The question of human rights

By Kashi Tanaka

At the end of this month The Summit of Americas will begin. At the top of delegates' agendas will be the concept of a free trade agreement that will per• manently affect humans from Ellesmere Island to Drake Passage. Outside the conference thousands of protesters will attempt to have their concerns heard and recognized. A fundamental concern of protesters will be the consideration of human rights for the citizens in the countries effected by a t!ade agreement. However, I feel anxiety over human rights Is often misguided. Do human beings have rights? As students of UCFV, we legally have a claim to several rights under the Canadian Constitution. Some of these rights are widely accepted in Western Society. For example, the right to equal representation or the right to a fair trial. Conversely some of our rights are quite unique in the global community such as universal medical care or, more recently, the right we have been given to marry whomever we so desire, even If our intended spouse is the same sex. Although these rights affect human beings, are they human rights? I would argue they are not, but rather Canadian rights for those entities that are considered human. This qualification would also apply to the United Nations Charter of Human Rights. This covenant does not identify human rights; it indi· cates what rights should be extended to the citi· zens of the countries who have ratified this docu• ment. Therefore, what Is a human right? In answering this question, perhaps we should ask what do we want a human right to assert and to what degree? American philosopher Delos B. McKown empha• sizes that, when regarding rights, "[nothing] is gained by proclaiming an alleged human posses• sion whose principal condition, it would seem, could be denied or violated.• He is in essence stating that there Is no point establishing a human right if that claim can be refuted or ignored. It would seem, therefore, that a human right should be unalienable. Moreover, I would suggest that the justification of claiming a right needs to be logically fundamental to being human. That is to say a rigl1t should be based upon human need and not on human desires. Therefore, I would propose that if we are going to declare a human right it Will have to be absolute, universal, and have appeal to the t1umanity of an Individual.

Let's consider the source of what should be con• sidered a human right. American professor Anselm Atkins stipulates that, ''A right is something furnished, granted to, or bestowed upon someone. It comes from outside - something "extra" to the being. It is something on which a claim is laid.'' In the American Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson imparts that "all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." The appeal to a Supreme Being is an ever-present method of determining the content of humar, rights. However, this is a problematic source if you do not have faith. Personally I do not find the notion of God bestowing rights upon us appealing or logical. Therefore, I propose that reli· gious influences have absolutely no weight in determining human rights. If we adopt an atheistic position, then there are two additional argued sources of human rights to consider. The first is based upon moral foundations, which I would argue can provide adequate justification for legal rights but are incongruous for establishing human rights. The second source appeals to nature. This appeal can either refer to a natural power from which we derive a system of human rights or it can refer to a right that is an inherent part of our nature. In the former case I would suggest that this argument is implausible, however, if we consider the latter then I think we have a legitimate basis for a claim.

