Thanks! Sorry if I missed it elsewhere, but will we be able to access a copy of your thesis once you successfully defend it? Also, curious if these videos are allowed to contribute to your phd? And would you attempt a 3 minute thesis version 😂 and a checklist/ toolbox of recommended actions? Cheers
In my experience getting people to agree that food, shelter, and healthcare should be a human right is surprisingly easy and exposes just how flawed our current system is even on its own terms
Not so much here in the neoliberal turning fasci wasteland states of the southern United States. Almost everyone thinks that almost everyone should have to "pay" for almost everything. Seems to have to do with stigmatizing and demonizing those who have been institutionalized by "assistance programs"..... Almost like the suffering of certain individuals is acceptable and intentional in order them to be seem as inevitable fodder for profits and pomp. Around here even the most weed and sandalwood stinkin "liberal hippies" are speaking frighteningly about issues not intersecting with their own identity like heartless proto-fascists. As long as you don't insult their sexual identity or any other of their life choices, they'll tell you EVERYONE needs to be working themselves to death doing something for profits or accept that their suffering should be acceptable.
I wish this was my reality. I wonder if I'm presenting the proposition wrong, but in my experience, anyone close to centrist or right will scoff and get angry and otherwise disagree about basic human rights.
It is true that human rights are a part of the liberal framework, but they can also be used very effectively as an immanent critique of that same system, pointing out how capitalism fails to provide even its own promises. Framing things such as the housing crisis in terms of human rights can obscure class conflict, but it’s also very persuasive exactly because it’s a framework people are already familiar with
Much the same thing can be said about international law. The international legal framework is basically useless except amongst states with more or less equal military and economic clout, but it certainly can be used to demonstrate the lie at the heart of conventional narratives of how the international system works. You could say that there is no more effective way to engender contempt for the 'rules-based international order' than to demonstrate, using the rules that are explicitly supposed to be the basis of that international order, that no such thing exists or ever has existed.
This is a very good point, and something many people often don’t fully grasp. Even Marx, who claimed that there can be no single overarching set of rights because justice is always grounded in a particular economic system, believed that capitalism gave birth to many of the ideas that would lead to its downfall. There is a tendency to assume that because an idea or belief originated in a specific context it must function solely to justify that context, but we know from experience this isn’t true. Where human rights are concerned, even if they exist because of liberalism (they predate neoliberalism by a few centuries) they give us an idea of a free person as being someone more than just free in an abstract sense. They also force us to think about whether such rights can actually be recognised and used, and function at all, in societies that don’t provide for basic human needs (this could be *any* society). I always tell my students that it was the idea of the human individual, produced in the context of Protestant Christianity, that led humans to the most thorough rejection of religion we’ve ever been able to put together. There’s no way Christianity would have permitted that if it had the choice.
@@serversurfer6169 Because it doesn’t frame housing as part of the economic struggle between the working class and the bourgeoise but as a right that should be granted to every human being regardless of class. Don’t get me wrong, housing IS a human necessity, but this framework leaves out an important part. This is way you see some “humanitarian” capitalists but not so many marxist capitalists, because humanitarianism, at least in theory, is not inherently opposed to capitalism
@@lucastudios86 Okay, that makes sense, but can't we say things like, "People have a right to ____, yet capitalism cannot secure that right, because it's fueled by the threat of the loss of those rights," and just frame capital as necessarily violent against rights? 🤔
love this! there is substantial ground to be gained in essentially subverting the hegemonic construct of human rights as an ideological backing for revolutionary action, rather than merely concede it and any talk about it as inherently neoliberal. there's seemingly a lefty tendency to move away from anything that feels icky because of its mainstream connotation, rather than recognize good and bad potential of extant ideas and work towards delivering on the former
Yes! And people's kneejerk ideological ickiness to human rights makes them miss the substantive sociological point that radical movements making it useful is a real phenomenon that we should understand
I am so pleased at seeing this concept addressed when I have felt it so strongly and seen (at least in my experience) so little discussion of it. It really frustrates me how often leftists commentators abandon ground others claim instead of fighting for ground that's worth fighting for.
Being a gender studies undergrad and a socialist, I've seen enough instances of academics concluding from their offices that all counter-hegemony is actually hegemonic, so I appreciate the pushback to that.
