It's funny that France always reffered to herself as the countrie of human rights.
I wonder how many countries think that they are the countrie of human rights. It's perhaps a certain form of arrogance of democratia : we are the light of the world. We are morally superior. By saying that we forgot that this values are fragile, and may be lost easily.
It's funny that France always reffered to herself as the countrie of human rights.
I wonder how many countries think that they are the countrie of human rights. It's perhaps a certain form of arrogance of democratia : we are the light of the world. We are morally superior. By saying that we forgot that this values are fragile, and may be lost easily.
Freedoom is a perpetual fight.
I thought France always acknowledged a sort of debt to the American Revolution as a major influence (the stature of Liberty)
but anyway, yes your point is good, why does a country always think that it is THE country, instead of A country among others?!
I always think it's funny when an American says "I love my country because I have free speech [can vote][any other basic human freedom]," as if the US was the only liberal democracy in the world. I suppose it's a left over from the Cold War when the US's major opponent was a non-democratic Soviet Union. But come on, much (most?) of the world, certainly our peer countries, have the same basic freedoms as in the US.
See the history of the Dutch in South Africa c. 1700.
I hate it when I have to guess what a person's point is. Makes it so much harder to have an educational discussion. Anyway, is it that the Dutch in South Africa were largely homesteaders, like the Americans? Maybe, but there were so few of them, and so few of those were citizen-burghers. Only bare hundred c. 1700, and a few tens of thousands total in the late 1700s, when there were 2.5 million Americans. Just not critical mass for a cultural revolution. That, and their culture heritage was, well, wrong. The ideas of the American Revolution (in the loose, global sense of that term) depended so heavily on English political philosophers. Anyway, if I'm completely wrong (as I usually am), please enlighten me about the history of the Dutch in South Africa c. 1700.
I hate it when I have to guess what a person's point is. Makes it so much harder to have an educational discussion. Anyway, is it that the Dutch in South Africa were largely homesteaders, like the Americans? Maybe, but there were so few of them, and so few of those were citizen-burghers. Only bare hundred c. 1700, and a few tens of thousands total in the late 1700s, when there were 2.5 million Americans. Just not critical mass for a cultural revolution. That, and their culture heritage was, well, wrong. The ideas of the American Revolution (in the loose, global sense of that term) depended so heavily on English political philosophers. Anyway, if I'm completely wrong (as I usually am), please enlighten me about the history of the Dutch in South Africa c. 1700.
Sorry: I didn't have time to expand, and then I couldn't be bothered.
You said that the idea of the "sovereign individual" was a "uniquely American" idea because frontiersmen and homesteaders had to do everything for themselves (I paraphrase) and that the philosophy that arose from this lifestyle led, apparently inevitably, to the idea of constitutionally-enshrined human rights.
I disagree.
The whole history of the Boers, since individuals rejected the control of the Dutch East India Company for life on their homesteads, and the "trekboers" set off for the interior to be free of the British on the frontiers, is to do with independence, frontier life and not having to do what someone else tells you to do. We didn't get any over-riding concern for human rights in South Africa but we did we did get constitutionally-enshrined racism and 40+ years of fascist government.
I guess I'm saying that frontier / homestead in a colony where a lot of genocide goes on wasn't unique to North America, and judging by Africa its just as likely to lead to pretty rotten governments that don't really care for the rights of the "sovereign individual."
I think that the truth's far, far more complicated and far less romantic.
Absolutely. It was part of the larger current that broke away from medieval thinking ranging from the Rennaissance to the enlightening. We all have to thank the inhabitants of the tuscan cities (Florence, Venice in the 15th century approached some democracy for the first time since ancient roman times) for starting this, but it only gained momentum with the parallel rise of enlightened philosophers in Europe and first state constitutions and later the US constitution in America.
It was by no means a one-way flow of ideas at that time. A lot of french eggheads at that time went to America to study the emerging republic as the opposite to the absolutist monarchies in Europe and at the same time they engaged in the intellectual discourse leading to the constitution.