The concept of using morals to justify human rights Is popular because morals usually appeal to notions that we generally consider good for humanity. For example, most societies consider murder - the deliberate taking of another's life morally reprehensible, and thus the preservation of human life would logically seem to be an important human right. However, using moral theories to substantiate human rights is problematic because I would argue that morals are mutable. Reconsider the notion of murder; a society may declare the preservation of life to be a human right while also condoning capital punishment or the use of lethal force in protecting economic concerns. In this simple case it would appear that societies could draw up ideal human rights using a moral argument without ever realistic'ally adhering to them. That is to say that societies prescribe to human rights they will not or can not enforce. Rights that in essence are neither absolute nor universal. Perhaps I am wrong in this reasoning and lf so I challenge any students of moral philosophy classes to show me a moral right that can be legitimately considered a human right. I conveyed previously that nature could be regard· ed in two distinct approaches when it is being used as a basis for human rights. Classical approaches like John Locke's Second Treatise of Government appeal to a natural power that bestows rights upon humans. In his work regarding natural rights, Locke imparts that "[the] state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone." The reasoning seems that regardless of the exis• tence of a Supreme Being - which I have already disregarded - nature has levied certain rights for human beings. I think that this line of reasoning Is fundamentally flawed, as there does not appear to be any proof in the natural world that nature has given us any rights whatsoever. In his essay ''Human Rights are Cultural Artifacts," Atkins suggests that the natural world does not bestow rights upon us. Humans, like any other living entity, have no natural claim to sustenance, shelter or the chance of procreation, to talk about a "natural right" to life or any other good seem absurd. Nature guarantees nothing, and we in turn, have no claims on nature. We have wants and needs, to be sure. and we try to satisfy these as best we can. But whether or not we succeed is of no concern to nature. McKown also recognizes nature's apathetic lack of regard for human kind. In his essay "Demythologizing Natural Human Rights'' he asserts, if we [humansJ have objective, inherent, natural rights and Immunities while animals have none, it is very puzzling that nature treats us all so indiscriminately and disregards the interests of individual organisms - whether human or animal - with such sublime indifference. Nature seems oblivious to any natural right to life, to say nothing of similar rights to freedom and the pursuit of happiness. What both of these philosophers refer to is what the lay man would call the law of nature or the notion of survival of the fittest. Consider the shipwrecked castaway; nature certainly does not grant this Individual a right to food. shelter, or even life. It is clear that humans are not favoured by nature and therefore an appeal to nature as a source of human rights seems illogical. The alternative approach to assuming natural rights is to examine what it is to be human in nature. If we are to claim a right by virtue of our inherent nature as human beings then I think there is a credible candidate for a human right. If we refuse to regard human rights as prlma facie entities, that instead they must be concrete and consti· tute something that humanity has funda• mental claim to, then I would propose that humans have one right. That right is the right to be considered human. I would suggest that this right requires that when other humans regard you - because we can not apply this to any ,other enti· ties (i.e. telling a horse he has to recognize me as a human would be silly) - they regard you as a being that possesses the qualities of a human. I would propose that this right satisfies both the need for universality and the notion of absoluteness. There is no situation where a human can be deemed any less or any more than a human being. I accept that this right may initially appear to have little significance or magnitude. Regardless of whether a person is recognized as being human, one can still be king or cannon fodder. One's existence may still be marginalized and one's plight may still be treated with disdain, but I think the recognition of humanness is of paramount importance. Acknowledgement of humanness means that every member of human society must concede that all other members have similar physiological, sociological and psychological attributes. This belief of equality is wonderfully articulated by Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice. In this play the protagonist Shylock is defending his race, but he also extolling the equality of man. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands. organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer. If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?

Being recognized as human ls not a right about safety, sustenance or survival. On Its own it will not prevent or permit action to be done to humans, nor does it limit what humans do to each other or the environment around them. What it does is force humans to regard all members of humanity as enti· ties like themselves. Any member of society can demand the recognition of humanness as a right. As I have alluded, this right will not guarantee that all individuals are treated fairly, kindly or even humanely. However, if this right were universally known I would suggest that we would treat our fellow man better. In this century prejudices and intolerance gave rise to Auschwitz and Hiroshima. While I realize several factors led to these atrocities, I think the recogni• tion of the humanness of our fellow man would have prevented these tragedies. In Quebec City negotiations will start on April 20th: I wonder if the delegates WIii consider their fellow humans as equals? It they did I would feel no need to protest the ambitions of this summit. Sadly, I have misgivings that this will not be the case. The protesters in Quebec City deserve our wholehearted support because they are ensuring that the one true human right we possess Is respected.

On Socialism

By Susan Magnusson

If I thought anyone was actually going to read this, I would have to come up with a different title. No one wants to read another diatribe by a socialist on socialism. But I was told that people do not read their own newspaper, therefore I can be honest and I still won't get in any trouble. The other reason I'm doing this is because I listened to a fellow student complain about all the mature students in her classes. She complained of individuals who had exciting and varied life experiences and she wondered how she was sup• posed to compete with their knowledge. I am constantly amazed by the intelligence of the students in my classes. I find it very intimidating and thrilling because I'm not very bright myself. I have lived for fifty years ("Oh no· a fitly year old socialist"). Not an exciting or varied life, but I have stumbled through all those years and I wonder if I learned anything along the way. Okay, now that I have lost the rest of my readership, what do I have to say? Why was I asked to write an article on socialism? From reading the Cascade l can see that there are many very knowledgeable people who are obviously a lot smarter than I am, and Who have studied socialism and all the other -isms. But I am one of the few card•carrylng members of the Socialist Party in the Fraser Valley and so I guess I should try to explain why, after all these years of abysmal failure to elect a member of my party from my constituency, I still continue to support the socialists. A recent experience with large corporations has influenced my continued support of socialism. My son, through hard work, achieved several scholarships in high school. One of these scholarships was from the Government of Canada, we thought. He went to university, did well, and decided to go into veterinary medicine. To our shock and amazement, his scholarship was discontinued. When we inquired why, we were told that the scholarship was only administered by the government. It was actually money from chemical corporations who would not support students who did not go into training that would qualify them to work In chemical factories! Another scholarship he got from the Teamsters Union continued to support him for the entire time that they had originally awarded the scholarship. They did not ask him what he was training for, they just wanted to know that he made good marks. He has completed his training with a huge debt load that he will carry for many years. Although as his parents we have tried to help him as much as we could, the banks are profiting from his education. This needs to be changed. Scholarships and charity are distributed in the same arbitrary way all charity is distributed. We need to work towards universal education. Someone take care of that please. "Who me? No, I'm too afraid." History is another reason. My parents were young people raised on Saskatchewan farms who started out life together in 1933. Reading about the thirties now, I wonder how people had the temerity to continue living and bringing children Into the world when the world around them was disintegrating. But they did, just as young people forever have optimistically continued in whatever conditions they must. to live, work, play, reproduce, and strive for happiness. They had to

