Hunt, Assignment 1
1. Introduction
Hi All. My name is Gabrielle and as I mentioned in class I have been a student at CWE since the fall of 2013. My career as the VP of eCommerce at a fashion accessories company keeps me fairly busy, so I am slowly chipping away, taking one or two classes every semester. I am happy to say the end is finally in sight! I expect to graduate either end of Fall ’17 or Spring ’18. My concentration is The Americas and within the context of the Americas I have been working towards focusing on human rights. Some past courses include the Human Rights Forum, History of Human Rights, and International Conflict. I am also hoping to focus in some way on human rights once I move on to graduate school. All of which is why I chose this class. And of course, it now seems to be more timely as ever. I am looking forward to learning alongside all of you.
2. The Evolving Notion of Rights and The Role of Education and The Arts
According to Hunt, two key documents laid the foundation for the Universal Declaration for Human Rights: The Declaration of Independence and The Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen. While both both can be used in context to the conversation around human rights today, I will be focusing on the Declaration of Independence for the following two reasons. Firstly, Hunt’s overall thesis which states that education and the arts fostered an environment of empathy which in turn helped to lead to the invention of human rights (p. 32), lastly, the idea of who should be included under the umbrella of self-evident rights is ever evolving and eventually shifted from particularistic to universal (p. 117).
Hunt’s thesis that education and the arts fostered an environment which lead to the Declaration of Independence including the notion of rights is particularly interesting given that we are currently in an environment in which both education and the arts are under attack. Those that are educated are considered ‘elitist’, the proposed Education Secretary possess a palatable disdain for public education, and the current proposed federal budget cuts funding for the arts and humanities completely. Given Hunt’s argument that education and the arts leads to an environment in which empathy is fostered and rights are recognized, one must wonder if the attacks on education and the arts we see today is a purposeful attempt to divide the populace in such a way that the concept of rights for all is no longer supported. In an effort to balance the somewhat fatalistic with the hopeful, I turn to the second reason for focusing on the Declaration of Independence, the evolving concept of rights as universal.
When the Declaration of Independence was written, the concept of rights was far from universal. At the time, rights applied to white, property owning men. Eventually, propertyless white men, black men, and women were included. In our own lifetime we have seen rights advance even further to include the gay and lesbian community and conversations around the rights of the transgender community. This must continue to give us hope. While again, movement is slow and may appear to currently be moving backwards, it is important for us to remember how far we have progressed and continue to push society forward. Rights are rarely, if ever, given, they are fought for. Today, we need to fight not only for the further advancement of human rights but to also keep the rights which those who came before us fought so hard for.
