'Is Rights-Talk for Expressing Possessive Individualism?' is the title here. Well, if we look at the different situations going on in the world, the answer appears to be no. When the Palestinians/Blacks/Coloured people/ use the language of rights in their social and political discourse, was it a case of possessive or rather obsessive individualistic thinking? No. So the charge that possessive individualism is in the DNA of rights-language is not true.
Go back to history. Where can we trace the language of rights being employed. Did it start with the likes of Hobbes and Locke and some have underscored? Nick argues that it started well before that. The canon lawyers in the 12th century employed such language but they were not possessive individualists. So the charge that rights-language essentially is about possessive individualism is not true. There could be cases like that specially in the West, but historically that is not the case. And even recent cases -- apartheid issue, civil right movement etc. -- tell otherwise.
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