leave the farm because it could no longer support them. They could get work in the city and send the money back to the I arm to help save it. They got food from the farm in the form of abundant canned supplies, and they returned to the farm to have their chil· dren. They could not afford a doctor, but there were old women with no formal training who went about the district assisting the young mothers. My mother had four babies on the farm, one died. Each time they returned to the city to earn money. The women in the neighbourhood babysat for each other which allowed my parents to go out and listen to a charismatic leader who was telling them fantastic things. Universal med· ical, old age pension, unemployment insurance. "lmposslble,'' they thought, but he was a great speaker. So they went from village to village listening to Tommy Douglas. There was a sense of community about their struggle to achieve these great things. Everyone was fighting for these goals: farmers, small business people, doctors, lawyers, carpenters. The proudest day of my mother's life was when she could walk into a hospital• the land of the rich• to give birth to me in , 951. As a woman who has had three miscarriages and two children, I am eternally grateful for these people's struggle even though having an • -~ I .._ H:i:;;· -~ pee:- . assured medical system all my life makes me complacent. Another thing they worked for was Old Age Pension, When Grandfather was too old to work on the farm and so passed it on to one of his children, he did not have to live with his sons. He was proudly independent with $50 a month O.A.P. When my mother had a stroke in 1995 and needed constant care, she wept Into a government-funded facility with caring, well• trained people to look after her. At over $2500 a month for private facilities, my parents would have run out of all the money they had In a very shori time. Then l would have had to quit my job to stay home and look after morn. My parents worked very hard all their lives and so have I, but we are not rich. What is rich? I know all you people in political science have this down pat but just to clarify it in rny own mind ... The way l have it figured out is there are the people with capital called capitalists and then there are the people without capital called workers. The people with capital make their money work for them. Some of them are poor enough that they have to work hard at making their money work for them. Unlike the really rich who do not work. These middle guys are always trying to get rich so Ihey don't have to work anymore.

The workers know they will never be rich. They are called socialists.

As I said before, I'm not very smart and I can barely balance my cheque book, but I am trying really hard to understand this capital thing. I think it works like this: If you have capital, you use it to buy something, change it somehow and sell it for more than all the money you have put out. Farmers understand this process very well. Let's take an egg farmer. He buys chickens at the best price he can find, feeds and houses them as cheaply as he can, while still keeping the chickens as healthy as he needs to get them to produce an egg. Then he can sell the egg tor more money than he has spent in the whole process. (Do you feel like a chicken some days?) Okay, say I have a brilliant idea for an improved widget and l have cap• ital. I only have one problem. The process to change this widget cannot be performed by animals or machines. Darn, I need humans. There is a difference between animals and humans. These humans have more skills than animals, but they are also more demanding (they are constantly trying to get into a better chicken coop). Now these humans have a negotiating tool • their labour, which I need. But wait, I have a negotiating tool too. I can go to another country and buy this labour cheaper. I think I'll form an organization called the World Trade Organization to protect my negotiating tool. This works really well too, because I have to live in this country and I do not like 'to see poverty, starvation and illness on my doorstep. It is much nicer to have it all happening out of sight in some Third World county. But wait, now the workers in this country have to compete with starving desperate people in a Third World country for the sale of their labour. That's okay, it is a market place out there. We'll go to twotiered medical, so the poor can cut back on this extravagant social• istic idea of Universal Medical. Maybe we'll even cut out govern• ment medical. Is there a capitalist who would like to sell us medical coverage and call himself an insurance company? I'm sure there is good money in it, after all look at the waste: poor people actually having knee operations! What's wrong with canes? This way is much better, people who are rich can budge in line and have body parts sewn on any time. Instead of changing contact colours, they can have the latest fashion in eye transplants. • The way I see it is that socialism is a state of mind. You are either a rich person or you are a poor person. I am a poor person who was born to poor people. No matter how much money or proper1y I have, I will always be a poor person. My money, property or pos· sessions can disappear in a moment. A poor housing market when I need to sell. An increase in Interest rates when I have a huge mortgage. S poor Invest• ment decision, Never getting fired because I always worked too hard, but loss of my job for marketplace reasons. As a socialist I am constantly aware of the very real threat of poverty, unlike capitalists who are dreamers and always think "It can never happen to me." That is why I live in the Fraser Valley. I love capitalists because they are such dreamers. They think they are invincible (it's so cute). I lived amongst socialists once. I could not stand the levels of worry. They worry about our planet. They worry about animals. They worry about the weal. Very depressing. And finally the last difference between animals and humans: chickens don't vote,

