"Rights and Community" [2010] ELECD 155; in Tanase, Takao; Nottage, Luke; Wolff, Leon (eds), "Community and the Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Community and the Law

Editor(s): Tanase, Takao; Nottage, Luke; Wolff, Leon

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848447851

Section: Chapter 5

Section Title: Rights and Community

Number of pages: 11

Extract:

5. Rights and community

1. AMBIVALENCE ABOUT RIGHTS
The language of `rights' is almost ubiquitous. From unimpeded access to
natural light, a clean environment and smoke-free living, to privacy and self-
determination, we increasingly assert our `rights' to protect ourselves from
what we think are unfair violations of our freedoms or personal interests. We
hear `human rights' discussed in the mass media on an almost daily basis. We
subject the bureaucracy to more searching scrutiny by asserting our `right to
know'. Yet despite this general acceptance of rights, we still steel ourselves
before insisting upon our rights in real-life situations. This is because it feels
awkward, if not outright uncomfortable, claiming our own rights or disclaim-
ing the rights of others.
Why are we ambivalent to rights? Is it due to an underdeveloped rights
consciousness? Or perhaps self-interested opportunism, where we agree on the
general principle but oppose its application in particular settings? I suspect
something else is involved. To be sure, rights are worth protecting and we
should expect new categories of rights to develop to safeguard new interests.
Yet appeals to rights also have a destructive force: they interrupt the flow of
everyday social interaction and create tensions in social relationships.
Although influential scholars such as Kawashima (1982a, pp. 112­17) argue
that rights assertion is essential to fostering a healthy respect for rights in soci-
ety, this is not always true. Indeed, sceptics might point to the negative side to
rights assertion ­ where asserting ...