A declaration of the rights of human beings : on the sovereignty of life as surpassing the rights of man / Raoul Vaneigem ; translated by Liz Heron.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Vaneigem, Raoul, 1934-

Standardized Title:

Déclaration universelle des droits de l'être humain. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Human rights.

Physical Description:

xi, 133 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; Sterling, Va. : Pluto Press, 2003.

Language Note:

Translated from the French.

Summary:

Raoul Vaneigem is one of the founding fathers of the Situationists, whose writings triggered the events of May 1968. Working at first alongside Guy Debord, and then, after the inevitable split, pursuing his own interests, Vaneigem has established a unique place in the world of French political thought, and is a Situationist icon.In this new book, he sets out quite literally to create a new declaration of human rights, by updating earlier declarations -- from the French Revolution to the UN declaration in 1948 -- on the grounds that "we can no longer make do with the liberties derived from free exchange, while the free circulation of capital is establishing a tyranny that reduces humankind and the earth to a commodity." By turns playful, poetic and provocative, there is nevertheless a profoundly serious side even to his lighter pronouncements. According to the Le Monde review of the book, "all opponents of globalization should carry it in their luggage."

Contents:

I. Critique of the Declaration of the Rights of Man 1

II. Mercantile Freedoms Suggest and Deny Human Freedoms 5

III. No Rights Can be Taken for Granted, There are Only Rights to be Fought For 9

IV. Rights Without Duties to Create a Way of Living 11

V. The Rights 15

Article 1 All men and women have the right to become human and to be treated as such 15

Article 2 Every human being has the right to life 17

Article 3 Every human being has the right to independence 18

Article 4 Every human being has the right to knowledge 21

Article 5 Every human being has the right to happiness 25

Article 6 Every human being has the right to dispose freely of his or her time 29

Article 7 Every human being has the right to move around as and how he or she thinks fit 31

Article 8 Every human being has the right to the freely available necessities of life 34

Article 8a Every human being has the right to a home in keeping with his or her desires 36

Article 8b Every human being has the right to healthy natural food 38

Article 8c Every human being has the right to health 39

Article 8d Every human being has the right to comfort and luxury 41

Article 8e Every human being has the right to free modes of transport set up by and for the collectivity 42

Article 8f Every human being has the right of free access to natural resources and sources of energy 42

Article 9 Every human being has the right to exercise permanent control over scientific experimentation so as to ensure that it serves the interests of human beings and not those of the market 43

Article 10 All human beings have the right to take delight in themselves, in others and in the world 48

Article 10a1 Every human being has the right to self-alliance 50

Article 10a2 All human beings have the right to be themselves and to cultivate awareness of their own singularity 51

Article 10a3 Every human being has the right to authenticity 53

Article 10b1 Every human being has the right to alliance with his or her own kind 55

Article 10b2 All human beings have the right to association by affinity 56

Article 10b3 Every human being has the right to replace state governments with a world federation of small local collectivities in which the quality of the individuals guarantees the humanity of societies 57

Article 10c Every human being has the right to an alliance with nature 59

Article 10d Every human being has the right to be reconciled with his or her animal nature 61

Article 11 All human beings have the right to build their own destiny 65

Article 12 Every human being has the right to create and to self-creation 67

Article 13 Every human being possesses the right to step in and intervene wherever human progress is threatened 69

Article 14 Every human being has the right to bend towards life what was turned towards death 71

Article 15 Every human being has the right to improve his or her environment for the sake of a better life 73

Article 16 Every human being has the right to consideration for his or her sensitivity 74

Article 17 Every human being has the right to feel the movements of affection and disaffection which are inherent in the flux of passions and the freedoms of love 76

Article 18 Every human being has the right to a natural life and a natural death 78

Article 19 Every human being has the right to base the diversity of his or her desires on the plurality of life 80

Article 20 Every human being has the right to a choice between activity and rest 81

Article 21 Every human being has the right to be idle 82

Article 22 Every human being has the right to striving and perseverance 83

Article 23 Every human being has the right to his or her personal sense of beauty 84

Article 24 Every human being has the right to progress and to regress 86

Article 25 All human beings have the right to stray, to get lost and to find themselves 87

Article 26 Every human being has the right to vanquish terror and tame fear 89

Article 27 Every human being has the right to oppose threats 90

Article 28 Every human being has the right to make mistakes and to correct them 91

Article 29 Every human being has the right to an absolute freedom of opinion and expression 94

Article 30 Every human being has the right to criticise and contradict what may seem most certain or what passes for a fundamental truth 97

Article 31 Every human being has the right to hold nothing sacred 98

Article 32 Every human being has the right to change 99

Article 33 Every human being has the right to distantiation 100

Article 34 Every human being has the right to the pleasures of each generation 102

Article 35 Every human being has the right to reject suffering 103

Article 36 Every human being has the right to give and to give of themselves without sacrifice 106

Article 37 Every human being has the right to avoid frustration by replacing dissatisfaction with insatiability 106

Article 38 All human beings have a right to their doubts and to their certainties 108

Article 39 Every human being has the right to excess and to moderation 110

Article 40 Every human being has the right to diversion 111

Article 41 Every human being has the right to the freedoms of dreaming and imagination 112

Article 42 Every human being has the right to anger 113

Article 43 Every human being has a right to the body's well-being 114

Article 44 All human beings have the right to adorn themselves as they see fit 115

Article 45 All human beings have the right to their lies and their truths 116

Article 46 All human beings have the right to open themselves and close themselves to the world 117

Article 47 All human beings have the right to express or to keep silent about their emotions, their desires and their thoughts 118

Article 48 Every human being has the right to attain artistic expression 118

Article 49 Every human being has the right to the free exercise of goodness 119

Article 50 Every human being has the right to innocence 120

Article 51 Every human being has the right to count on the violence of life in order to ward off the violence of death 122

Article 52 Every human being has the right to restore to the will to live the vital energy usurped by the will to power 122

Article 53 Every human being has the right to protect and to be protected 123

Article 54 All human beings have the right to have children for their own happiness and for the sake of those who are born 126

Article 55 Every human being has the right to desire what seems beyond the realm of the possible 128

Article 56 All human beings have the right to govern their own moods, whims and fixations without having to impose them on anyone else or be subject to those of other people 129

Article 57 Every human being has the right to the poetry of existence 130

Article 58 Every human being has the right to play on and make light of the actions and the values of the old world 131.

ISBN:

0745320228

074532021X

OCLC:

51305656