[Why did the West go to Hell attempts to be a logical and historical explanation of the genesis of today’s Absurdistan: a world where you are evil if you say that pigs cannot fly. This is the first installment to be written but, in the unlikely case that the series is completed, it will be the first part of the sixth chapter. You can contact the author on virapala@merdeta.com]
Introducción
Today, while I am writing these lines (July 23, 2023), it is election day in my country. It is foreseen for the left-wing parties to lose the government. The electoral campaign of these parties has consisted in repeating mantras like: «We have advanced in rights so much during these years to go back», «We have created new rights for women, immigrants and LGBTI people. These rights are endangered by the new right-wing majority». The leader of the left-wing party «Sumar» asked the people to go vote to «get up tomorrow with more rights».
These mantras are based on two dogmas of liberalism (the new relativistic religion produced by the Enlightenment): progress and rights. In this series, we are going to analyze the concept of rights. This analysis will consist of three levels:
Logical level. First installment.
Clarity level. Second installment.
Pragmatic level. Third and fourth installment.
Rights as magical objects
As we have seen in the sentences above, it seems that rights are supposed to have magical qualities: they can be created ex nihilo (the same way God created the Universe), without limit and with no negative effects. All are advantages when it comes to rights. There are not downsides.
It is shocking how fishy the concept of rights is when you try to analyze it. For the Western man, «right» is a basic concept, so obvious and difficult to explain like the concept of «red». Sentences like «This is my right» or «That country violates human rights» are easy to understand by everybody in the West, whether one agrees or disagrees with them. They don’t need any explanation or definition. But what is a right?
A first approximation could start from the IS-OUGHT distinction explained by David Hume. IS refers to the reality (how things are, whether a thing is true or false) while OUGHT refers to the morality (how things ought to be, whether a thing is good or evil).
As we have seen, in a religion (or moralistic worldview) there are two parts: the IS part and the OUGHT part. It is obvious that the concept of rights belongs to the OUGHT part. When the United Nations Declarations of Human Rights says «Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person», this is not a statement of fact about reality. It doesn’t mean that there are no people who are killed, enslaved or lack security. It means that the life, liberty and security of every person OUGHT TO be respected. That is, respecting these things is GOOD.
In fact, as we will see, the concept of rights is the main language to express morality in the modern West. Sometimes, other languages are used in informal or less important contexts but the most formal and important moral matters are expressed in terms of rights.
You can see this in daily news. When the Western politicians or experts want to condemn the government of a country, they don’t say that this government is evil, that it is wicked, that it does not fulfill its obligations, that mistreats its citizens, that it is inmoral…they say that this government violates human rights. And every military campaign is justified by claiming that it is necessary to guarantee the human rights of foreign people in countries that most Westerners cannot locate in a map. This is the modern way to say that the campaign is a moral crusade, which is fighting for the good, while his opponents are evil.
Morality in other cultures
However, when we study history, it is shocking to see that the concept of rights, which structures all morality in Western civilization, is relatively parochial. It has arisen only in one culture (the West) and only for the last centuries. Of course, the modern West has exported this concept to other cultures, but this is a only product of Westernization. «Rights» remains an indigenous concept of the West and its origin and development are part of the history of Western philosophy. I will not explain here the history of the concept of rights, because it will be long and it is not difficult to find on the Internet. In fact, when I use «right», I refer to its current understanding, although philosophers of the past understood the concept differently.
The books of history describe entire civilizations that lasted centuries or millennia without having the concept of rights. How did they regulate morality, then? They must have had another concepts.
It may be useful to include some examples to see if we can identify a pattern. These examples are taken from the Bible and the appendix of «The Abolition of Man» by C.S.Lewis:
- «Thou shalt not kill» (Exodus 20:13)
- «Utter not a word by which anyone could be wounded.» (Hindu. Janet, p. 7)
- «Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you.’ (Ancient Chinese. Analects of Confucius, trans. A. Waley, xv. 23; cf. xii. 2)
- ‘The first point of justice is that none should do any mischief to another unless he has first been attacked by the other’s wrongdoing» (Roman. Cicero, De Off. i. vii)
- Children, obey your parents […]. “Honor your father and mother” […] Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger (Ephesians 6:1-4)
If we analyze the first example, we will see that its logical content is equivalent to the modern expression «Every person has a right to life». If a man has a right to life, it means that nobody should kill him (or «shalt not kill him», to use the King James Version language so cherished by English-speaking people).
