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Historical Origins of Human Rights

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Title: Historical Origins of Human Rights


1
Historical Origins of Human Rights
  • Lecture 10
  • Respatialization and Internationalism
  • February 22, 2007

2
outline
  • spatialization
  • natural v. cultural space
  • the history of spatiality
  • the rise of international consciousness
  • some examples
  • internationalism between local and global
  • internationalism and nationalism
  • the history of violence and war
  • mid-century wars
  • the rise of telescopic humanitarianism

3
spatialization
  • natural v. cultural space
  • space in history
  • primitive space
  • frontiers
  • degrees of distance
  • 19th c. internationalism

4
defining internationalism
  • a process
  • a consciousness
  • a movement

5
the economy
  • foreign trade increased 44fold 1800-1913
  • qualitative as well as quantitative
    transformation after mid-century not just
    luxuries or raw goods requiring different climate
    (tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco), but also new bulk
    commodities (metal ores, coal, fibers,
    foodstuffs, textiles, iron goods, machinery)
  • unprecedented labor flows
  • most exporting from industrialized nations and
    among each other

6
international effects
  • international trade policy
  • golden age of free trade (1860s-70s)
  • cycles become international (as of 1857?)
  • pressure for international regulation
  • fixed exchange rates gold standard (1870s-)

7
communications/travel
  • telegraph (Samuel Morse, 1844)
  • steamships
  • railroad
  • passports

8
Jules Verne
  • Around the World in 80 Days (1872)
  • Had he travelled? It was likely, for no one
    seemed to know the world more familiarly there
    was no spot so secluded that he did not appear to
    have an intimate acquaintance with it. He often
    corrected, with a few clear words, the thousand
    conjectures advanced by members of the club as to
    lost and unheard-of travellers, pointing out the
    true probabilities, and seeming as if gifted with
    a sort of second sight, so often did events
    justify his predictions. He must have travelled
    everywhere, at least in the spirit.

9
Jules Verne, contd
  • "I maintain," said Stuart, "that the chances are
    in favour of the thief, who must be a shrewd
    fellow.
  • "Well, but where can he fly to?" asked Ralph.
  • "No country is safe for him.
  • Oh, I don't know that. The world is big
    enough.
  • "It was once," said Phileas Fogg, in a low tone.
  • "What do you mean by once'? Has the world grown
    smaller?"

10
government
  • policing (Interpol)
  • mail
  • measurement (Meter Treaty, 1875)
  • There is something captivating in the idea of
    one system of weights and measures, which shall
    be common to all of the civilized world, so that
    at least in this particular, the confusion of
    Babel may be overcome. Kindred to this is that
    other idea of one system of money. And both of
    these ideas are, perhaps, the forerunner of that
    grander idea of one language for all the
    civilized world (Charles Sumner, Mass. Senator,
    1866)

11
between local
  • did internationalism presuppose the nation or
    anticipate its abolition?
  • flexibility of concept
  • most often, model of integrating nations without
    superseding them
  • could even encourage search for national
    particularity and greatness
  • nationalism as word and movement rising at same
    time

12
international exhibitions
  • began London, 1851
  • I asked the Prince Albert if the exhibition
    should be a national or an international
    exhibition. The French had discussed if their own
    exhibition should be international, and preferred
    that it be national only. The Prince reflected
    for a minute, and then said, It must embrace
    foreign productions, to use his words, and added
    emphatically, International certainly. (Henry
    Cole, main organizer)

13
the crystal palace
14
other intl exhibitions
  • Paris, 1855, 1867, 1878, 1889, 1900, 1925, 1937
  • London, 1862, 1874
  • Amsterdam, 1883
  • Chicago, 1893
  • St. Louis, 1904
  • New York, 1939
  • San Francisco, 1939

15
sports
  • English as leaders
  • descent of sports from elite to masses
  • nationalization of sports
  • international competition
  • Pierre de Coubertin (1863-1937)
  • Olympic Games (1896-)

16
internationalism and civilization
  • link between internationalism and exclusion
  • European values as the true universal
  • ideology of progress
  • role of non-civilized in worlds fairs
  • role of non-civilized in sports

17
and global
  • but others interpreted internationalism as
    calling into question the values of the
    nation-state
  • beginnings of international movements
  • philanthropic movements
  • womens movements

18
the rise of intl orgs
19
Marxist internationalism
  • Intl Workingmens Association (1864-74)
  • Second Intl (1875-1912)
  • The Internationale
  • Marx as globalizer

20
the Internationale
  • Arise ye workers from your slumber
  • Arise ye prisoners of want
  • For reason in revolt now thunders
  • And at last ends the age of cant.
  • Away with all your superstitions
  • Servile masses arise, arise
  • We'll change henceforth the old tradition
  • And spurn the dust to win the prize.
  • So comrades, come rally
  • And the last fight let us face
  • The Internationale unites the human race
  • So comrades, come rally
  • And the last fight let us face
  • The Internationale unites the human race.
  • No more deluded by reaction
  • On tyrants only we'll make war
  • The soldiers too will take strike action
  • They'll break ranks and fight no more
  • And if those cannibals keep trying
  • To sacrifice us to their pride
  • They soon shall hear the bullets flying
  • We'll shoot the generals on our own side.
  • No saviour from on high delivers
  • No faith have we in prince or peer
  • Our own right hand the chains must shiver
  • Chains of hatred, greed and fear
  • E'er the thieves will out with their booty
  • And give to all a happier lot.
  • Each at the forge must do their duty
  • And we'll strike while the iron is hot.
  • Words, Eugène Pottier, 1871
  • Music, Pierre Degeyter, 1888

