Seeking the Principles of Power and Danger

Society is underpinned by standards and expectations as to what social worlds should resemble and operate. But when the very foundations of that world are rocky and open to misuse and abuse, the society is left in a destabilized position. What remains is the question of how these worlds are tolerated in this destabilized form? Can they continue indefinitely in such a way? This place of discomfort is the abject, that which is contrary to everyday harmony. Often the locus of the abject can be expressed in violence. In the case of the Holocaust the abject impacted the individual Jewish people and the wider community of Germany and the world. The meaning that was derived to spark the violence and the meaning that remains are in stark contrast. Prior to the Holocaust the Jewish people were not abject to their community, but with a little guidance and propaganda they were led to a mass hysteria that the world hopes to never witness again. During Europe’s enlightened period the annihi...

Around two years ago I wrote an essay Human Rights and Cultural Relativism and I wanted to write up some   follow up observations on the issue of ‘universality’ and   ‘culture relativism’ since I’ve been reading Geoffrey Robertson ’s Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice .  Robertson’s book provides a history of the development of human rights from the Magna Carta to contemporary international treaties and supernational institutions. In the course of this history he frequently comments on issues of cultural relativity and how Authoritarian regimes in Africa, Asia and the Middle East – not to mention democratic Western states - have appealed to distinct cultural and religious traditions to excuse the violation of human rights.   This trend is exemplified, most shockingly, by recent attempts to enact anti-homosexuality laws in Uganda , that seem to come straight out of the book of Leviticus , a piece of scripture that literally pros...