Inside New York Times The essay published his funeral day on July 30, 2020. John Lewis of Congress wrote that his “last days and hours” in which he witnessed widespread protests over the assassination of George Floyd and saw a square in downtown DC filled with Black Lives Matter Plaza – with hope. “Around the country and around the world you will segregate race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.”
Human dignity is a powerful line presented to peacefully protest against violence, discrimination and dictatorship. But when we talk about human dignity, what do we mean?
The innate value of all human beings
Human dignity is the inner value of every human being. Recognizing human dignity means the value of the special value of human beings – which sets us apart from other animals; Value that is intrinsic and cannot be lost.
Liberalism – The broad political philosophy that organizes society around freedom, justice and equality is rooted in the idea of human dignity. Liberalism has some incomprehensible value to each of our lives, plans and choices, not because of any objective evaluation or contribution to the better, but simply because they are human. We are human, and therefore deserve a basic level of respect.
Because many of us accept human dignity – just the fact of our humanity – it usually only happens when someone’s dignity is ignored or violated that we are forced to talk about it.
But human pride means more than the absence of violence, discrimination and dictatorship. It means giving individuals freedom of their own happiness and purpose – a freedom that is hindered by the oppression of restricted social institutions or the majority. The liberal ideal of a good society is not only peaceful but also pluralistic: it is a society in which we respect the right to think differently and to live a different life than we do.
From the 19th century to the present day
With Google Books Engram Viewer, we can mention human pride from 1800-2019.
With the mention of liberalism we can also make a map of human dignity that with the discussion of liberalism the discussion of human dignity grew.
Then we can search through personal references to find out how human dignity has been discussed and understood over the last 200 years.
For example, the German rabbi Dr. Samuel Hirsch delivered a lecture on “Religion of Humanity” in 1853 in which he condemned slavery. “What we love about ourselves, our true human dignity, compels us to recognize and love the same human dignity in all others,” Hirsch said. He wrote:
If I can see my brother-man as an animal, rather than an independent personality, as something that revokes any of his own desires, which provides proof that I have not recognized myself as a true human being. To keep slaves, is to commit spiritual suicide and murder. This sin is unforgivable in any way because of the kind treatment of slaves by their master, as he never treats them humanely. When a man becomes a piece of property he is stripped of his human dignity.
In 1917, Kansas State Normal School published a journal on the subject of education calling on instructors to help each student “make the most of one of his or her lifetimes” because “abundant life, awareness, life, glorious life is the right undertaking for the gods.” ”
Thomas Bell’s 1941 novel Out of the furnace Focuses on an immigrant Slovak family in Pennsylvania. It doesn’t matter if a character is confused as to “where you were born or how you spelled your name or where your father came from”; Instead,
It was the way you thought and felt about certain things. About freedom of speech and equality of men and the importance of having the same law – for the rich and the poor, for those who like you and for those who don’t like you. Every man has the right to live his life the best he can, his right to defend himself if someone tries to change him and if he decides he wants another way to live better. About human dignity, which helped man to live proudly and distinguish his death from animals; And finally, about the value to be put on human life, one’s own enemy is no less.
In a 1953 speech, then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles argued that communist countries were capable of reaping short-term material benefits, but that “these results are not pride but shame. They are achieved by disregarding the dignity of honor. Personal.” Whether human dignity means a right to life that includes physical well-being and “freedom to think, to believe, and to communicate with one’s peers,” “opportunities to allow some exercise of personal choice,” and “contemplation and pleasure.” That’s beautiful. ”
James Baldwin, American novelist, author, playwright, poet, essayist, and civil rights activist, at his home in Saint-Paul-de-Vince, southern France, on November 6, 1979.
Credit: Getty Images by Ralph Getty / AFP
U.S. One hundred years after the law stopped allowing black Americans as property, black writer James Baldwin still called for equal recognition of the dignity of black Americans. It is not enough, almost not enough, that the 14th Amendment guaranteed equal protection of the laws; What mattered was how Black Americans behaved through their fellow human beings. In a 1960 Canadian television interview, Baldwin said, “I don’t know what white people see, you know, when they look at a Negro now. But I know very well – I realized when I was very young. – He was looking to be whatever it was, it wasn’t me… I’m not Person“
In his seminal 1963 book Fire next time, Baldwin echoed Dr. Harsh’s argument a century ago:
I am very concerned that the American Negroes are gaining their independence in the United States. But I am concerned for the health of their souls, also for their dignity, and the Negroes must oppose any effort made with them for what can be done for them. I think I know – we see it around us every day – the spiritual waste that leads. It’s such a simple fact and one that is so difficult, obviously, to understand: He who debates another debates himself.
After all, there is a general streak of our historic historical understanding of human dignity: one that behaves less than any other human being lacks. Their own To diminish the dignity of their victims in addition to human dignity.
A 1964 New York University Law Review The article argued that secrecy is a key aspect of human dignity. “A man, whose home can be entered by the will of another, whose conversation can be heard by the will of another, whose marital and familial intimacy can be monitored by the will of another, one man is less, human dignity less, on account of that,” the author Edward J. Writes Bluestine, who later became president of Rutgers University.
The future of pride
Worldwide, people are still working towards a full and equal recognition of human dignity. Every year, new speeches and writings help us understand what pride is – not just what it feels like when honor is violated but how it feels when honor is honored. In his posthumous essay, Congressman Lewis wrote, “When historians choose pens to write 21st-century storytelling, let them say that your pay was the ultimate burden of hatred and that peace overcame violence, aggression and War. “
The more we talk about human dignity, the more we will understand it. And the sooner we can move towards a shared vision of peace, freedom and mutual respect for all.
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