Brown’s “The Most We Can Hope For……”
In Brown’s essay, “The Most We Can Hope For……Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism she makes several points about how human rights activism is not just for the innocent and powerless. She quotes the work of Michael Ignatieff to break down three key points: human rights is important because its a tool for people to use to help themselves, that rights are political and civil freedoms that are necessary for the attainment of economic and social security, and lastly, that human rights are a “shared vocabulary”(455) from which mankind can flourish.
For the first point, she acknowledges that human rights is a proclimation of individual empowerment. I agree with her about human rights not being pure defense of the powerless and innocent because there is strong moral desire to inforce these rights. There is nothing weak about this. I like that she quoted Ignatieff saying something along the lines of: when an individual obtains agency, they have an inherent right to choose what they live or die for. It is our right to choose the things that defines us. The text also states that in choosing what to live and die for is not in the way of any historical, economical and political contraints, it just is.
Next, for the second point, Brown claims that rights are political and civil freedoms that are necessary for certain securities. In a civil society, having human rights is only the precursor to obtaining everything else that is necessay to indiviualism within a society. There was a quote by Ignatieff given that expressed what Brown was trying to convey: that without the freedom to give opinions or speak and assemble, paired with the freedom of property, humans can not gather themselves to struggle for social and economic security. In other words, baring human rights alone is not enough to survive within a society.
Lastly, for the third point, Brown claims that if we were to achieve moral equality that there would be contention. There was a question asked: that if were were to have these rights where one chooses to live their lives as they see fit, which gives them an individual power, who is to say that there wouldn’t be conflict? Rights, as a universal moral vocabulary, has no say in how we should live together. Rights alone doesn’t aid in the governing of people. Human rights are the basis from which there is a shield from certain injustices.
