New system separates oxygen and hydrogen from water on Mars

In one New York Times test Posted on the day of his funeral on July 30, 2020, Congressman John Lewis wrote that his “last days and hours” – in which he attended widespread protests against the murder of George Floyd and saw a square in the downtown DC, dubbed Black Lives Matter Plaza – fills it with hope. “All over the country and around the world, you are putting aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.”

Human dignity is a powerful expression invoked in peaceful protest against violence, discrimination and authoritarianism. But when we talk about human dignity, what do we mean?

The intrinsic worth of all human beings

Human dignity is the intrinsic value of every human being. Recognizing human dignity means respecting the special worth of human beings – a value that sets us apart from other animals; value that is intrinsic and cannot be lost.

Liberalism – the general political philosophy that organizes society around freedom, justice and equality – is rooted in the idea of ​​human dignity. Liberalism assumes that each of our lives, plans, and preferences is of irreproachable value, not because of an objective assessment or contribution to a greater good, but simply because they belong to a human being. We are human and therefore deserve a basic level of respect.

Because many of us take human dignity for granted – just a fact of our humanity – it’s usually only when a person’s dignity is ignored or violated that we feel compelled to talk about it.

But human dignity means more than the absence of violence, discrimination and authoritarianism. It means giving individuals the freedom to pursue their own happiness and purpose – a freedom that can be hampered by restrictive social institutions or the tyranny of the majority. The liberal ideal of a good society is not only peaceful but also pluralistic: it is a society in which we respect the right of others to think and live differently from us.

From the 19th century to the present day

With Google Books Ngram Viewer , we can list the mentions of human dignity from 1800 to 2019.

We can also map human dignity to references to liberalism to see this discussion of human dignity increase with the discussion of liberalism.

Then we can search the individual mentions to find how human dignity has been discussed and understood over the past 200 years.

For example, German Rabbi Dr. Samuel Hirsch gave a lecture in 1853 on “ The religion of humanity “in which he condemned slavery.” What we love in ourselves, our true human dignity, compels us to recognize and love the same human dignity in all others, “Hirsh said. He wrote:

If I can view my brother-man as a creature, as something devoid of any will of its own, rather than a free personality, that provides sufficient proof that I have yet to recognize the true human dignity in me. Owning slaves is spiritual suicide and homicide. This sin is in no way excusable because of the benevolent treatment given to slaves by their owner, as he can never treat them with humanity. When man becomes good, he is deprived of his human dignity.

In 1917, the Kansas State Normal School has published a teaching journal that called for teachers to help each student “make better use of their life” because “a life of abundance, a life of conscience, a life of dignity is an enterprise worthy of the gods.”

Thomas Bell’s novel in 1941 Out of the Furnace centered on a family of Slovak immigrants in Pennsylvania. One character said to himself that it wasn’t “where you were born or how you spelled your name or where your father came from” that mattered; in place,

It was the way you thought and felt certain things. About free speech and men’s equality and the importance of having one law – the same law – for the rich and the poor, for the people you love and those you don’t did not like. On the right of every man to live his life as he sees fit, his right to stand up for it if someone tries to change it and his right to change it himself if he decides he loves another way to live better…. About human dignity, which helped a man to live proudly and distinguished his death from animals; and finally, on the value to be given to human life, his enemy is no less than his.

In one speech , then Secretary of State John Foster Dulles argued that Communist countries might be able to achieve material gains in the short term, but “the results thus produced are not glory but shame. They are achieved by desecrating the dignity of the human individual. ”Dulles believed that human dignity meant having the right to a life that included physical well-being and the“ freedom to think, believe and communicate with one’s fellow human beings, ”“ opportunities that allow a a certain exercise of individual choices ”and“ the contemplation and enjoyment of what is beautiful. ”

One hundred years after U.S. law ceased to allow black Americans to be treated as property, black writer James Baldwin was still appellant so that the dignity of black Americans is also recognized. It was not enough, not enough, that the 14th Amendment guaranteed equal protection of the laws; what mattered was how black Americans were treated by their peers. In interview on Canadian television in 1960, Baldwin said, “I don’t know what white people see, you know, when they look at a nigger anymore. But I know very well – I realized when I was very young – that whatever he was looking at was not me… I was not a man. < /em>. “

In his founding book from 1963 Fire next time , Baldwin seemed to echo Dr. Hirsh’s argument from a century earlier:

I am very concerned that black Americans are getting their freedom here in the United States. But I am also concerned about their dignity, the health of their souls, and I must oppose any attempt that negroes may make to do to others what has been done to them. I think I know – we see it every day around us – the spiritual wasteland to which this road leads. It is a fact so simple and so difficult, apparently, to grasp: Whoever degrades others lowers himself.

This is therefore a common thread in our historical understanding of human dignity: anyone who treats another human being as less than human undermines her own human dignity in addition to violating the dignity of its victim.

To 1964 New York University Law Review item maintained that privacy was a key aspect of human dignity. “A man whose home can be entered at the will of another, whose conversation can be overheard at the will of another, whose marital and family intimacy can be monitored at the will of another, is less man, has less human dignity, on this account, ”wrote author Edward J. Bloustein, who later became president of Rutgers University.

The future of dignity

All over the world, people are still working for the full and equal recognition of human dignity. Each year new speeches and writings help us understand what dignity is – not only what it looks like when dignity is violated, but also what it looks like when dignity is honored. In his posthumous essay, Congressman Lewis wrote: “When historians take their pen to write 21st century history, let them say that it is your generation that has finally laid down the heavy burden of hate and that peace has finally triumphed over violence. , aggression and war. “

The more we talk about human dignity, the better we understand it. And the sooner we can move forward towards a shared vision of peace, freedom and mutual respect for all.