I see what you mean.Just thinking about Huxley, although English he spent a lot of time in the states. One of my favourite books of his ” After many a summer” is to my mind a tale of cultures clashing, a kind of 19th century English academic being thrust into a loud American world that has since taken over the planet. I think he experienced in Calafornia a taste of what was to come, which I think influenced ” Brave new world “, whereas Orwell was stuck in a grey rationed Europe, on the frontline of the battle between the isms. They were both right in their own way & we owe them a lot.

A touch of nostalgia, I think it was about this time last year when I stumbled onto this blog, this place & others explored because of it have changed my life. I hope that some of the posters listed above are still tuned in.

On a musical note one of my favourite albums from the nineties, Roger Waters ” Amused to death ” seems to sum up things for me more & more, I’m sure it must be Huxley influenced.

Thank you both for your responses.

David, refreshing to hear someone else embrace the suggestion that discussion leans too heavily toward rights. It seems in our globalised western world we have now taken to even outsourcing our responsibilities! Had to smile at your suggestion of a Bill of Responsibilities, I have tried before to put forward the idea of a Charter of Citizen’s Responsibilities but it doesn’t seem to get much traction. For some reason it has become onerous or anachronistic to talk about responsibilities, duties and honour. I guess it doesn’t sell. (oh ‘usury’ is another term which has fallen out of fashion, though I have a feeling that it may already making a comeback)

Hawkeye, your quotation from the American Declaration of Rights and Duties of Man(of which I had not heard before) fascinates and delights, the first line of which really gets at what I was trying to say,

“The fulfilment of duty by each individual is a prerequisite to the rights of all.“

It points much more to the idea of a rights derived through a social contract and contrasts with the ‘inalienable’ or ‘natural’ rights as proposed in the more ubiquitous UN Declaration of Human Rights or the US Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Assuming that responsibilities are implicitly understood in all discussions on freedom and rights is a bit like taking it for granted that bankers will regulate themselves in the interests of the society. As Orwell observed or as contemporary NLP(neurolinguistic programming) describes, the language we use makes quite a difference. If we only explicitly reference rights and freedoms, then the importance of the fulfilment of duties as a prerequisite can be lost.

In this day and age it is considered politically incorrect to argue against the notion of universal human rights(which seems to stem from the Age of Reason) and I should be tarred as a racist or bigot or what not. After all the underlying concept of equality has fuelled movements such as abolitionism, republicanism, women’s rights, children’s rights etc, etc. Of course I feel these rights are ideals towards which we should aspire(and actively work to bring about!) yet I feel we sell ourselves short somehow with talk of immutable creator endowed rights that we must uphold. In contrast to the concept of natural rights or inalienable rights which are often perceived as god-given I am suggesting rights are man-given.

Keeping in line with your reference to Skinner & Kohn’s ideas around rewards, to suggest rights are something which an individual or society earns, through particular behaviours in fulfilling responsibilities or duties, I consider equally unhelpful. Rights are neither guaranteed nor something which are accorded to others because they deserve them or not, rights are something which we accord to others because we choose to do so. That is the ultimate freedom. It’s a curiously unselfish dynamic, for we cannot control whether or not we receive rights and freedoms, we can only choose to give them to others (or not).

This poem springs to mind:
I slept and dreamed that life was joy,
I awoke and saw that life was duty,
I acted and beheld that duty was joy.
-Rabdrinath Tagore

P.S. I had another observation on the Orwell-Huxley discussion. It occurs to me that the primary human emotion harnessed in the Orwellian version of control it is FEAR and in the Huxlian case, it is DESIRE.

You make an interesting point.

I was always led to believe that the law recognised the symmetrical balance between “Rights” and “Duties”:

"The fulfillment of duty by each individual is a prerequisite to the rights of all. Rights and duties are interrelated in every social and political activity of man. While rights exalt individual liberty, duties express the dignity of that liberty."
American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man

Any imbalance is a breaking of this social contract. I have raised this before on a few BBC blogs:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2009/09/how_phoenix_four_extracted_40m.html?postId=85591251#comment_85591251

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2009/09/can_governments_squeeze_banker.html?postId=85438040#comment_85438040

It seems that not only are we financially bankrupt these days, but we are also morally, socially and legally bankrupt too!

