Jason: I replied to you about conversation and happiness in the replies to that post (thanks, David, for relocating Jason’s comment.)
As for “human rights”, the term does not mean “given by humans” but “inherent to all humans no matter what”; human rights are the rights of humans because they are humans. A constitution does not create them, but gives them a special, transcendent status, within a legal system.
(Sorry for the delayed response, I’ve been busy. :)
]]>You know, the smallest minority is the individual !
]]>I agree with you Jason. Daniel Greenberg in one other of his essays, “Subtleties of a Democratic School” writes:
“…..Item 5: Protecting the Rights of individuals
This school has a strong tradition that there exist rights belonging to every individual member of the school community, and that these have to be protected in every way possible…..”
And the other four items: Political neutrality, The existence of rules of order, The rule of law, and Universal suffrage.
]]>Daniel Greenberg in his essay “Five Myths about Democracy” writes: “‘Democracy’ seems to mean many things to many people. To the regimes of Eastern Europe it designates an autocratic one-party rule conducted for the presumed benefit of the masses; to the New Englander it designates universal suffrage in an open town meeting; to the Founding Fathers of this country it designated a complex system of representation and checks and balances. And so on it goes. When the Sudbury Valley School was founded as a ‘democratic school’ we naively thought that there would be widespread understanding of what this meant. It turned out that different people had quite different conceptions of what kind of institution a ‘democratic school’ should be, and that even the members of the school community differed considerably on the question.
Does that imply that the word ‘democracy’ is essentially meaningless, and that it cannot be used in ordinary conversation or written communication to convey a definite meaning? I do not think so. I think that there is, in fact, a core of meaning that this word conveys to all who use the English language discriminatingly, and that difficulties arise only through carelessness (or occasionally through conscious deceit). I think that for the most part our own problems with this word in the school arise from our failure to explore its meaning in depth. As a result, we have too often been satisfied with vague definitions that missed the mark and led to controversy….”
And, that is the question: “To be, or not to be,” or….. what to be.
Cheers, ….and welcome back,
~ David