{"id":1804,"date":"2013-04-05T21:25:35","date_gmt":"2013-04-05T19:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.matthieuricard.org\/rights-and-aspirations\/"},"modified":"2013-04-05T21:25:35","modified_gmt":"2013-04-05T19:25:35","slug":"rights-and-aspirations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matthieuricard.org\/en\/rights-and-aspirations\/","title":{"rendered":"Rights and Aspirations"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Thorbjorn Jagland, the Chairman of the Nobel Prize Committee said at the recent ceremony in Norway: \u201fPeople like Liu Xiaobo are not dissidents, they represents the world’s common values and standards.\u201d Pointing to Liu Xiaobo’s empty chair, Jagland said: \u201fThis fact alone suggests that the Price was necessary and appropriate.\u201d He also reminded us of past Nobel Peace Laureates who were not allowed by their oppressive government to come and receive their prize.\n<\/p>\n

\nJagland strongly emphasized the parallel of democracy and human rights. The definition and the very meaning of \u201fhuman rights\u201d continue to raise much controversy.\u00a0 Western democracies focus on the unalienable rights of the individual and, on the other side, some eastern cultures stress either group values (the family\/the village community) or state values (law and order as defined by a particular form of government, often authoritarian). From these differences arise countless arguments and both sides want to impose their views on the other.\n<\/p>\n

\nIs the individual sacred or should the benefit of a larger group matter more? Utilitarians and defenders of Kantian ethics have been endlessly debating this question.
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\nThese arguments could be simplified by keeping in mind our common goals. Fundamentally no one wants to suffer and everyone aspires to achieve a state of wellbeing. Are those who are fighting for a particular form of \u201frights\u201d honestly and genuinely considering the interest of others? The interest of the smaller or the greater number of people? Are they doing it for their short or long-term benefit?\n<\/p>\n

\nIn the real world, both of these ideas of \u201fhuman rights\u201d fail when they are biased by selfishness. The concept of \u201findividual rights\u201d easily leads to the triumph of self-centeredness and ignores the fact that we are all interdependent. The idea of \u201fcollective well-being\u201d more than often leads to the oppression of the masses by an authoritarian elite that defines how people should live, usually for the chief purpose of remaining in control.
\n
\nWhat both sides disregard is simply that every member of society wants to avoid suffering and experience happiness.\n<\/p>\n

\nRather than using the dogmatic word \u201frights\u201d it would be more accurate to focus on the aspirations of each individual and of the community as a whole to avoid suffering and to flourish in life. Acknowledging and respecting these aspirations is much more likely to bring about genuine satisfaction both at the level of the individual and of society. Such respect leads to the notion of \u201fduties\u201d, or more exactly the sense \u201fresponsibility\u201d that we should feel towards others. The principle of \u201funiversal responsibility\u201d to which the Dalai Lama often refers to, is another way to express the interdependent nature of all beings and phenomena.
\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thorbjorn Jagland, the Chairman of the Nobel Prize Committee said at the recent ceremony in Norway: \u201fPeople like Liu Xiaobo are not dissidents, they represents the world’s common values and standards.\u201d Pointing to Liu Xiaobo’s empty chair, Jagland said: \u201fThis fact alone suggests that the Price was necessary and appropriate.\u201d He also reminded us of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthieuricard.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthieuricard.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthieuricard.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthieuricard.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthieuricard.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthieuricard.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthieuricard.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthieuricard.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthieuricard.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}