Soveriegn individual . . . . legacy of Cartesian rationality . . . or Rousseau?!?! Both of whom were French by the way . . . .
In the air of the times?
I'd like to point out the strong, I would even go so far as to say primary, contribution made by the Scots to this period of time, inspiring and being inspired by the French in the main and prompting Voltaire to say "we look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization."
Comments
I wonder how many countries think that they are the countrie of human rights. It's perhaps a certain form of arrogance of democratia : we are the light of the world. We are morally superior. By saying that we forgot that this values are fragile, and may be lost easily.
Freedoom is a perpetual fight.
Originally posted by midwinter
I should also add that I don't like books whose FIRST SENTENCE I've spent THREE HOURS in a seminar discussing.
VERY good point.
Originally posted by Powerdoc
It's funny that France always reffered to herself as the countrie of human rights.
I wonder how many countries think that they are the countrie of human rights. It's perhaps a certain form of arrogance of democratia : we are the light of the world. We are morally superior. By saying that we forgot that this values are fragile, and may be lost easily.
Freedoom is a perpetual fight.
I thought France always acknowledged a sort of debt to the American Revolution as a major influence (the stature of Liberty)
but anyway, yes your point is good, why does a country always think that it is THE country, instead of A country among others?!
Originally posted by pfflam
I thought France always acknowledged a sort of debt to the American Revolution as a major influence (the stature of Liberty)
but anyway, yes your point is good, why does a country always think that it is THE country, instead of A country among others?!
Yes, but i was refering to the french media. I have heard many times , this law should not be there, .... in France the countrie of human rights.
I find silly to heard this recurrent theme : the human rights are not the property of anyone, they are supposed to be universal ...
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
No.
See the history of the Dutch in South Africa c. 1700.
I hate it when I have to guess what a person's point is.
Originally posted by Towel
I hate it when I have to guess what a person's point is.
Sorry: I didn't have time to expand, and then I couldn't be bothered.
You said that the idea of the "sovereign individual" was a "uniquely American" idea because frontiersmen and homesteaders had to do everything for themselves (I paraphrase) and that the philosophy that arose from this lifestyle led, apparently inevitably, to the idea of constitutionally-enshrined human rights.
I disagree.
The whole history of the Boers, since individuals rejected the control of the Dutch East India Company for life on their homesteads, and the "trekboers" set off for the interior to be free of the British on the frontiers, is to do with independence, frontier life and not having to do what someone else tells you to do. We didn't get any over-riding concern for human rights in South Africa but we did we did get constitutionally-enshrined racism and 40+ years of fascist government.
I guess I'm saying that frontier / homestead in a colony where a lot of genocide goes on wasn't unique to North America, and judging by Africa its just as likely to lead to pretty rotten governments that don't really care for the rights of the "sovereign individual."
I think that the truth's far, far more complicated and far less romantic.
In the air of the times?
Originally posted by pfflam
In the air of the times?
Absolutely. It was part of the larger current that broke away from medieval thinking ranging from the Rennaissance to the enlightening. We all have to thank the inhabitants of the tuscan cities (Florence, Venice in the 15th century approached some democracy for the first time since ancient roman times) for starting this, but it only gained momentum with the parallel rise of enlightened philosophers in Europe and first state constitutions and later the US constitution in America.
It was by no means a one-way flow of ideas at that time. A lot of french eggheads at that time went to America to study the emerging republic as the opposite to the absolutist monarchies in Europe and at the same time they engaged in the intellectual discourse leading to the constitution.
Originally posted by pfflam
Soveriegn individual . . . . legacy of Cartesian rationality . . . or Rousseau?!?! Both of whom were French by the way . . . .
In the air of the times?
I'd like to point out the strong, I would even go so far as to say primary, contribution made by the Scots to this period of time, inspiring and being inspired by the French in the main and prompting Voltaire to say "we look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization."
For a lively account of this period, written by an American historian and therefore with some emphasis on the part played by Scots and Scottish ideas in the creation of the US as we know it today, see The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots' Invention of the Modern World
by Aurthur Herman (or to give it its slighly more explanatory American title: How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It).