3:04 PM on October 31, 2015
If you couch your argument in terms of rights, it sounds more imposing that must saying its a good thing, or there ought to be a law. Hence gun rights, welfare rights, etc.
posted by SemiSalt at 3:58 PM on October 31, 2015
posted by SemiSalt at 3:58 PM on October 31, 2015
Pop psych: Exposure. If you have a gay relative, you're more likely to support marriage equality; become good friends with someone of another race, racial equality. Through wars and advances in transportation and communication, we've been exposed to a lot more different stuff than we used to be.
posted by JackBurden at 6:34 PM on October 31, 2015
posted by JackBurden at 6:34 PM on October 31, 2015
Pessimistic hypothesis: because fossil fuels replace cheap labor, so rights for those below are not so great a cost for those on top. That's what made room for the philosophical framework and the snowballing universalism.
posted by clew at 11:13 PM on October 31, 2015
posted by clew at 11:13 PM on October 31, 2015
Luxury.
Our basic needs, food, shelter, etc, are met and that gives us the luxury of free time to start meeting other needs.
Once you get past the top-tier needs you get more diversity as to what is needed and how many people need it. The key needs these days seem to be things like opportunity, respect, equality, security. Basically, people don't want to be shit on for not being "normal".
I'm guessing that the size of the group, the level of need, and the opportunity are all big factors in when the need gets met. Women are a large group and they weren't treated fairly so women's rights came early. Civil rights in the US involved a smaller, but still sizeable, group but they were shit on really badly so greater need. Queer folk were heavily shit on but are a much smaller group and trans people an even smaller sub-group of that. I'm actually really surprised at all the attention transgender folks are getting given how tiny that group is. Kudo's to somebody for rocking the boat. Animals are a really large group but they have no voice except what sympathetic humans will lend them. You could even throw nerds in there as a group that used to get shit on but the mainstream needed us to run the computers so we're tolerated now. Plus comic books make entertaining movies.
This is of course my off the cuff summary of really complicated processes but I think the main thing enabling the expansion of rights is luxury.
Find a place in the world without luxury and I bet there's a lot less concern for rights.
posted by Awfki at 6:07 AM on November 1, 2015
Our basic needs, food, shelter, etc, are met and that gives us the luxury of free time to start meeting other needs.
Once you get past the top-tier needs you get more diversity as to what is needed and how many people need it. The key needs these days seem to be things like opportunity, respect, equality, security. Basically, people don't want to be shit on for not being "normal".
I'm guessing that the size of the group, the level of need, and the opportunity are all big factors in when the need gets met. Women are a large group and they weren't treated fairly so women's rights came early. Civil rights in the US involved a smaller, but still sizeable, group but they were shit on really badly so greater need. Queer folk were heavily shit on but are a much smaller group and trans people an even smaller sub-group of that. I'm actually really surprised at all the attention transgender folks are getting given how tiny that group is. Kudo's to somebody for rocking the boat. Animals are a really large group but they have no voice except what sympathetic humans will lend them. You could even throw nerds in there as a group that used to get shit on but the mainstream needed us to run the computers so we're tolerated now. Plus comic books make entertaining movies.
This is of course my off the cuff summary of really complicated processes but I think the main thing enabling the expansion of rights is luxury.
Find a place in the world without luxury and I bet there's a lot less concern for rights.
posted by Awfki at 6:07 AM on November 1, 2015
Information. We are more connected globally than ever before. It is a lot harder for protests and riots to go unreported and unnoticed than in years prior. Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter are two movements that thrived because of the internet. Women haven't suddenly become people able to leave the kitchen because of dishwashers (they've been in the work force for centuries,) but they sure do have a widely accessible platform to spread ideas.
posted by smellyhipster at 2:15 PM on November 1, 2015
posted by smellyhipster at 2:15 PM on November 1, 2015
I'm looking for any literature on the topic, ranging from academic to loose conjecture.
The history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is told in A World Made New (2001). Jeremy Rifkin talks a lot about rights and evolving human consciousness in The Empathic Civilization (2010).
posted by LeLiLo at 3:04 PM on November 1, 2015
The history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is told in A World Made New (2001). Jeremy Rifkin talks a lot about rights and evolving human consciousness in The Empathic Civilization (2010).
posted by LeLiLo at 3:04 PM on November 1, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:01 AM on October 31, 2015