You'll stop being a "socialist" the moment you get your first salary. Libs always turn into fascists. Read Lenin, Mao, Parenti etc. hopefully it will free your mind from liberal brainwashing
@@standowner6979Because it is harder to find a workplace with gender studies degree than with other degrees. It's almost as useful as liberal arts degree (not very useful).
FUCK YES JOHN!! I love this video, I'm in the first month of my PhD, so a long way off from submitting like you, but this is wonderful stuff, and the kinda thing I might actually end up citing at some point in my own research, since I'm super interested in stuff like indigenous and trans activism. Congrats again!!!
You can see a pretty potent example of how disruptive a dialectic approach to human rights can be in the designation of Israel as an apartheid state. Amnesty International themselves have adopted this designation in order to maintain their base; alienating them from their bourgeois peers and exposing contradictions in the hegemonic view on human rights. If the capitalist class is failing by its own legalistic metrics, then that is a weakness that can be exploited. Indeed, it's a failing that exposes flaws in legalism itself.
@AdamFordGhostships Israel's conduct has merited the designation of apartheid for a lot longer than AmInt has been using it, yet AmInt only recently adopted said designation. Now, maybe there are other factors to consider as to why now and not years or decades ago; but AmInt acting in accordance to an unassailable objective criteria of human rights violations isn't one of them unfortunately. The fact is that there were many people; particularly Palestinian people - who were way ahead of AmInt on that one, and personally, I doubt that AmInt would have followed suit if those people weren't extremely vocal about it.
I LOVE dense. I've had to leave academia because of [CW mental health] severe depression and (undiagnosed) autistic burnout, but my brain craaaaves these kinds of texts. Please don't dumb it down, keep feeding my former/semiautodidactic inner intellectual.
thanks for sharing your research with us! :) i totally love the concept of turning the idea of human rights around to be against neoliberalism, especially since the neoliberal concept of human rights requires some blinders, and once you take them off you can't unsee the messed up bits imo. like housing and food and education as human rights that we absolutely have the capacity as a society to fulfill 100%, but we just don't do it. i can't possibly forget about that and naively think the market will solve it 🤪🤡
Can you give an example (or three) of blinders please? This is interesting to me. I am a very amateur but old student of human nature. It's all fascinating.
@@robguyatt9602 i just mean like how human rights under neoliberalism only extend to like "negative" rights, like right to not be a slave, to not be tortured, to not be discriminated against, to not be arbitrarily arrested or detained, etc. but what about a right to be fed in a society that has the capability to feed everyone but chooses not to? what about a right to housing? what about a right to democracy in economic decisions, especially those that affect you or deal with the product of your own labor? it just seems like once you see how incomplete the "negative" rights are then it's hard to not see the space where "positive" rights should be.
@@robguyatt9602 oh yeah, another comment reminded me that there should be a right to healthcare as well. that's one of those "positive" rights i think are very much missing in a neoliberal perspective bc if your world view necessitates commodifying basic things lije housing, food, and healthcare then how can you possibly recognize those as human rights? like you can't say something is a right and then let there be an economic barrier to it, barring some people from having that right.
@@elliekillsmonsters6137 Gotya. :) As much as I dislike labels, I would put myself in the humanist camp. So yes absolutely re positive rights. My philosophy is that since we evolved like other social species to look after each other in the group, we should continue to do so.
If I'm understanding this, while any alternative construction of human rights necessarily has to be made in relationship to the hegemonic construction, it can use that to attack the weaknesses of the hegemonic construction, rather than accept the terms of the hegemonic framework. I'm reminded of the first episode of Community, where Jeff tells Troy, paraphrased, "whether you do it to please them or don't do it to spite them, you are still letting their opinions dictate your behavior". But in this case, the behavior is how we talk about human rights. So rather than accept or reject the neoliberal framing whole cloth, we should take the parts that resonates with people, and reject the parts that that support the current hegemonic power. Does this make sense? And if I'm not in the right ballpark, am I at least in the parking lot?
@@ultravioletiris6241 I see, thanks. But don't Human Rights theoretically apply to all humans regardless of their state/ status? ie wherever they live, even if it's outside of Unitied Nations or any 'organised' place that supposedly adheres to H Rights? Or would an eg enslaved person (even theoretically) have to find their way to a 'state' where that right might have a chance of being recognised? I guess this goes to benevolent orgs having teeth or not (but we've seen how benevolent orgs have also been corporately captured)...
