Ardchoille
03-04-2005, 13:53
That's the title of a paper by writer Neal Ascherson (anyone read his account of the Marsh Arabs?). He talks about the philosophical /political aspects of minority rights, majority rights and individual rights. It's the sort of thing that you could apply to any number of NS topics -- multiculturalism, affirmative action, Northern Ireland, the current debate on 'chavs' -- right down to such vital issues as whether Scots males should be allowed to wear kilts at English Universities.
Anyway, the point of this post is to give you the web addy:
http://images.walrusmagazine.com/pdf/Ascherson-article.pdf
It's five pages, pdf, takes forever to load. Despite his writing skills, it's not light reading. But it might raise points people would like to discuss. See what you think.
Swimmingpool
03-04-2005, 14:12
Indeed in the west, particularly America, middle-aged white Christian men tend to be the most conservative demographic.
Ardchoille
03-04-2005, 15:13
Fair enough; so what happens if the individual rights of one middle-aged, conservative, Christian white male threaten the rights of a majority of middle-aged, conservative, Christian white males? I think that's part of what he's talking about: how the pendulum of "rights" keeps swinging between the group and the individual. But what intrigues me about his paper is the width of the examples he gives.
You might find interesting his comment abt Ireland:
I remember editorial conferences in The Observer, in the early years of the Irish Troubles. Older members of the staff insisted that a 'moderate majority' simply must exist in Northern Ireland (if only it could be persuaded to emerge) which would accept that the human rights of the minority should be recognised. In vain, the Belfast correspondent reported that no moderate majority existed -- the opinions of most people on both sides were extreme. This was -- in some ways, still is -- a situation in which every recognition of the individual rights of one group seemed to threaten the collective rights of the other.
I'm not saying, BTW, that I agree or disagree with him. It's not exactly agree-disagree writing. For all its concrete examples, it's sufficiently abstract to make it possible to apply his questions to any number of current situations. That's why I put the link in. His analysis made me look at some of my views in a new way, so I thought it would be good to let other people have the chance at a mental shakeup, too.