THIS DRIVES ME CRAZY: Today is a reading day in advance of more writing tomorrow (and a finished draft Sunday/Monday). The following was a little vexing to read, though emblematic of a conceptual confusion surrounding human rights:
Start of paragraph 1: "The Universal Declaration [of Human Rights], for example, like any list of human rights, specifies minimum conditions for a dignified life, a life worthy of a human being."
Start of paragraph 2: "Human rights are at once a utopian ideal and a realistic practice for implementing that ideal."
So... human rights are both minimal and utopian? Oy.
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
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