@@DrDanWeaver I don't know if the theoretical aspect of human rights is what's conditional, rather how they are legally constructed and practically applied. For example we have the universal right to education, but if you don't have the necessary policies, funding, material things to guarantee the right to free public education to children in remote villages, that right is just on paper for them. Another example would be the right to housing. Some countries theoretically guarantee it, but they don't actually provide the material basis for that right to be fulfilled, and you can get evicted from both state and private properties under certain conditions, that usually have to do with you not being able to pay rent/ to pay off the mortgage etc.
I don't think the cynical use of the concept of human rights by imperialist factions to attack their enemies delegitimises the concept itself. You can gouge someone's eyes out with a teaspoon but that isn't really what it's intended for. I see the steady expansion of human rights as one of the leading pathways towards socialist reform, although I'm sure the revolutionary branch would subsequently hate it.
I love that one of the first things you had to say here is that "words have different uses in different contexts." This is one of the hardest things to get the left to accept sometimes. Language is not clean and neat and we often have conflicting or exclusive definitions within a list of definitions for a word.
Contested space is a phrase I heard a whole lot of in the nineties in graduate level sociology. Glad to see it raising its head again. Good explainer, and curious about the rest of your uhhhhhhhhhhh. ;)
This is a bit of a universal mistake young leftists make when they start getting into more radical spheres. They are still stuck in non dialectical modes of thinking trying to find universal answers and universal tactics rather than considering their tactics based on specific goals and means. The "engaging in parliamentary work in nonsense cause you can't reform out of capitalism" crowd is exactly the same, they read a bit of Lenin and marx and assume these sweeping dogmatism conclusions meanwhile both examples straight up spoke about the necessity of parliamentary work, not because it's somehow how socialists will deal the coup de grace but because you need to show the limitations of these systems while spreading awareness with your work so that a larger movement may come as people learn about you and how shitty everything actually is. This form of dogmatism imo is more prevalent online do to how a. A lot of people lack the practical experience for reflection and b. Talking trans nationally lead to differing perspectives born from differing conditions leading to conversations having to stay around conceptualizations given it can be hard to talk specifics when conditions are so distinct.
I think it's important to understand that many leftists who are in the "engaging in parliamentary work in nonsense cause you can't reform out of capitalism" camp are actually in the "engaging in parliamentary work *with the Democratic Party* is nonsense cause you can't reform out of capitalism" camp. This sort of oversimplification from more "pragmatic" leftists always really irritates me, because the issue isn't so much with engaging with parliamentarism, more so with expecting Leftists to actively engage with and prop up neoliberals in the process.
Thanks for this insight into your doctoral work - I've been looking forward to hearing more about it for a long time. Good luck with the preparations for your viva, although I'm sure you don't need it.
I caught myself saying neoliberalism with a Scottish accent after watching this the other day. It's such a fun word to say with your accent but it doesn't quite mesh with my distinctly rural Aussie accent lmao. The stare I got from my mate was funny as though
I genuinely can’t wait to hear this take. Jonas Ceika has made a video critical of the concept of Human Rights, but I have faith in a more expansive vision of it than the straitjacket it’s been forced into by Neoliberalism.
I'm currently trying to wrap up research for my dissertation on reproductive justice activism in Wisconsin, so hearing about your work was great but also anxiety producing! (I have to write a whole dissertation now!) Loved hearing about this portion of the research and congratulations on almost being done!
