Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse

By Mary Ann Glendon

Book Overview

Glendon argues that the American obsession with individual rights dominates politics is such that very little else is allowed a hearing. She says that, as a consequence, debate on crucial constitutional and other political issues is effectively stifled. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0029118239
• ISBN13: 9780029118238
• Release Date: July 1993
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 236 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.7" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Portentous subtleties of modern American language and law

Harvard's Mary Ann Glendon provides one of those rare insights into why we are the way we are, exposing what is patently aberrant when externally viewed, axiomatic by force of habit and an educational system catering to consumerism. Central is our language, that way to the soul of how we view our world and us in it, through rights talk. American rights talk is stark, simple, polarizing, legalistic, excessively bestowing the...

NECESSARY LECTURE

Mary Ann Glendon, professor of Law at Harvard University, one of the most eminent scholars in contemporary America, in this book writes about the legal cultural tradition of the United States, up until the actual absolutization of the rights claim, sign of a rising individualism that is part of the rich US tradition but that it's a serious challenge for our actual democracy. A necessary lecture for every American that takes...

Individualism versus reality

Glendon puts into perspective the overuse of the idea of individual "rights" and how the emphasis in our legal system not only leads to absurdity, but to the inability of society to discuss very real social problems. As she puts it (I paraphrase) this discourse is based on the way few men, and fewer women, actually live. For we all live in a complex milieu of family and friends and neigbors, not in isolation.I especially like...

An Evenhanded Critique of Rights

Rights talk is ubiquitous in American culture; from the highest political office holder to the lowest convenience store clerk, people invoke rights, often in absurdly stark and overbroad forms, as a way of expressing their desires, interests, and moral and political views. Often such rights claims lead people to say things that are clearly false and/or absurd, such as that they have the right, without qualification, to do...

an interesting, worthwhile read

I very much enjoyed reading this book & I think I gained much from doing so. Although a lot of space is devoted by the author to anticipating & shooting down arguments those who don't agree with her might offer, she does get her points across rather well. She has a lot to say about the fact that lawyers & judges seem to love talking about rights while they have little to say about obligations. Some of the facts she...