This is a line of thinking I share. I have written before about recasting the familiar Bill of Rights with one that expresses the same ideals but in terms of a Bill of Responsibilities.

Everyone wants their rights but no one seems to think it might be their responsibility to help privde them. It is always left to someone else, or the government or some service to do the work.

People who avoid taxes still think it's their 'right' to the services that taxes pay for/ People who think it is their right to be treated by a doctir when they need one don't think twice about abusing one if they mood takes them.

In short we have fallen in to a mind set where the rights are mine but the responsibility to provede them is yours or someone elses.

I dislike the culture of 'rights'. I don't think anyone haas the right to anything at all. Instead I think we all have responsibilities to make sure others receive those things we would like to receive ourselves. Like a clean environemtn or safe streets or a tollerant public debate, or honesty in public life.

You have no right to freedom of speech. But you and I both have the responsibility to uphold an environment where free speech is protected. The result is the same – free speech. The difference is thay it is clearly up to us both to make it happen rather than each of us thinking it is someone elses job.

I get the sense in discussion on 'freedom', be it of political, economic or some other hue, that it connotes individual or societal ‘rights’. The emphasis is invariably on the benefits, rewards and protections that freedom entitles. To my mind these discussions are curiously half-bodied, for where is the mention of the concomitant responsibilities that freedom demands. Why do I so seldom see responsibilities mentioned in the same discussions on the much feted merits and wonders of democratic rights and freedoms?

It seems to me that freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin. In the question of ‘free will’, the greater the freedom enjoyed then the more responsibility assumed and vice versa. So if we live in an Orwellian/Huxlian world of illusory or limited freedoms, might it really be because we don’t want the responsibility of genuine freedom?

I hope I am not merely engaging in semantics but in discussions on freedom I would like to see a greater emphasis placed on responsibilities and duties. Recent events in Egypt and indeed in the economies of more democratic nations of the west call into question the role of the citizenry as much as they do the role of governors. We are all familiar with our wish lists of expectations and demands of what society should be like and how it should be governed, but how many have an associated list of responsibilities and duties for themselves to the same effect? What are the duties of a citizen of a democratic state, surely it is not only to vote once in a while?

Perhaps freedom is not something which once won, allows a people to rest on its laurels, but rather a continual dynamic process that demands of us as much as it rewards. The challenge of our times is to actively assume the responsibilities of people claiming freedom.
I'd like to hear others' ideas on this.

to rephrase an excerpt from Hawkeye:
…the late 20th century would best be characterised as the overt demotion of individual responsibility, connection to land, and co-operation, and the covert exertion of behaviourist control methods, which actually celebrate selfishness, promote poverty and disenfranchise communities…

…It is in effect little more than “sell responsibility, buy passivity”.

This is the kind of thoughts I particularly enjoy because they add real critical thoughts to the scaffolding of my understanding of how the world works.

Thanks to everyone.

What resonated with me was 'the gap between rhetoric and reality'. Someone else posted a link to an Orwell article the other day on the English language and politics which I've been thinking about ever since.

Does anybody, other than mainstream media pundits, actually listen to what our politicians and central bankers say anymore? Their words are so empty in and of themselves, their phrases so meaningless it takes a lot of analysis to divine the true meaning and the true intention behind them. And that's if you're aware enough to be able to work them out. For the majority I imagine that they're like a Radox bath – just soothing and calming enough to put you in a nice receptive state. Perfect time to drop in the odd emotionally loaded phrase. See Cameron's recent speech on 'confronting extremism' to see what I mean. A pointed and calculated call for division surrounded by talk of sharing a national identity. Sickening.
On the economy of course it's all talk of growth and maintaining a competitive economy and reviving a spirit of entrepreneurism and can-do attitudes with only the odd reference to belt-tightening or paying off the national credit card bill (Yes! I know! Heard that one yesterday!) with the hidden meaning clearly along the lines of 'you screwed up all that lovely properity we gave you, now you have to make it right'.

Language is a weapon. It shapes our thoughts and it can be used to control them. Unfortunately, all the heavy artillery, the newspapers and television channels are in the hands of the elites.

So I thank heavens for this blog and the comments here.

A little cache of small arms it may be, but it's a start.