Human rights are one of the great tasks of our civilisation. This article discusses the importance of this task along with our personal responsibility to be involved.
When I was writing the introduction to Human Rights, there were a number of things I wanted to discuss which would have made it too long to be an introduction. Some of these thoughts are fleshed out here, such as the idea of speciesism, states and other structural issues.
The massacres in Rwanda were an event that touched me deeply, and taught me much about the world. Here are a couple of good summary articles about why the west should also learn from them.
Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist
Part of my attraction to this book is that I enjoyed his previous bestseller Fast Food Nation so much. I am from the generation that took the threat of nuclear annihilation more seriously. The cold war was still happening right through my formative years. We watched movies like "The Day After" and "The China Syndrome". The news was dominated by stories of conflict between the United States and the USSR. The debate between capitalism and democracy, authoritarianism and communism, was very real in our lives. Nuclear weapons and nuclear war were something we thought about often. Damocles underpinned our lives...