Deconstructing Human Rights

Image above: The United Nations Human Rights Declaration

The address for the Socialsense blog
http://culturalscene.blogspot.com.au/
The Thebarton Senior College Moodle


DECONSTRUCTING A TOPIC: HUMAN RIGHTS

Human rights are commonly understood as "inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being."


Next week we are going to have a lesson discussing Human Rights.  To do this we are going to try to respond to the posed questions below. Try to think about the questions before the lesson so that you can contribute to the discussion.

Posing questions to discuss

Q1: What is a right?

Q2: What rights do we have in Australia?

Q3: Are there any rights we take for granted in Australia that many other countries do not have?

Q4: What can restrict our rights?

Q5: What things have we no right to do?

Q6: Do some people have more rights than others?

Q7: What happens if someone abuses a right?

Q8: What is the most precious right a Human has in your opinion?

Q9: Are we “drip-fed” rights in our life?

Q10: Do/can we have rights taken away from us?

Q11: Every right comes with a responsibility?  Do you agree?

Q12: People have the right to practice their culture in their country (in most cases but not always) Is this a true statement?

Q13: When people of a different culture come to another country, do they and should they lose the right to practice their culture (all of their culture) as they did in their home country?

Q14: If you had to make up a list of the 10 most important “die in the trench” rights for you, what would they be?  These are rights that you would be prepared to fight for.

Q15: Do you think people in Australia have more or less rights today than they did 100 years ago?

Q16: Does modern communication help or hinder Human Rights?

Q17: Have you got a question about Human Rights to pose to the class?

 Philosophical Thinkpieces from Voltaire and Rousseau

What the ..?

" ... I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write."

"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too. "

“All men have equal rights to liberty, to their property, and to the protection of the laws”

“Prejudices are what fools use for reason.” 

"The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.”

Voltaire, Essay on Tolerance

French author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist (1694 - 1778)

"... liberty is at the root of being human".

“To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties”

"Because all human beings are free and equal by reason of their nature, they should remain free and equal in the state."

"To become really free, he must decide, as a moral being, to bind himself to the laws and norms, which he himself gives to himself. Thus he deliberately renounces the freedom of the natural state for the sake of the civil and moral order organized in the state and submits himself to the laws and norms, which he gives to himself."

"Each individual possesses the right to political participation on an equal footing with all other citizens."

“Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect”

“Liberty is obedience to the law which one has laid down for oneself.”

“You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: French philosopher and writer whose novels inspired the leaders of the French Revolution, 1712-1778