>
>Hi Ben, everybody else who might read this --
>
Hi Harry,
> >To clarify things for all those terribly upset people out there:
>[I'm not that upset; certainly not "terribly" upset. Perhaps I misread this
>as a simple ad hominem? Some subtle dismissal? Nah. I'm just too sensitive, I
>guess.]
>
Don't worry, I wasn't referring to you.
> According to the train of thought to which you refer with that middle
>class, mercantile notion of rights (i.e., the tradition of Locke, Rousseau,
>Jefferson, though the roots certainly extend to some aspects of the ancient
>Greeks, like it or not), these rights are never "granted" by some (socially
>or politically) ruling body -- these rights are "legitimate demands upon the
>group made by the individual" (in the formulation most common during the
>Enlightenment) that ruling bodies are forced to recognize, not asked to
>grant.
> In other words, all humans already have those rights. Groups or individuals
>discriminated against are denied rights they ALREADY HAVE, and this "already
>having" is established, or at least first mapped out, in more philosophical
>discourses. It's within the context of those discourses that I asked for
>definition.
The big question thus is what are those rights that humans already have? If
in another 100 years people come up with some sort of right that they think
they deserve that we would consider irrational, wierd, or wrong, such as the
right to go anywhere naked, does that right already exist now and we don't
know it? Surely the majority decide what rights are and there is no such
thing as an objective concept of rights. They are relative to the time and
context.
>
>>However, just as all good feminists know, simply extending extra rights to a
>>discriminated group is no cure for the problems that that group suffers.
>[ Well I guess I don't have to say here that I disagree. See above. I do,
>though, REALLY dislike the "party line" sound of "as all good feminists
>know." The implication is that if I disgree with you, then I can't be a
>"good" feminist. I may not be, for all anyone knows, but you'll have to work
>harder to establish it than that.]
The use of such a "party line" was an example of how the party line is used
in defining what ideologies are. In our culture, if you believe in an
ideology you believe in it all the way and those who differ are consider
heretics. I was trying to show that the patriarchal concept of rights is
something that the feminist movement should not accept, and should not use
that concept in order to achieve its goals. It may well be that a majority
of feminists reject this patriarchal concept, and in that case my criticism
is not pointed at them.
>>....[I]n my opinion there is a contradiction in ideologies. Since,
>ideologically, the >animal rights movement is a part of the patriarchal
>system of relationships it cannot >fit ideologically with feminism.
>[Then let's lose this desire for, if not fetish of, ideology and try some
>more encompassing ideas (yeah, yeah...maybe that would be just another
>ideology, but...).
The concept of an orderly, rational ideology is a very Western concept and
maybe it is about to time to put it aside. Religion is a form of ideology
but it includes the spiritual side of human culture which Western ideologies
lack. An ecofeminist ideology should widen the concept and include this
spirituality which is sorely lacking in Western culture, which does its
utmost to suppress the emotional, feeling, and spiritual sides of humanity.
>>A right is something relative and is only a function of the amount of power
>that a >particular group has.
>[And here we have the heart of our disagreement. If what you say here is
>true, then if someone or some group is strong enough, physically or
>economically, to prevent my free expression or use of my rights (let's use
>"speech" as an example), then in that moment I actually LOSE THAT RIGHT.
Precisely. It's a sad fact that the majority of the world's population lives
under non-democratic and brutal regimes. If a rice farmer in the middle of
China has never heard of the concept that they could have a vote and choose
the government, do they still have the right to vote? On the other hand, the
people of Hong Kong understand that under British rule they could vote and
know that when China takes over they will lose that right. In Hong Kong
rights exist because the people have been exposed to them, but in the middle
of China rights do not exist. For most people in this world rights are what
the government is nice enough to give them.
> Without that basic assumption of equality in basic rights (at least in one
>legal sense of the term as it grows from various philosophical senses of it),
>what am I, or what are any of us, to do? Retreat? Buy guns and dig some
>holes? Unacceptable to me, anyway.]
>
Thank goodness we live under democratic governments and they tend to have a
similar concept of what rights are as we do. In a dictatorship if you want
to vote you 'buy guns and dig holes'.
>Thanks for your patience, assuming anyone still reading this still has some.
>Harry
>
>
As much as is needed,
Thanks,
Ben.
