Towards a more comprehensive look at “Individual Rights and Freedoms”

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Hey You!

First of all, let me say that in the past I have felt a bit uncomfortable saying merely “Hey Guys” because many feel that only refers to men.

Some women do, however, use the term when addressing everyone. And probably not all women like the term “Gals,” which is another way to try to be more inclusive. Also, we have people who see themselves as non-binary, which adds yet another wrinkle to the problem.

Sometimes I use “Folks” but only when I’m in sort of an American mood. I’m not in that mood today and would like to keep my writing style just as fluid as some see their own genders. For me, it is essential to be a fluid writer because contexts, situations, perceived issues and influences are dynamic, not static.

So I leave it open to suggestions on how best to informally address my readers.

What’s Next?

The next point I’d like to make is about why I choose certain Think Free entries on certain days for updating. Honestly, there is no fixed plan here, other than I simply do what’s next in line, even if I am not totally enthused about that particular topic at a given moment. I find it interesting when sometimes the next topic in line, which I may have initially written over a decade ago, seems incredibly relevant to today.

As you can see, I am revising in more or less alphabetical order. It’s not perfectly alphabetical because some years ago I updated topics that interested me before revising the next in line and I am also modifying titles as I go along. But these days, I’m just doing what’s next in my WordPress dashboard. (Except for Jack Kerouac who has been sitting in the same place since 2011 because that’s just a tag leading to two broken links.)

This is the case with the next entry I’m updating. I actually began studying the idea of individual rights and freedoms in an Indian book back in the 1980s. The scholar referred to Indian society but as part of the Commonwealth of Nations, there are great similarities between the Indian and Canadian outlooks, Canada also belonging to the Commonwealth.

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Individual Rights and Freedoms

Individual Rights and Freedoms is a political ideal that aims to defend the fundamental rights of an individual within society. However, once put into actual practice, defining and upholding the idea of individual rights and freedoms usually presents an ongoing challenge.

Detail from Corrupt Legislation. A girl standing in the ruins of a brick wall shows an empty spindle and distaff to a throned personification of corrupt legislation, which holds a one-sided balance by gripping the balance beam. To the other side, an elderly figure reading from a book labelled “law” places a (money?) bag on the balance’s one pan. Also, among the law books is a full vase spilling what may be voting slips, suggesting a rigged voting system. Mural by Elihu Vedder. Lobby to Main Reading Room, Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C. Main figure is seated atop a pedestal saying “CORRUPT LEGISLATION”. Artist’s signature is dated 1896. – Wikipedia

For sociologists like Zygmunt Baumann, modern democracies exhibit an uneasy tension between individual freedoms on the one hand and individual rights on the other hand.

The problem is this:

How can individuals be perfectly free while belonging to a society that by definition requires some kind of functional interdependence?

What if, for example, your neighbor’s freedom to have a party interferes with your right to sleep at night (or if you work the night shift, their freedom to have a party during the daytime)?

Due to potential conflicts like these, we have policies and laws that are continually being created or modified to try to protect and promote individual rights and freedoms, as well as the ideals upheld by a given social body.

Polish philosopher Zygmunt Bauman in Teatro Dal Verme (Milan, Italy).

This sounds great. But some like Scott Turow suggest that policies and laws do not necessarily solve problems because justice systems often favor high-status at the expense of lower-status groups. And in unduly corrupt societies, legal systems tend to go lightly on some offenders while slamming others.

Even worse, in some countries policies and laws could actually be created or modified to suit the desire of criminals who influence policymakers and politicians through intimidation and bribes or some weird variant of the Stockholm syndrome. Alternately some regimes could see changes effected by policymakers and politicians who themselves are criminals.

Academics and pundits on international news outlets rarely talk about corruption and crime influencing and degrading their own society. Sure, they may talk about “gang-related shootings” but seldomly about the white-collar criminals behind that violence, as if street gangs are not connected to an intricate, international web of illicit activity.

Related » Psychosis, Corruption