10 THE CASCADE

April 17, 2001 THE DILEMMA OF CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION

By Ron Dart

Knowledge, Wisdom, Citizenship?

All means prove but a blunt instrument if they have not behind them a living spirit. ~Albert Einstein

The older view of education, which is rapidly passing away in America, but which is still dominant in the great universities of England, aimed at a wide and humane culture of the intellect. It regarded the various departments of learning as forming essentially a unity, some pursuit of each being necessary to th\3 appreciation of each .... But what I protest against is that each of these studies Is apt to be regarded as wholly exclusive of the others, and that the moment a man becomes a student of German literature he should lose all interest In general history and philosophy. ~Stephen Leacock ( 1907)

I was sitting the other day in a public sauna with a retired farmer from Saskatchewan. We chatted for a few minutes about rattier bland, banal and predictable things, then he asked me what I did for a living; I told him I was a teacl1er at our local University College. He then, in a rather halting but inquisitive manner, asked me this question in the form of a reflection: ''I have noticed," he said, "that many who graduate from universities have much knowledge, facts and Information, but they are often not very wise about basic issues of life. Many farmers I know who have little formal education seem to be much wiser about the important things In life than all these students who have learned all sorts of skills, have all sorts of detailed facts but are not wise." He, then, looked at me and asked, ''Why Is this the case?" There is little doubt that the rather astute observation of the retired farmer goes straight to the heart of much that passes as education in these early years of the 21st century. Many of us are fat and bloated with facts, information, skills, technical expertise and knowledge, but the ability to make sense of all this and discern what it is all for is often and tragically absent. We are overdeveloped in one area but underdeveloped in another area. We have facts and knowledge but wisdom and insight are in short supply. The recent publication of Skills Mania: Snake Oil in our Schools (2000), by the well-known Canadian educator Bob Davis, sums up these concerns in a compact and succinct manner. In his book Davis walks us ever so surely and clearly into the dilemma of modern education. The fact that we have substituted skills and facts for wisdom, insight and legitimate self knowledge in modern education means that we have - In a deeper and real sense - betrayed the older and more substantive mean• ing of education. We have placed immense faith In the snake oil of skills, and the mania for them, and forgotten that skills, knowledge and facts are not what - In the deepest sense - education is all about, even though such things may socialize one and all to flt into the hurly burly of our western culture. It is not until we get off the treadmill of a certain view of education that we will see we are going faster and faster but going nowhere on the important issues. The ever-frantic quest for better and more up to date facts and skills can divert, deafen and deflect us from the Holy Grail of education: wisdom and insight. This is what Skills Mania walks the extra mile to tell us. Bob Davis took his BA at Dalhousle University from 1952-1956, and when he was there he studied with George Grant. George Grant (1918-1988), throughout much of his life, thought long and hard about the purpose of education and how modern education had come to distort and betray the original purpose of education. Grant turned to the Classical tradition, and to Plato in particular, as his guide, teacher and mentor on these issues. Plato made an important distinction between two types of education: 'techne' and 'paideia'. The purpose of 'techne' was to teach a skill or technique for a job, and it would be foolish and silly to deny the Importance of this as a beginning. The purpose of 'paldela' was to awaken, stir and draw forth the deeper life or a person; this is the sacred site of conscience, vocation, public responsibility. Those who are only trained in the lower craft of 'techne' are often lacking in the more important aspects of self-knowledge; this is what 'paideia' is all about, and this is why, in a classical education in the humanities, a student is exposed to and expected to hear and learn how those before them have thought and felt about important issues of religion, ethics, aesthetics and political life. George Grant, like Bob Davis, dared to interrogate the reigning monarch of skills, 'techne'. the preoc• cupation with specialization and endless searching tor more and more facts and information. Grant's important essay, "The University Curriculum" (1968) did much to highlight how modern liberal education had become equated with skills and technical expertise, and in the process become a servant of corporate power. Was this, Grant rightly asked, the aim and purpose of education? The spirit, in short, of education cannot be netted or reduced to the snake oil of our present 'skills mania'; when we do this, we betray the deeper purposes of education and lead students down a path and trail that will not be life giving in the fullest sense of the word. Grant and Davis, and many other Canadian educators know this in the marrow of their bones, and they are doing their best to retrieve the real meaning of education. This one-dimensional addiction to facts and skills is not a new thing, though. The well known Canadian humorist, educator and political theorist Stephen Leacock ( 1869-1944), saw the writing on the wall and wrote about it at the turn of the 20th century. Leacock's novel, Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich (1914j, and his many essays on the decline of education (such as, ''The apology of a professor: an essay on modern learning'' ( 1907) and "Literature and Education in America" (1908), speak volumes about the way modern education was turning to factf, information, specialization and business as its guru and guide rather wisdom and a thorough grounding in the humanities. Our word 'education' comes from the Latin which means 'to draw forth.' The purpose of the educator is to awaken and assist in the birth (as a midwife) of the student's slumbering nature or vocation: It is not merely to pass on facts or teach skills. The task, though, is much greater even yet; it is to produce citizens with an enlivened conscience for the important and substantive issues in their culture and nation. In the last few decades many educators have come to see the importance of having an informed conscience, critical abilities and a political passion for justice as part of being properly educated. When these aspects of education are denied us, we cease to be educated in any serious sense. George Grant once said, ''Man is by nature a political animal, and to know that citizenship is an impossibility is to be cut off from one of the highest forms of life." Those who genuflect and bow to the creed of education as 'techne' restrict and reduce the meaning of education to the smallest circle turns. Those who realize that education is about something much grander, much fuller, and much more about the longings of the spirit for meaning and purpose have the real issues in the crosshairs. Dennis Lee, a well-known Canadian poet and essayist, winner of the GG award for Civil Elegies and friend of George Grant and Bob Davis, summed up some of the dilemmas of being mod· ern in his recent book, Body Music (1998):

