Do I have any right to rights?

written by Julie R. Neidlinger      1 comments      link this post     


I was reading Rod Dreher's Cruncy Con blog and one post jumped out at me. In it, Dreher uses an excerpt from Stanley Hauerwas, who talks about abortion and Christians in terms of how American ideals of personal "rights" create a gap in not just beliefs on the matter but also in having a foundation to even begin talking about abortion.

Hauerwas stated:

"...I want to argue that America is the only country that has the misfortune of being founded on a philosophical mistake--namely, the notion of inalienable rights."

I want to take this beyond the abortion discussion into the idea of personal rights in general. I am also not talking about rights given and taken by the law.

The seemingly good notion of setting up inalienable rights as a foundation for this country has had the unfortunate side effect of people pulling it into a personal level and imagining all kinds of rights; our natural inclination as human beings is take something and run amok. You might think I'm being extreme, but check out this ad for selling bathtubs. If we carry the idea of personal, private rights out to the extreme, what don't I have the right to do? For the few times I've suffered through reality TV, I'm always amazed at the constant abuse of the idea of some bizarre set of rights being violated.

My blog's end user license agreement (EULA) is long-winded and excessively sarcastic. It has grown over the years I've had a blog mainly due to the fact that every person seems to think he or she has the right to do whatever they want, including the things I address over in my EULA.

I disagree.

There are some things, some places, and some times when you and I have limited or no rights. Life does not consist of individual people as circles that do not overlap nor bump; it is, instead, circles laid out like chains, criss-crossing and twisting together. The insistence of all personal rights does affect the rights of someone else in some way.

A friend recently gave me some things to read, from which I highlighted the following quote by Einstein:

"Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity."

In the margin of the paper, I wrote the following:

I would add/change that to 'everybody acting under internal compulsion with disregard for external necessity.'

You already know in what direction I lean, in a slight sense, if you read the first item on the list in this post. I've found that my life is made more miserable as I try to hold onto and fend for my own, personal rights. There's no shortage of people, despite what Dr. Phil or Oprah might tell you, happy to stand up for themselves and what's good for them. There is a shortage of people willing to lay themselves aside for another.

The idea that I have a set of rights necessarily means that I will, at some point, have a conflict with everyone in every situation. The idea that I have a set of rights that I must defend for myself necessarily means that I must trample on someone in some way to keep my rights.

Now, this is neither here nor there if you are not a Christian. I'm coming at this from the point that Hauerwas was saying when he pointed out the following:

We Christians do not believe that we have inalienable rights. That is the false presumption of Enlightenment individualism, and it opposes everything that Christians believe about what it means to be a creature.

Christ came to serve, not to preserve the rights of his followers in this world. That is why I am often uncomfortable with the political leanings and machinings of the Christian Right, a name that, I often wonder, may carry a double meaning for those marching under its banner.

Rights, either the taking or defending of, involve power and control. This applies to all areas of life. As I was reading about Rob Bell's new book over at the Fishing the Abyss blog, this concept was made clear in the area of love/marriage. Bell is quote as saying the following:

"In marriage, you’re talking about power and control only when something central to the whole relationship has fallen apart."

Bell then talks about I Corinthians 7:3-4, and asks the following:

So, which is it?
Is his body hers or her body his?
Who has the authority in this passage?
The only proper answer is yes.
Which is it? Yes.
"I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine."

Me me me. What's good for me. What I want to do. What my rights are. You can't tell me what to do. You can't make me do anything I don't want to. I'm going to do it my way. I'm going to do what I want to do. You can't make me give up my rights.

Before I am an American, I am a Christian. If you are a follower of Christ, and are demanding your earthly rights, your personal rights, your political rights -- something central to your whole relationship with Christ has broken apart. You are not your own; you are Christ's, and he is yours.


Links:

• Crunchy Con post
• Fishing the Abyss post
• UPDATE LINK: Dad29 has a post based on this same idea by Hauerwas.

Labels: essay, religion

Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger      3/17/2007 12:27:00 PM      (1) comments      Links to this post    
SHARE THIS POST: Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

  Like this post? Subscribe to the feed.     Click here to help support this site.

SHARE THIS POST: Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

This site and contents copyright © Julie R. Neidlinger. All rights reserved.

B9 d++ t k s u-- f i- o++ x-- e l c--