Human Rights v Tyranny
I believe the optimistic view of human nature is the correct one and that we have been CONDITIONED to be short-sighted, selfish and greedy, and to assume that the purpose of life is the acquisition of material things, buying now and paying later. It follows, or so it seems to me, that we could be RE- CONDITIONED by information, education in the widest sense of the term. As the American John Dewey (my favourite philosopher) put it, we must “unlearn” what we have been taught about the “unchangeability of human nature.”
I also believe there is a key to unlocking the concern and care and political engagement of most citizens of nations.
Question: What is it that parents and grandparents care most about?
Answer: The future of their children and grandchildren.
That being so the key to mobilizing them is making them aware that IF they want their children and grandchildren to have a future worth having, they can’t leave the shaping of it to governments, and must become engaged in the political process, to insist that priority be given to addressing the growing pile of problems which threaten the wellbeing and perhaps even the survival of all life on Planet Earth.
My own message to that effect would include the need for those of us who live in the still rich nations of the Western world (and also those who live in the pockets of plenty in the developing world) to change the way we live and think.
Changing the way we live would require us to accept that we can’t go on expecting to have more and ever more in the way material satisfaction and gratification.
Changing the way we think would require us to see ourselves as citizens of
ONE COMMON HUMANITY.
If we could see ourselves in that light, the prospects for creating a world in which every man, woman and child had the seven most basic of all human rights would be much improved.
Some and perhaps many will say that I am a dreamer because, for example, the concept of “American exceptionalism” (most recently articulated by President Obama) will never allow Americans to see themselves, first and foremost, as citizens of one common humanity. I am inclined to a different view of America’s potential.
During 40 years of visiting the U.S. and travelling coast-to-coast I developed what might be called a love-hate relationship with it which I explain this way.
On one level, and generally speaking, Americans are the most uninformed (I really mean ignorant) and gullible people on earth. (I once said on a public platform in the U.S. “The trouble with you Americans is not only that you don’t know where Zimbabwe is, you don’t know where Africa is!“) That’s the bad news.
The good news is that deep down Americans are probably the most idealistic people on earth. In my way of thinking one implication is that if they were informed about the true state affairs on Planet Earth, in particular the fact that about half its population is without some or all of the most basic human rights and living more like animals than humans, their idealism could be liberated and mobilized. I am suggesting in other words that if Americans were properly informed, they might want to become engaged to cause their government to play its necessary part in changing the world for the better.
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