There are certain things that speak to us at the core, but that scarcely exist within the assumptions of modern thought. I have in mind the kind of reality people once pointed to with terms like 'good', 'evil', and 'the sacred'. It is not that we have lost contact with such things in our lives, but rather that educated thinking no longer recognizes them as having any substance. Over the last few centuries our traditional languages of meaning have largely faded; they seem passe in the world described by science. And the language of fact that superseded them has no place for evil or beauty - except as subjective 'values' which we project onto a neutral universe. This account of facts and values is taken for granted in most modern thought: we have trouble thinking of things that matter without adopting its substance .... What we know by living our lives, and what we can think within the categories of educated discourse. are no longer on speaking terms.

Surely the time has come when the big issues must be on 'speaking terms' again; we have lived for too long in two cultures and two separate worlds to the detriment of education and society. The issues raised for us by the Saskatchewan farmer, Bob Davis, George Grant, Stephen Leacock and Dennis Lee cannot be ignored. We cannot, in good faith and with a clean conscience, repress and deny such questions and concerns; we do so to the detriment of our souls and society. Can genuine and authentic education exist if such dilemmas are not faced? If moral vision Is reduced to the private world of opinion and subjective values, then silence becomes the ominous stance on substantive and public Issues. When 'techne' comes to dominate, a worrisome will to power will rape both the land and human souls for profit. Surely, education as critical thinking must raise some probing questions and dare to act on such questions. The dilemma of modern education is the definition of education itself. Will we reduce public education to 'techne' or will we realize that the older notion of 'paideia' has much yet to teach us? Will we give ourselves to the snake oil and silver bullet of technical skills or will we heed the warnings of Grant and Davis? Will the retired farmer from Saskatchewan speak to us about the distinction between knowledge and wisdom or will we pass by on the other side of the road? Will we open ourselves to Einstein's insights about 'means' rather than 'living spirit' or wlll we not set our sights as high? The dilemma of modern education hinges on both how we answer these questions and how we have answered them up to this point. Indeed, the home of our souls, society and the greater good of what it means to be an educated Canadian depends on how we answer such queries. Surely the battles fought by those like Robin Mathews and James Steele (as told in The Struggle for Canadian Universities (1969), must go on in each generation; those who flinch from the struggle capitulate to power and demean and distort what it means to be both Canadian and educated in the time tried meaning of the word. If to be a civilized person is to be both civic minded and civil (In the midst of conflict), and a good education prepares us for such a notion of citizenship, then a committed turn to epaideiaf is a must as a corrective to the domi• nance of 'techne' in much of modern education and is its dogma and creed.