Diary of a Part Time Futurist - The Brittleness of Absolutes.

Social media is the source of many ills and one of these – possibly the most obvious - is the apparent loosening of the etiquette of “polite conversation.” Anyone who actively denies that there is an art to conversation, and that it is a good thing, must be either a dullard or a boor. We all know that to introduce contentious matters or strong opinions when first meeting someone, or interacting with someone who we know little about, is to positively invite censure or argument. Further, if during a conversation we realise that the person we are talking to has strong views about the subject in hand, or is getting rather upset, we steer the conversation away to new topics or gently probe further to understand the true cause of distress. Come the internet and it would seem that these basic courtesies of social contact go through the window. It is useful in finding the true nature of people though, the thoughts they would ordinarily keep hidden but here display proudly for the whole world to see.

There are a few comments that regularly seem to crop up and expose something of particular interest to me. These, despite being related to a number of subjects, all show a deep lack of understanding regarding certain core values of our society and how they work. They may be summed up as “human rights.” The thing about human rights is that they apply to everyone without exception. It is a statement that there are lines that should not be crossed and to do so is a monstrous act. It may be that you do not adhere to the notion of these basic rights, it is your personal right to view them as being either valid or not. However if you ascribe to the view that there are basic rights “not to be tortured”, “to a fair trial”, “to safe shelter” and so on then you must realise that this is an absolute statement. It is unconditional and therefore without elasticity. That's the whole point of it.

To say that a terrorist who has been rendered harmless but who is then summarily executed by a soldier “gave up their human rights” is an utter absurdity. It is you, the observer and self-appointed occupier of the moral high ground who has defined their position referencing these rights. It is not for the object of your scorn to earn or surrender them, awarding or removing them is something that can only reflect on you. Equally, to decry the brutality of an Isis beheading and then wish the same on the perpetrators is to either deny the truly hideous nature of their crime or to align yourself with them as seeing it as an acceptable act. If you see it as acceptable then you have no right to cry foul at such barbarity. The whole concept of human rights has been decried as wishy-washy liberalism but it cannot be anything of the sort. There is no room for interpretation, it cannot be “fudged.”

The latest point of focus for such things is the “black lives matter” disruption at Heathrow Airport. I have seen a number of comments posted in a sneering manner about how the protestors could “only find Mark Duggan as being a suitable example.” My understanding of Mr Duggan is that he may have been a fairly reprehensible crook and thug, if so then he was someone I am glad I never met. However he was shot and killed by the police during a planned operation and under such nebulous circumstances that  it cannot help but be a matter of concern with regard to due course of law. If we have a right to hold the police to account for their actions, to a trial and, if appropriate, to be sentenced under the current legislation which here in the U.K. has no facility for handing down the death penalty then Mark Duggan had a right to it as well. It doesn't matter what our personal opinion of him is, this is a right that applies equally to the worst sinner or most benign saint. The character of the person cited is meaningless when it comes to these issues, it can only be about whether their human rights have been violated.

What if this were not the case? What if our Western / Liberal / Christian / Humanist values gave us a world view for acceptable behaviour to another person but without it being conditional? There would be no consensus on who is protected and who is not. Muslim, Jew, gay, wrong haircut, “looked a bit odd”? Who is to say what deep rooted prejudice may trigger a jettisoning of  our rights and the law they underpin? The safety and basic protection of a suspected terrorist, of a petty thief, of a protestor against benefit cuts - of you - would be no more certain than the turn of a card.