Assignment 03
Wendy Brown’s essay, “The Most We Can Hope For…” Human Rights and the Political of Fatalism addresses many points on human rights activism, she also uses Michael Ignatieff to improve and support her argument.
Human rights are freedom in which every human being needs to have, to protect themselves from cruelty or maltreatment. Brown’s argument is that human rights activism is more than beneficial because it is an efficient factor to limit political violence and most importantly agony. Brown’s believe in political mantle, which makes it seem anti-political to denied human rights to those innocent and powerless people. She explains the differences between how human rights take their shape, moral discourse, which focuses on pain and cruelty, instead of political discourse of comprehensive justice.
Wendy Brown supports her argument using Ignatieff three claims; “Human rights matter because they help people to help themselves”, “civil and political freedoms…”, and “conflict, deliberation, argument and contention.” Moreover, she focuses on Ignatieff position on the Iraq war. One of her most crucial evidence found in claim number one was Ignatieff position on the Iraq war. He came up with the term “empowerment” to hide the truth. In other words, empowerment is going towards the anti-political side. In claim number two, which focuses on the economic and political possibilities. Food, shelter, security, and healthcare are the four most necessary human needs to develop a form of survival. To me it seems like Ignatieff has a very different point of view when it comes to human survival, he is choosing freedom of speech over the most important basic needs of human survival. In claim number three he states, “A world of normal equality is a word of conflict, deliberation, argument, and contention (95). In other words, Ignatieff disagree with individual’s equality and thinks individuals will prospect to empower for democratic determination. Finally, Brown uses Ignatieff own words to prove and support all her arguments. She also talks about Ignatieff poor interest in defending the empowerment people. I agree with Wendy Brown; human rights activism plays an important role in society. It would be extremely unfair to leave innocent and powerless people with no rights or a way to defend themselves from suffering. I had a hard time trying to understand this reading, maybe I misunderstood what Wendy Brown was trying to explain. I know she uses Ignatieff’s claims to support her argument. I can’t wait for the class discussion on Tuesday.