That is to say, «Thou shalt not kill» is the same piece of morality as «Every person has a right to life» but expressed in a different manner, without the concept of rights. But the emphasis has radically changed. The ancient version emphasizes the agent of the action (the person who could kill) while the modern version emphasizes the receiver of the action (the person who could be killed). To say it in a linguistic manner, the focus has moved from the SUBJECT to the OBJECT.
You can see that the other examples also focus on the agent. Whatever the linguistic expression of the ancient examples, it is clear that all of them could be expressed using SHOULD or OUGHT TO.
- You should not kill
- You should not wound with your tongue.
- You should never do to others what you would not like them to do to you
- You should not do any mischief to another unless he has first been attacked by the other’s wrongdoing
- You should obey and honor your parents. You should not provoke your children to anger.
And this is the way the ancient and non-Western civilizations expressed morality. Not as RIGHTS, but as OBLIGATIONS (also known as «duties»). Not saying that a somebody (a beneficiary) but that somebody (an agent) has an obligation.
The language of rights and the language of obligations
The same way that an object cannot have a front without a back, it is impossible to have rights without obligations. My right to life is everyone else’s obligation not to kill me. My right to private property is the obligation for everybody not to use my property without my permission. My right to «gender identity» is the obligation of everybody else to lie to me.
In short, rights and obligations are two sides of the same coin. This coin can be called «moral claim» and you can look at it from the front and you will see rights, while if you look at it from behind you will see obligations. But it is the same coin. «Thou shalt not kill» and «You have a right to life» is the same moral claim, expressed with different languages.
In general, there are two languages to express morality: the language of rights and the language of obligations. The former is used by the modern West and the latter by everybody else. They are logically equivalents, although the translation between them is sometimes difficult. Let’s try the translation of the ancient examples of obligations included above into the language of rights:
- Every person has a right to life.
- Every person has the right not to be wounded by the tongue of another person (this seems eerily modern, like the justification of «safe spaces»).
- Every person has the right of not being done actions that others would not want for themselves.
- Every person has the right not to be object of mischief if he is not attacking another person.
- Every person has a right to be honored and obeyed by his children. Every person has a right not to be provoked to anger by his parents.
The same way, you can translate rights to the language of obligations. The sentence «Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person» could be translated into «You should not kill, enslave or threaten the security of any other person». Put a «Thou» and a «shalt» in it and it seems a Biblical commandment.
For years, it seemed obvious to me that rights and obligations are the same thing, expressed in a different language. But I was surprised that this was not a common fact acknowledged by everybody. I tried to find some thinker that had written about this topic but Google searches were in vain.
Then, some days ago, when I was writing this text, I decided to give ChatGPT a go and it didn’t disappoint me. It seems that Simone Weil (a Jewish philosopher close to Christianity who I didn’t know at all) had written about this topic. Her book «The need for roots» (1943) starts with:
It makes nonsense to say that men have, on the one hand, rights, and on the other hand, obligations. Such words only express differences in point of view. The actual relationship between the two is as between object and subject.
(Of course, quoting famous people is only a form of puppetry: you include the few quotes that agree with your own thought and disregard the rest, which are the vast majority of quotes. So you give the impression of having the best minds in the history of mankind backing your opinion while each one of them only agrees with a tiny point of your argument. But you can do it because they are dead so they can’t protest that you are stealing their words for your own ends.)
The linguistics of rights and obligation
In English (as in many languages), there are two ways of expressing a sentence: the active voice and the passive voice, depending whether we want to emphasize the agent (who or what does the action) or the patient (who or what receives the action).
In the active voice, the grammar structure is AGENT ACTION PATIENT. For example:
Lee H. Osvald murdered John F. Kennedy.
In the passive voice, the grammar structure is PATIENT be ACTION [by AGENT], where «by AGENT» can be omitted (and it is often omitted). (In this text, the square brackets mean that the element can be omitted)
John F. Kennedy was murdered by Lee H. Osvald
Or simply
John F. Kennedy was murdered.
English writing style guides (and Microsoft Word) recommends the active voice: it is easier to understand and conveys more information because the agent cannot be omitted.
All the examples written above are statements of fact, that is, belong to the IS part of the IS-OUGHT distinction. They describe reality, how the world is (see here for more details).
