Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Pornographyw
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Pornographyw
Wole Soyinka's essay "Every Dictator's Nightmare" in the April 18, 1999 edition of the New York Times magazine seems almost prescient in light of the events currently occurring geopolitically. The recent events occurred in Egypt are certainly representative of the themes present in Soyinka's essay; “the idea that certain fundamental rights are inherent to all humanity" (476). Soyinka, the 1986 noble peace prizewinner for literature, portrays not only his well-formed persona in his essay, but also his well formed thoughts, devoid of literary naiveté common in so many of today’s writers. The essay portrays societies as corrupted, but with some elements of innate nobility. The existence of societies is guaranteed by the realization that every individual has undeniable basic rights. Soyinka also presents an overview of the enslavement of individual cultures; to the forces of religion, dictatorship, economic pressures, forced labor, and ideology; presenting the reader strong examples of the world's failure to respect individual human rights throughout history. In his essay, Soyinka’s explores the employment of irony and contradiction, in explaining the paradoxes that have riddled the historical search for just societies.
Soyinka suggests that one of the most important ideas in history is the belief that every individual is born with certain fundamental human rights. His essay does not specifically delineate what those rights are; but one can judge from examination of the essay that they include freedom from slavery, freedom to live without anxiety or fear, and the right to knowledge. He postulates that throughout history, the primary struggles have been between those who wish to suppress the rights of others, and those who desire free...
... middle of paper ...
...xplained in details the role of Martin Luther King Jr. in the American civil rights movement. Despite this, the essay is still very useful in highlighting the need to respect basic human rights. The recent events in Egypt are indicative of what happens when individuals gain the political and social will to stand up against oppression. The people of Egypt staged protests in order to overturn the established, 30-year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak. This is the foundation of uprisings in the 21st century; the desire for fundamental human rights and dignity. Soyinka's essay predicted these 12 years ago; the world is watching; and dictator's and the politically powerful know it.
Works Cited
Soyinka, Wole. “Every Dictator’s Nightmare.” The Arlington Reader: Contexts and Connections. 2nd ed. Ed. Lynn Z. Bloom and Louise Z. Smith. Boston: Bedford, 2008. 475-80. Print.
The two essays, "Civil Disobedience," by Henry David Thoreau, and "Letter From a Birmingham Jail," by Martin Luther King, Jr., effectively illustrate the authors' opinions of justice. Each author has his main point; Thoreau, in dealing with justice as it relates to government, asks for "not at once no government, but at once a better government. King contends that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Both essays offer a complete argument for justice, but, given the conditions, King's essay remains more effective, in that its persuasive techniques have more practical application. Both essays extensively implement both emotional and ethical appeal to give their respective ideas validity.
and Altemeyer’s approaches to authoritarianism share many similarities, such as the more descriptive approach to their work than explanatory route, where neither clearly identify the source of authoritarianism. (Jones, 2002. Cited in The Open University, 2015, p50)
Martin Luther King Jr. is considered to be one of the most prominent human rights’ defenders of the XX century and the speaker for non-violent social change. He believed that building power is the most important task facing movements for human progress because the human progress comes through the tireless efforts of people, who should use powerful and true weapon – non-violence – in order to achieve positive effects. King managed to achieve brilliant success in the battle for the liberty of blacks and not pour the way to freedom by rivers of blood.
According to Hannah Arendt, “The Declaration of the Rights of Man at the end of the eighteenth century was a turning point in history”. (Arendt, 290). She begins her thesis by making this affirmation. However, throughout her essay, she further develops the idea that this “Declaration of the Rights of Man” has been questioned ever since then, because of the fact that these human rights don’t really appear to be implemented over a numerous amount of human beings. This “turning point” which Arendt refers to, indicates that when human rights were first conceived, they stated that only the nation worked as the law, and neither the divine law nor anything else had power over them. This was the moment when control over these rights was lost, since there is a deficiency in the precision of who really has the rule of law over them, if not even the human authorities have been able to manage the “universality” they are supposed to express. Hannah Arendt’s explanation on the human rights article called “The
The book “1984” by George Orwell is a fictional work that was penned as a discourse on Orwell’s views of what it would be like to live in a totalitarianism society. It is my belief that his views were based on his personal life experiences as he witnessed first hand many of the violent crimes perpetuated by those in positions of authority. Often, these crimes against one segment of society were carried out by other members of the same society in the name of political advancement or at other times out of fear for one’s life. Due to his experiences, Orwell began to write of his hatred of political power and the concept of a totalitarianism society. “1984” serves as a warning to readers of how a government can become abusive when seeking total control of it’s population. Furthermore, it showcases in great detail how a society can allow itself to be controlled through a series of psychological abuses and manipulation of historical information.
