Justin Lacroix – Jean-Yves Prancer
“Human rights are only for the naive?”
Polis editor
translation by Dimitris Tsarapatsanis
page 144

The title of their book Justin Lacroix And Jean-Yves Prancer he is invariably inventive, secretly insightful and at the same time open to discussion. For questions, by their very nature – even if they seem rhetorical – disturb, provoke, and at the same time invite and exhort.

However, before we come to grips with the answer to this question of the professors of the Faculty of Political Sciences of the Free University of Brussels and members of the editorial board of the journal Esprit, perhaps it would be appropriate to start with what – conditionally – It all started.

We are in Paris, winter 1948. Europe is still assessing its wounds, tangible and intangible, from the great war. He is trying to leave behind the pain, destruction, destruction, death in battle, and the Holocaust, namely six million Jews and about five more gypsies, homosexuals, priests, people with disabilities and others who are targeted by many. and destroyed by the Nazis.

After many months of negotiations and meetings, on December 10 of the same year, the UN General Assembly adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The human spirit is making a huge step in its moral evolution. The text includes 30 articles, has been translated into 500 languages ​​and is used as the basis for 70 treaties.

From now on, every person, regardless of race, color, sex, language, religion, nationality, place of birth, social class, political, religious or other beliefs, has an inalienable right to protection. Now he is protected from the possible oppression of others, the arbitrariness of power, as well as from the claims of any established form of sovereignty.

Despite criticism (by communists, postmodernists, ultra-rightists, etc.), human rights functioned as “the highest moral and legitimizing principle.” For decades they have been a common point of “political (and) moral reference”, at least for the liberal West.

Today, however, the data and conditions are no longer the same. In the changing times of our fractured democracies, human rights follow the fate of all claims to universality (such as truth, progress, hope, homeland, democracy, freedom, equality, etc.). That is, they are de facto questioned, if not openly threatened.

In particular, there are many who see human rights (and what we call—rather pejoratively—rights) as the cause of a range of social and political ills. They link them directly to the encroachments of narrow-minded hedonism and short-sighted individualism, the rapid degradation of democratic sociality and the radical erosion of solidarity, as well as the expansion of the market kingdom and the circumvention of social justice.

In this context, Lacroix and the Prancers decide to fight back. Their goal: to formulate a strong argument in defense of human rightssaving them from this ruthless and multifaceted attack.

The task is not easy. On the one hand, because those who criticize human rights are not the usual suspects, but intellectuals defending democracy, both on the left and on the right. On the other hand, because the issue is complex and multi-layered, as it involves a network of ethical, political, social and legal stakes.

Consolidation of claims

Two thinkers they put in painstaking efforts to collect claims that are sure to cause tension. They want to establish the moral priority of individuals, but at the same time include them in the framework of accepting the moral force of social requirements. This attempt rejects the ideas of such thinkers as John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, Cornelius Castoriadis, Rousseau, Kant, and Jean Zores.

Nevertheless, the thought of Claude Lefort has the greatest influence on their thinking. Like him, Lacroix and Prencet accept the internal contradictions, but also the tensions that arise within democracy, and try, following the same line of reasoning, to save it from totalitarianism.

In this context, and in diametrical opposition to the accusers of rightism, both thinkers insist that human rights cannot be separated from democracy. In particular, for Lacroix and Prancer, they are an essential element for its proper functioning, having a political character and liberating power. In other words, autonomy, political freedom and the rule of law presuppose respect for human rights.

Therefore, “it is time to stop blaming the ideology of human rights for all the ills that our society suffers from.” Human rights don’t make citizens more educated, they don’t make them selfish, rude, or less politically active, and they don’t make our democracies work harder. There are also many other reasons that care about this.

To summarize, here. Even if we do not agree on everything with the two French thinkers, accepting perhaps only part of their objections or the tension at the level of their claims, the discussion of human rights must continue. We must not sacrifice this great conquest of the human spirit. It is enough to remember the many authoritarian leaders (see Erdogan, Orban, Trump, Bolsonaro) to make it clear that almost seventy-five years after their declaration of human rights, we need human rights more than ever. So let’s not be so naive.