Human Rights between Ruptures and Continuity
(2018) Global Interdependencies. Norbert Elias Conference Brussels 2018 — Location: Bruxelles (5.December.2018)
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- Abstract
- Are ‘human rights’ just the ‘last utopia’ of our epoch, as Samuel Moyn wrote it in his famous book published in 2010? Do they have nothing in common with the rights of man of the 18th century, or on the contrary, does there exist a profound not only philosophical but also historical continuity between them? This paper aims to shed light on these questions from a sociological standpoint. Sociology has long displayed a certain scepticism vis-à-vis human rights. The paper firstly proposes to rehearse the reasons for this indifference and proposes an overview of the numerous works in contemporary sociology nonetheless devoted to human rights. Then it mainly aims to explore the path opened up by the long-term approach developed by Norbert Elias from the thirties. For the latter, in an era of globalised interdependences, the development of human rights may constitute the fragile indicator of the construction of a political community on the scale of humanity. More broadly, an examination of the claims related to the rights of man and after to human rights reveals both certain continuity and profound transformations since the 18th century, following the example of the evolution of the central role played by the State. Finally, the paper questions the capacity of such utopia as the human rights of being a medium connecting historical and sociological perspectives, on the one side, and philosophical and political ones, on the other side. At the end, for Elias (1991 [1987]), the globalisation ultimately threatens the state as an effective survival unit and makes possible – even necessary, through the dangers it brings about – a global mobilisation of the rights of man, or more accurately human rights, in the 20th century: not only by individuals against the State, but also by individuals in the name of humanity, a concept which is certainly hazy, but obviously more concrete in the 21st century than in the 18th century.
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Delmotte, F., & Damay, L. (2018). Human Rights between Ruptures and Continuity. Global Interdependencies. Norbert Elias Conference Brussels 2018, Bruxelles. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/172340