The essence of this essay reveals the definition of human rights and the politics of its victimhood incorporating those that made a difference. Human Rights can be seen as having natural rights, a fixed basis in reality confirming its importance with a variety of roles; the role illuminated will be racial discrimination against African Americans.
Every day, people are denied basic necessary human rights. One well known event that striped millions of these rights was the Holocaust, recounted in Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night. As a result of the atrocities that occur all around the world, organizations have published declarations such as the United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights. It is vital that the entitlement to all rights and freedoms without distinction of any kind, freedom of thought and religion, and the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being of themselves be guaranteed to everyone, as these three rights are crucial to the survival of all people and their identity.
Recently you have received a letter from Martin Luther King Jr. entitled “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” In Dr. King’s letter he illustrates the motives and reasoning for the extremist action of the Civil Rights movement throughout the 1960’s. In the course of Dr. King’s letter to you, he uses rhetorical questioning and logistical reasoning, imagery and metaphors, and many other rhetorical devices to broaden your perspectives. I am writing this analysis in hopes you might reconsider the current stance you have taken up regarding the issues at hand.
In the speeches The Perils of Indifference by Elie Wiesel and On Women’s Right to Vote by Susan B. Anthony, there is a common theme. Rights, whether human or civil, justifiably belong to every person. All people, regardless of race, gender, or ethnicity, should be afforded the same human rights.
In 1984, George Orwell repeatedly presents the government’s slogan “War is Peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength” (3). The significance
Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.’s essay “Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience” has two main features. The first feature of King’s essay is a call for action; action to bring about change. The second feature, the more easily viewed feature of this essay is a call for a specific type of action to bring about a specific type of change. The change King wishes to bring about is a peace and equality brought about through non-violent actions.
Howe, Irving, and George Orwell. 1984 Revisited Totalitarianism in Our Century. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
The philosophy of rights has been a perennial subject of discussion not only because it is embedded in the intellectual tradition and political practices of many countries but also because it exhibits deep divisions of opinion on fundamental matters. Even a cursory survey of the literature on rights since, say, the time of the Second World War would turn up a number of perplexing questions to which widely divergent answers have been given: What are rights? Are rights morally fundamental? Are there any natural rights? Do human rights exist? Are all the things listed in the UN's Universal Declaration (of 1948) truly rights? What are moral rights? Legal rights? Are basic moral rights compatible with utilitarianism? How are rights to be justified? What is the value of rights? Can infants have rights, can fetuses have them, or future generations, or animals? And so on.
Metaphor, in reference to the “veins of society”, illustrates the necessity of non-conformists for a prevailing theocracy, establishing that opposition towards a totalitarian regime fuels the perpetual dehumanization among its non-adherents (115.4). It is initially stated that the act of opposing the culturally established religion is like “inject[ing] blood into the veins of society”, as if feeding societal intolerance of governmental suppression. Society is defined by individuals—a lack of dissent towards conforming behavior renders the absence of society. However, a theocratic regime’s adherence to its religious values drives the implementation of regulations in order to preserve its own culture. By upholding extremist values to maintain
Rights have been emphasized as fundamental building blocks of the social order of society. These are both moral/ legal norms, which are aimed at protecting people from various forms of abuse. The idea of human rights is often taken for granted, these human rights fall into two categories; legal and moral. When looking at rights one must consider, whether we have rights, what these rights are, where they come from, what it means to have rights and whether or not they are timeless or context specific. On top of this there are two types of rights that will be looked at in relation to gay rights and others in this essay, these are the Utilitarian idea and the Natural idea.