Human rights content results from political struggle, not nature or consensus

Evidence

Since the Greeks, we have known that highly developed political life breeds a deep-rooted suspicion of this private sphere, a deep resentment against the disturbing miracle contained in the fact that each of us is made as he is—single, unique, unchangeable. This whole sphere of the merely given, relegated to private life in civilized society, is a permanent threat to the public sphere, because the public sphere is as consistently based on the law of equality as the private sphere is based on the law of universal difference and differentiation. Equality, in contrast to all that is involved in mere existence, is not given us, but is the result of human organization insofar as it is guided by the principle of justice. We are not bom equal; we become equal as members of a group on the strength of our decision to guarantee ourselves mutually equal rights. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 736 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

In it Malcolm X does three things: First, he diagnoses a profound crisis of justice in race-based America and claims that it cannot be resolved by a purely domestic maneuver—that is, by the state’s formal extension of full citizenship to African Americans. Second, he defiantly asserts the humanity of African Americans quite independently of—in hostile opposition to—the American state and its political culture. Third, he proposes that justice consists in the legal conviction of America in an international court; justice is a matter of the law. This invocation of human rights by a black American citizen identifies America as the violator. The language of human rights invoked by him doesn’t make a moral appeal—at any rate, not to those who are declared to be the violators of rights—it declares a state of war and gives reasons why this war is necessary. It thus reaffirms the connection of rights discourse with war and revolution. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 691 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Humanity has replaced nature and history as the ground of human rights — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 729; The Rights of Man were grounded in a supposed human nature rather than history — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 728; Rights discourse originated in war and revolution rather than moral appeal — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 691 (+2 more)

Related

• Rights discourse originated in war and revolution rather than moral appeal (similarity 0.85)
• Humanity has replaced nature and history as the ground of human rights (similarity 0.83)
• Equality is produced by political organization, not given by nature (similarity 0.81)
• The Rights of Man were grounded in a supposed human nature rather than history (similarity 0.80)
• The rights declarations replaced historical rights with rights deduced from human nature. (similarity 0.80)
• Rights are exercised through group membership like citizenship, not universal humanity (similarity 0.79)
• Treating human rights as endlessly polyvalent masks the systemic constraints shaping them. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Equality is produced by political organization, not given by nature #exemplifies (0.85) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 736
• Rights discourse originated in war and revolution rather than moral appeal #corroborates (0.78) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 691
• Humanity has replaced nature and history as the ground of human rights #corroborates (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 729
• Liberal ‘natural rights’ language described an underlying reality, not an aspiration #contradicts (0.75)
• The Rights of Man were grounded in a supposed human nature rather than history #complicates (0.72) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 728