Beyond Human Rights by Alain de Benoist

Author:Alain de Benoist [Benoist, Alain de]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: General, iron_pill_short, Social Science
ISBN: 9781907166204
Google: CRXdIASE9LAC
Amazon: 1907166203
Publisher: Arktos
Published: 2011-07-15T19:22:32.039364+00:00

To posit that what comes first is not the individual but the group does not at all signify that the individual is ‘enclosed’ in the group, but rather that he acquires his individuality only in connection with a social relationship which is also a constituent of his being. That does not signify either that the desire to escape despotism, coercion or ill treatment does not exist everywhere. Between the individual and the group, tensions may surge. That fact is indeed universal. But what is not at all universal is the belief according to which the best means of preserving freedom is to posit, in an abstract manner, an individual deprived of all his concrete characteristics, disconnected from all his natural and cultural affiliations. There are conflicts in all cultures, but in the majority of them, the vision of the world which predominates is not a conflicting vision (the individual against the group), but a ‘cosmic’ vision organised according to the order and the natural harmony of things. Each individual has his role to play in the whole into which he is positioned, and the role of political power is to ensure as best it can this coexistence and this harmony, which is the guarantee of eternity. Just as power is universal but the forms of power are not, the desire for freedom is universal, whereas the ways of responding to it can vary considerably.

The problem becomes especially acute when the social or cultural practices denounced in the name of human rights are not imposed practices but customary practices, evidently enjoying widespread popularity amidst given populations (which does not mean that they are never criticised by them). How can a doctrine founded on the free disposition of individuals by themselves oppose it? If the men should be left free to do what they want as long as the use of their freedom does not encroach upon that of the others, why could not peoples of whom certain customs appear to us shocking or condemnable be left free to practice them as long as they do not seek to impose them on others?

The classic example is that of female circumcision, still practiced today in numerous countries of Black Africa (as well as in certain Muslim countries). It is quite evidently a question of a harmful practice, but it is difficult to extract it from an entire cultural and social context in which it is, on the contrary, considered as morally good and socially necessary: an uncircumcised woman will not be able to get married and will not be able to have children, which is why the women who are circumcised are the first to have their daughters circumcised. The question arises of determining in the name of what one can prohibit a custom which is not imposed on anybody. The only reasonable reply is that one can only provoke the people concerned to reflect on its favourableness, that is to say, to encourage an internal critique of the considered practice. It is those men and women whom the problem essentially concerns who should grapple with it.

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