Brilliant. You're an expert, John, and your eloquence and sincerity made me trust your analysis immediately. I too felt it was getting a bit abstract and out of my grasp when you drew my attention to that and reintroduced your wobbly whiteboard for clarity. Great stuff. Really interesting and useful. Amusing imagery and usage of the dire and woefully intellectually-dishonest, money-fed Ben Shapiro. Especially enjoyed your deployment of advanced pointer at c 14.40. Off to consider some counter hegemonic ideas. Hugs and love. Ps: a thought- at c 15m you say that counter-hegemonic thought likely wouldn't disrupt neoliberal hegemony without at least revolutionary action or etc but would certainly weaken it, adding some kicks to the stabilisers...BUT... in a situation where A has 100 resource units and B has only 1, where B voices their challenges to neoliberal hegemony, then A, who monitors B's activity solely for selfish interests, pays C (eg Ben C-piro!) to inject proactive populist arguments against B's nascent intellectual reasoning... could it be that inactivated musings weaken rebellion (by feeding a propaganda machine which mobilises strong forces to pre-counter in popular narrative) rather than strengthen it? We then have to rely on a burgeoning popular awaking to fallacious but persuasively delivered argumentation and we seem quite slow to do so (or at least a vocal minority do). Also, then a still stronger counter needs to be created as the narrative has now moved further (likely further right). Edit: is this related to enshrining human rights then realising they help bolster the hegemony in myriad ways? Personally I do think it helps, as with time (which we may not have) the false arguments will be exposed, but that seems a lengthy process, any better way forward or must we bring all critical thinking skills upwards before we see substantive/tipping point type change? Edit; relatedly you mention the differences between practitioners and academia...more on that please and how to meld- I feel I/humanity fall between 2 stinky stools here. TLDR- notwithstanding great but quite sophisticated analysis such as yours, how can (often bad faith) populist hegemony-stabilisers be countered most effectively? Also, 'inherent limitations of legalism'/pursuing change via hegemonic institutions @ 18.40; does our new tech offer the possibility of democratising bringing swift but carefully considered law/action into being? PPS burping after mentioning viva etc, coincidence or long swallowed stress of PhD process?! (Certainly not talking sht!). Obviously you will be fine/great in viva- you're super knowledgeable about this subject, thanks for educating me and creating impact! Here to stay, here to fight, housing is a human right.
Thank you Dan! I'm not sure I have answers to all the questions here but to focus in on the TL;DR and the tech question cause I think they're related , I'm not sure things like right wing media empires and methods of Ben Shapiro-ing to the world can be directly countered by people like me and the many other great left wing youtubers about. Rather, all we can do is try to present our views of the world, hope that the audience takes it on board, and critically, hope that they take ideas and take them to places where organising work is happening. However, like I say in this video, these ideas are born from those people (including myself) who are already organising against the force of hegemony so the directionality from where these ideological musings come is already complicated! On tech and democratisation, I'm quite skeptical of its democratizing potential given the forms of ownership and corporate control at work. The push against open source and towards total comodification is ongoing! cheers
Perhaps, though i suspect after this big piece of research i will likely move away from human rights research. Think the questions i wanted amswers for have been found (and there is so much exellent work already on neocolonial human rights)
Ever thought of doing a video on Wikipedia and its fundamentally hegemonic approaches to knowledge production and credibility? It seems like a subject that is absent from people's minds in a way it really needs to not be considering how many 'leftists' still seem to default to scrolling wikipedia when they want to 'know' something
I think the issue I have with entities that criticize human rights is that they almost invariably act exactly in a way that which would indicate why people tend to value human rights.
this was on my to-watch list since it came up and i'm so glad i finally got around to it. i do understand how human rights fits into the broader power structures but it's still a really compelling concept and i'm glad there's an argument that it doesn't Have to be a tool for the powerful. not just bc it's a concept that people can readily get behind (and something that can be really offputting to people who aren't yet on board to say human rights are bad full stop) but because in a hypothetical future where neoliberal hegemony isn't the power structure there Will still be powerful people committing violent acts and this Is language that can be used to combat that and help with organizing
Interestingly, I know an anarchist through twitter that's opposed to human rights on the basis that the state cannot *grant* you rights, only restrict them; and that the specific form that human rights take is fundamentally reliant on a system of capitalism and nation states. Edit: as far as I know he still holds this position, but he stopped openly advocating it a few years ago after heavy backlash from the broader "leftist" community.
I'd say the first part of that is pretty indefensible. States do frequently grant citizens rights that don't directly restrict them. It's a pretty foundational distinction in rights theory between positive and negative rights. The question then gets to how the state interacts with such distinct forms of rights. That the institutional/NGO human rights system is part of capitalist hegemony is true, but like i say here, its not everything
@@JohntheDuncan I think the point is more that rights as a concept only need to exist when there is a power structure that seeks to restrict freedom. That is, rights are nothing more than concessions hard-won, and in a truly free society, we would neither have nor require defined "rights"
@@RaunienTheFirst no I get that, but often rights are not direct restrictions on state power but obligations to state action in which case you have to have a different conversation about the role of the state which is beyond the context of rights here. Also worth pointing out that in the cases in this video, the resistence is often placed on market power than anything else
Yeah this one was aimed more at an academic audience given it was adapted from a conference paper, but hopefully you should still get somethibg from it
great title lmao the idea that the concept of human rights as a whole being neoliberal just didn’t make sense on a base level. that being said i def wanna read up on how it can be used in a neoliberal hegemonic way. any further reading recs aside from the ones mentioned in this video? or maybe another video of yours? i also appreciate your attention to what’s happening on the ground as opposed to pure theory. i wanna know what actually works in real life, not just in intellectual debate. you’re doing important research!
