Hello group.. I am rather new to this, so bear with my rambling..
Actually, I have been thinking about this one for some time.. I am a psychology student, and my psych professor recently gave us a lecture on what he called the 16 international civil rights. his argument was that we, as humans, are born with "inalienable" civil rights... my argument was (being psychology) that rights were originally created by mass human insecurity, i.e. we all are scared of dying, hence the old saying "Thou shalt not kill". and the more modern rendition "right to life", "thou shalt not steal", mod. "right to property", etc.... a nice self justifying meme (ties into religion)...
Maybe rights are a specific archetype of meme? maybe one that ties in closely with laws and ordered society? part of this stems from our egocentric personalities, part of as is explained in the hinsight bias theories ("i knew it all along"), but maybe it is more.. i dunno.. i'm still learning..
matt
>>> "the great tinkerer" <gr8tinkerer@hotmail.com> 01/17 9:16 PM >>>
i rarely try to start a thread on this list... but i was watching tv
for the first time in ages....
so it was one of those dateline specials, some kids wrote up a newspaper
that was (subjectively) offensive and threatenning... got me
thinking...
in our society there is an "i have rights" meme. it seems as though when anyone is offended by anything anyone does they have a right to stop them. conversly: when people are stopped or prevented from doing anything that they think they have the right to do, they will take it to court.
the simplest example of this meme would be a censorship vs expression argument. freedom of speech vs freedom from speech (i wont get started)
another example (which i probably saw on dateline or 20/20 hehe...) airport securities are supposed to inspect people based on certain criteria. if a person seems to be arab/islaamic they will be inspected. obviously you see how the person feels there rights are being violated because of their appearance... but would it be justified if a bomb or weapon were discoverred in any one search?
so where do people get the idea that they have any rights at all that can be violated?! its a cultural meme i suppose. perhaps we should have a dictatorship/martial law every 10 years so people actually appreciate there rights instead of taking them for granted...
~the great tinkerer