In English, if we want to produce similar active or passive sentences but related to the OUGHT part (that is, describing morality, how the world should be), we have to use the modal verbs of obligation (such as should, ought to, have to).
In the modal active voice, we have something along the lines of AGENT should ACTION PATIENT:
You should not kill anybody [«Thou shalt not kill»]
Instead of AGENT should ACTION PATIENT, we can say «AGENT has an obligation/duty of ACTION to PATIENT»
- You have the obligation of not killing anybody.
- You have the obligation of respecting the life of anybody
This is the language of obligations: an alternative grammar structure for the active voice with modal verbs of obligation.
In the passive voice, the use of modal verbs of obligation produces something like PATIENT should be ACTION [by AGENT], where this last clause is optional
Nobody should be killed [by anybody]
Or, in a similar manner,
Everybody has the right not to be killed [by anybody]
Or, to say it in another way:
Everybody has the right to life (and here the agent cannot be added, although it is obvious)
So we see that the language of rights is only a linguistic form to express the OUGHT part in a passive sentence. It is an alternative grammar structure of a modal passive sentence. Instead of saying PATIENT should be ACTION [by AGENT], we say PATIENT has a right of ACTION [by AGENT], where the last clause can be omitted.
In short,
| IS (verb without modals) | OUGHT (modal verbs of obligation) | |
| Active | (1) AGENT ACTION PATIENT | (3) AGENT should ACTION PATIENT AGENT has an obligation/duty of ACTION to PATIENT |
| Passive | (2) PATIENT be ACTION [by AGENT] | (4) PATIENT should be ACTION [by AGENT] PATIENT has a right of ACTION [by AGENT] |
(3b) is the language of obligations and (4b) is the language of rights.
Some examples:
(1) Children normally obey their parents
(2) Parents are normally obeyed [by their children]
(3) Children should obey their parents (or «You have the duty to obey your parents»)
(4) Parents should be obeyed [by their children] or «Parents have the right to be obeyed [by their children]»
You may see that the formulation with the language of rights is the most convoluted, more difficult to understand and more prone to drop the clause «by their children». This makes it prone to manipulation. We are going to see all the ways it can be use to manipulate people.
So what’s the deal?
So if the language of rights and the language of obligations are logically equivalent, if it is the same content expressed in a different manner, what is the fuss about? Cannot we choose the language we like the most?
No, because human beings are not only rational and logical. The language we use shapes our thoughts, our feelings, our worldview. It makes easy to think some ideas and makes difficult to think some other ideas. You see this all around us: when the power wants to forbid an idea, invents a new word to make the idea seem ugly and immoral. We control the language but, in a certain way, the language controls us too. George Orwell explains this well in 1984.
An example of this is the translations from a language of obligations to a language of duties that appear above. These translations produce cumbersome sentences, that are difficult to think, remember or convert into mantras for propaganda or massive consumption.
So what are the consequences for the modern West to have chosen the language of rights instead of the language of obligations, like everyone else? We will see this in the next three installments.
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Language of obligations is straightforward. Has the following structure: AGENT OBLIGATION BENEFICIARY. The object is often implicit but it is obvious to find out.
Language of obligations is SUBJECT has the right of RIGHT [by the AGENT] where «by the AGENT» is often dropped and not obvious to find out.
Who is the responsible to produce this right or obligation? Shall not litter. Muddles responsibility.
In fact, the language of rights makes easy to forget that there is somebody responsible, that there is some obligation. It seems that there are only disavantages.
This is why the left-wing parties and politicians in general speak of rights in the campaigns, because it seems something positive while an obligation is imposed on layers of the populations.
This is the fact why everybody is talking about his rights. It tries to impose obligations on the rest of society while disguising the fact that these obligations are being imposed. It is a manipulative action by normal people and politicians.
The right to pedophilia. These are the new rights. Only five years ago and it seems Moses. So you are a meanie denying a right.
In Western society, the concept of rights has scope creep. The rights of children, women, LGBTI, migrants… This is the way the power and the groups of pressure favored by the power imposes obligations to the majority of the population without noticing that an obligation has been imposed.
Fight people with each other.
As a result, the rights is a tool of parasitism. The right to education of bad students. Western civilization is invaded by a set of parasites that are incompatible with each other.
Without the tommyrot.
But what is a right, anyway. An obligation is easy to grasp:
Not a symmetry. It is a convoluted and manipulative way to talk about obligations.
Right after right, we are being put in chains.