Oh ok I am looking forward to the day when it will be available 😂. I come from a legal background education wise and through the years I have been trying to see how to reconcile this knowledge with a way to actually do meaningful work and praxis for like meaningful change (in like social material conditions terms). And I find the snippet of your work really interesting and would definitely want to read more into it.
So interesting!!! In your thesis do you go into at all the potential incongruities between what these activist subjects believe themselves to be doing and what their work actually materially contributes to as they are not necessarily the same thing? And in reference to the limitations of the 'new left' contributing to the birth of neoliberalism, do you explore at all what these theoretical limitations could be producing in an emerging new regime of post-neoliberalism?
I'm not sure I understand what exactly your question means unfortunately. I'm also not particularly clear on the assumption that the new left was particularly instrumental in the creation of neoliberalism
@@JohntheDuncan Sorry not well worded! I haven't studied this closely so it's probably wrong haha. I was asking if your thesis goes into the material impacts of the actions taken by these social movements based on this analysis of human rights rather than just their 'Understanding' of what they're doing, if that makes sense? Or is that beyond the scope of the work? It was my understanding that the impacts and limitations of the left in each period contributes to the formation of the next regime of capital accumulation. For example the New Left's focus on individual rights and psychoanalysis allowed neoliberalism to co-opt the radical individualism in consumer activism and aesthetics and then sold back to us a further dissolution of collective action and subjectivity?
You ever say a word so many times that it starts to feel funny on your tongue, like it's barely even a word anymore, just a spasm from muscle memory completely devoid of meaning?
My dad calls himself a human rights activist. It was believable when I was growing up, but when I grew up I realized the correct term is "philanthropath". He grew up in a polygamy sect, left and became atheist. All I ever heard from him growing up was "flds is bad this" "warren jeffs is bad that" it was like having a westboro baptist for a father except instead of gay bashing it was him bashing a religion that had zero relevance to his wife and kids. Last I remembered he was calling his political views "cosmopolitan" and I saw enough of his charade that any time I see the words "human rights" paired with a buzzword like "neoliberal" it's a good chance they aren't real human rights and it's got a catch
Really interesting to here some more about your PhD, also congratulations on finishing it! As someone with no formal training or education for this stuff I do want to ask if I actually understand what you are saying... As I understand the basic theses of this video is that because the common (legalistic) understanding of human rights are foundational to neoliberalism this can't be used to effectively challenge it. But other understandings of human rights are used to effectively challenge it. However not the whole neoliberal order, just specific parts. So for example disability liberation activists use their "counter-hegemonic" understanding of human rights to attack (the neoliberal ways of) how disabled people are treated in our society, and other activists do the same for their focuses. Also these tactics are surprisingly akin to each other even though the activists are fighting for very different things. So this means that (non-legalistic) human rights can and are probably used to challenge how the current order deals with different components of society, but probably can't be used to challenge it as a whole. Also thanks for the whiteboard bits, they really helped!
You've nailed it! The one other thing worth emphasising is that these different groups that use human rights exist in "socially reproductive" areas which are being commodified. That is, areas where previously the state would have taken the lead in ensuring that people can continue living (and working) such as welfare, housing, and education. They're using human rights to resist the marketisation of those areas
Congratulations and best of luck!! This is a bit dense for me, as I'm not very well-versed in academic language haha, but from what I understood of the premise/discussion I agree! The concept of human rights is something capitalism seems to have commodified and redefined in order to serve/justify its (arguably inherently) inhumane structures -- e.g. denying food/housing/education/medical care/...life, ultimately, on a systemic level. Human rights and wellness are an important common knowledge/interest that can be used to unify and, like you said, prompt people to Ask Why. I think curiosity and questions are crucial in challenging the status quo (slick bit of alliteration there), and can prompt dreams/demands for a more humane alternative!
Spot-on in every respect - well done (soon-to-be) Doctor! I have so many thoughts, and only 10 minutes before I have to clock in to work, so I'll just drop this here: A meme (in the classic sense) I've been trying to spread in urbanist spaces where neoliberal "YIMBY" build-baby-build (and never mind the cost or displacement) is the commonly-spouted "solution" to the housing/homelessness crisis: *Housing can either be a lucrative investment opportunity, a way to build wealth that only ever goes up in value, **_or_** it can be a right that people have because people need to live indoors. It can't be both.* (I just heard FD Signifier shouted out - w00t!)
