[governance] right to development, the structure of IGC and IG issues for march deadline

[David Allen]

It is helpful to have debate, respectful debate.  Ad hominem attacks, by contrast, disturb the force and pollute our prospects, in a fundamentally disruptive way.

At 1:52 PM +0100 3/9/06, John Mathiason wrote:
>Just an addition to the debate. One reason that the "right to development" has been controversial is that it is often seen as a collective, rather than an individual right. Human rights have usually been seen as pertaining to individuals rather than collectivities. The issue becomes complicated if a collective right (say, national security) can be seen as trumping an individual right (say, right to free expression).

This seems to go to one heart of differences here.  It does not say what has not already been said.  But it distills a focus - and we need to get at underlying differences, in assumptions.  Then we may talk about our differences in a way that has prospect to identify where the common ground is missing.

As noted earlier, there are discernible streaks in social thinking.  Anglo attitudes do seem to favor the individual; Continental Europe and some Asian societies do find a greater place for the collective.  It seems.  Though such generalizations are fragile - at the very best - with so much variety as to invite great caution in their use.  And many other great civilizations have been of course left out of this little thought ...

To the extent that this distinction does apply, we can see how some would be more comfortable with 'rights' for a community - when others would be more inclined to restrict the term to individual action.  As the writer all but leads us to see.

Since we live in a world where wo/man is - unavoidably - social, we need to find a way across this, fairly stark, difference in understanding.  The individual must have its due; equally, the community will be a potent force.

This makes one of the most intriguing puzzles - for me anyway, of course.  At least now perhaps we have some pointer, where to concentrate puzzlement.  Between and among us.

David

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