21
words, words, words
  • Internationalism International character or
    spirit the principle of community of interests
    or action between different nations spec. (with
    capital I) the doctrine or principles of the
    International Working Men's Association. 1851 M.
    TUPPER in D. Hudson Martin Tupper (1949) x. 121
    President Fillmore..received me very kindly and
    cordially, and avowing himself a great lover of
    my works and my Internationalism. 1877 M. M.
    GRANT Sun-Maid xi, Its internationalism was the
    feature that struck you first. 1886 Pall Mall G.
    26 Aug. 3/2 If this should be the sole fruit of
    this year's conference the interests of
    internationalism in labour will have been very
    considerably advanced. 1888 SIR C. MONCRIEFF
    ibid. 11 Sept. 4/1 On a par with most of the
    others which internationalism has devised for the
    welfare of Egypt. 1895 Thinker VIII. 536
    Internationalism is the only virtue that comports
    with peace. 1898 Daily News 27 July 6/2 The
    preacher of the Four Commandments
    (non-Resistance, Chastity, Labour, Universal
    Brotherhood, otherwise Internationalism). 1955
    Times 17 May 10/7 Internationalism seems to have
    become by now an accepted thing even in trades
    far less easily internationalized than ours. 1971
    World Archaeol. III. 226 In Childe's view, it
    was..the Iron Curtain which abruptly severed this
    age-old tradition of internationalism. 1973 Times
    16 Apr. 4/6 No city has done more than Coventry
    since the war to further the cause of
    internationalism.

22
next lecture
  • international law
  • international regulation of war
  • crucial turning point in history of
    humanitarianism
  • The word international, it must be acknowledged,
    is a new one though, it is hoped, sufficiently
    analogous and intelligible. It is calculated to
    express, in a more significant way, the branch of
    law which goes commonly under the name of the law
    of nations. (Bentham, 1780)

23
the history of violence
  • general decline w/ civilizing process
  • less frequent but more intense
  • the turning point of the 1850s-1860s
  • war as an object of humanitarian concern

24
the death toll
25
the death toll, contd
26
primitive genocide
27
fatalism in history
  • war as a fact of life
  • no way to limit not just war but the effects of
    war
  • Cicero When arms speak, the laws are silent.

28
the war against war
  • the end of fatalism to the 18th century
  • ironically, by empowering states, war came to
    seem less of an unavoidable, if tragic,
    occurrence
  • spate of works at the end of the 18th century
    the most famous of which is Kants Perpetual
    Peace which foresaw earthly harmony and Bentham
    first sketched a plan for a peace society
  • first peace movements and associations founded in
    the 1810s
  • Quaker pacifism
  • The Peace Society
  • The League of Universal Brotherhood
  • did best in Britain and in small countries
    developing a neutralist philosophy like
    Switzerland
  • by the mid-19th century, particularly in Britain,
    it seemed like an age of universal, persistent
    peace had arrived

29
was Nietzsche wrong (gasp)?
  • the new face of war intensity and export
  • Nietzsche shared something with the
    humanitarians of his time the factual
    assumption that overt forms of violence were
    disappearing. He merely argued to the fact that,
    in part because they were becoming covert and
    inward, humanitarian developments are part of a
    decline.
  • yet in the battles they periodically fought
    against each other (and constantly in the
    colonies), Europeans were revealing themselves as
    the cruel and bloodthirsty warriors Nietzsche
    said they had taught themselves not to be
    anymore.
  • were the forms, or was the scope, of violence
    new, or is it only that humanitarian concern made
    it seem more of a glaring problem?

30
the first total war
  • Napoleonic Europe
  • partisan warfare
  • transgression of limits
  • civilian involvement
  • popular armies (levée en masse)
  • civilian punishment
  • Goya

31
the Crimean War (1854-56)
  • what was the Crimean War and why did it start?
  • the Ottoman Empire
  • Alma
  • William Howard Russell, first war correspondent?
  • Roger Fenton sent by British government, on
    instructions to glamorize (or at least not
    undermine) war
  • We search in vain for any reference to death and
    injury certainly a monumental absence in a
    photographic record of war.
  • no images of combat or even of wounded why?
  • Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Charge of the Light
    Brigade
  • revolution in war reportage

32
the valley of the shadow of death
33
Solferino (1859)
  • next time

34
American Civil War (1861-65)
  • Matthew Brady
  • Alexander Gardner and Timothy OSullivan A
    Harvest of Death, Field Where General Reynolds
    Fell
  • like Fenton, they arranged their
    shots arrangement of photos
  • where Fenton seemed loyal to crown and
    aristocracy, OSullivan and Garder were out for
    commercial gain to be had from sating mass
    voyeurism
  • sensationalism and photography of dying

35
a harvest of death
36
where general reynolds fell
37
telescopic philanthropy
  • engaging in action to help faraway sufferers
  • press directing moral energy
  • popular heroes
  • Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)
  • Scutari
  • ladies of the lamp

38
telescopes, contd
  • Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1852-3)
  • If the veil had been lifted up here in London
    from the last two months of cholera and the whole
    truth had been told about the sufferings of the
    poor in their ill-provided dwellings a picture
    far more harrowing even than that from
    Constantinople might easily have been drawn. But
    cui bono?
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