Very illuminating and entertaining and real. Human rights are of course a human myth, not a true transcendent law; they are like any other imaginary sacred horizon, but are they not the most inclusive and thus universal and thus JUST fiction we have come up with so far - for our species only, of course? And is that really the same as neoliberal ideology? Still thinking about it. (And high right now.)
The internet is not helping me find out what GRT liberation is (specifically, the GRT part - gross registered tonnage liberation is really hard to make sense of!). Anyone?
I like these catorigorizations: coercion and consent. Stick and carrot. In my own experience, there is a third leg that is distinct: distraction. Media, depoliticization, diversion to nonsensical world views and theories, and most importantly: a sapping of energy and free time of most people to actually engage in political activity.
Finally got time to watch this! And depending on if I have anything to say I’ll probably come back and edit this or something XD. Edit: def gonna need a rewatch to properly understand this lmao.
for a while now i've been thinking human rights are kind of contradictions in themselves. i mean one of the assumptions for human rights is that everyone is equally effected by them. one might say equality is a human right in that sense. however doesn't the idea of a right imply that someone gave that right, that theres someone out there (governments) who has power over a group of people, thus making this equality impossible. there's probably more to say on this argument/question/idk but i haven't spent time to develop this a lot
I try not to optics troll but I think if you hear "housing is a human right" and your response is to berate that person about how "human rights are bougie and should be abolished" its going to be hard to convince people of a whole lot
I agree with the video/topic fully, but as I'm waiting for 'Ahsoka' finish so I can binge it, you saying TLJ is the best SW movie leads me to not take your "Ahsoka sucks" comment seriously.
@@parthiaball 7 is fun, nothing special; 8 is the best Star Wars movie; 9 is probably the worst star wars movie, managing to pip the prequels to the post
@@JohntheDuncan The order of movies from best to least, unironically, is: 3, 6, 5, Rogue One, 1, 4, 2, Solo, The Clone Wars, 7, and 8+9 are tied at last for different reasons. We can argue some stuff in this order except Sequels getting anything higher than the bottom three spots.
I want to say the hegemonic neoliberal conception of human rights has always been a mere recouperation. Human rights are counter-hegemonic from the start, but capitalism has over and over again proven itself capable of swallowing up its critics and spitting them back out turned on their head.
What good timing, I was preparing to write a piece about whether or not human rights should be considered a priori. Is that essay available somewhere Mr The Duncan?
Just musing and commenting for the Al Gore rhythm: Counter-hegemony as described here sounds like anarchy using tai chi principles. Still building community based alternative power, but subverting the hegemony's against itself. Social reproduction brought to mind artificial wombs and how they're sold as liberating the worker, for more profitable forms of work. Negating the value of social reproduction, while further commodifying it and outsourcing it - maybe the maid could even tend to the womb while you're doing your long shifts of actual work and after?
Hegemony. Hegemony! Hegemony... Neoliberalism. Hegemony. Neoliberalism. Hegemonic. Hegemony. I must say though, you couldn't even fit in _one_ dialectics? For shame.
We just need a better universal declaration of Human Rights that includes economic rights, rights of youth, Rights of nature, rights of animals, Labor rights and so on. It will be a lifelong battle to get the assholes who make laws to adopt these but it's a battle worth fighting.
I mean, the UDHR already contains economic rights and labour rights and various international legal covenants cover most of what you've listed here. The issue isn't that the laws are not good enough, its that international law is not an avenue of liberation
Not yet but once it's gona through viva it'll be available through the british library, I'll post it to patreon, and I'll send it to literally anyone who wants it
While I find this very interesting, I don’t agree that the prevailing idea of human rights is a *neo* liberal phenomenon. It has its origins in classic liberalism, and philosophers like Hegel were some of the first try and conceptualise it in a social context (as well as thinkers like Rousseau writing about how such rights are jeopardised by a society of free economic exchange).
I think that we should probably examine different notions of human rights within the context in which we find them. Obviously the french rights of man aren't neoliberal, nor is the UDHR (though institutional historians of neoliberalism would point to the influence of neoliberals in the early days of the UN there). But I think that it's certainly true that the global legal/NGO human rights order operates as part of global neoliberal hegemony. I think we have ample theoretical and empirical evidence to support that perspective (whyte's book itself does an extremely good job at that). But just as id take the specific manifestation of human rights to argue their dominant form is a supporting feature of neoliberal hegemony, so too would I acknowledge the specific counter hegemonic form
That doesn't even make sense. Fascism is directly opposed to individualism, which is a key component of liberalism. Mussolini in the Doctrine to Fascism states this quite clearly. They're inherently opposed ideologies.
@@Jon_Snowhite you have to see how both operated in practice, not their principles. Check out Michael Parenti's "Blackshirts & Reds", Domenico Losurdo's "Liberalism: A Counter-Historyand" and Ishay Landa's "The Apprentice's Sorcerer: Liberal Tradition and Fascism"
Opening hot take, may correct after I've watched: No, almost definitionally since they predate neoliberalism. They *are* Liberal in their current conception, but that's not intrinsic to the idea of humans having rights, just a product of Liberals writing the current list.
Not to say you're mecessarily wrong here, but on the teleological point, most advocates of the "human rights are part of neoliberalism" will point to the relative obscurity of human rights as a frame pre the 1970s and that the coterminous rise of both to global consciousness is evidence for their embroilment in neoliberal hegemony
Sure, so I definitely think you can make a case for them in their present state being an element of modern neoliberal hegemony! As with a lot of adapted elements of earlier political structures and ideologies, representative democracy for example. What I was getting at (perhaps pedantically?) was that, like representative democracy, the fact that they're now integrated into a neoliberal world system doesn't make them intrinsically part of that system - they have been part of an earlier one/s and could (regardless for a moment of whether they should) be part of later ones. That feels important when the issue under discussion is whether they can be used by those of us with radical aims rather than just "whether they sometimes get used to do an oppression." I guess I should have included an "intrinsically" in my comment. That said, really liked the video. I agree with basically every point you make in it, and on a related note appreciate that you're still engaging in comments despite how much the channel's grown. That can't always be easy!
Am I the first thing to point out Human Rights are a human construct ? If humans actually had rights children would not die from lack of medical care, people would not freeze to death ten feet from a heated building. The only rights we have are those enforced by the state and that seems to be selective at best.
Reforms are.. fine.. but, equating movements that undermine the importance of the political primacy of the proletariat's liberation for the sake of reforms to benefit 1 fragment of the proletariat (homeless, queer, disabled etc) with radicality is disgraseful.
Anywhere we can currently (or soon) go to read your dissertation in full? Would love to develop a more complete understanding of the findings of this work.
Once it's done with the viva (and any corrections) it will be available through the british library website. I'll also post it to patreon and just send it to anyone who wants it
I would love to hear your view on animal rights! I do think animal liberation can be squared with marxist theory although anti-speceism as being against all exploitation (with emphasis being placed on humans as being part of this) should be the focus, not veganism (although veganism I think is important for internal radical protest). I've drifted from welfare based vegan groups but I feel even suspicious in more intersectional rights based ones; the property status of animals is rejected by them, but there isn't much said about the validity of private property in the first place.
Not sure about "animal rights" as a frame, largely because i just haven't read all that much on it. But i think animal liberation and marxism are quite compatible. Marxism requires a complete altering of our relationship with the "non-human" and should recognise that the way we currently exploit and mass slaughter animals (and destroy ecologies) is innately tied to capitalist dynamics. That's not to say all marxisms recognise this. Some are just awful in how they reproduce capitalist dynamics of exploitation. But i think there are Marxisms which are very compatible with animal liberation
I know it's not the focus of the video, but I still wanted to give my thoughts on it: I think markets themselves aren't coercive, but rather being forced/coerced to participate in markets is the coercive element. When there is a truly free market, i.e. a market where all are completely free to choose (not) to participate, isn't coercive. Labour markets are coercive because many people don't have any choice but to sell their labour; they don't have that choice, because they lack the land/resource access to utilize their labour directly for their own benefit instead of selling it. Markets for basic necessities like food and shelter are coercive because people lack the land/resource access to produce such basic necessities for themselves. And why do people lack this access? Because land and natural resources, things provided by nature through no human action, are commodities and privatised, taken away from the commons into private ownership without any compensation to the community. We need to reclaim the value of nature and make those who wish to have exclusive access to a part of it pay the community for that access: make landowners pay rent for the land they use, and make miners and loggers and such pay for the natural resources they take; use that money for the benefit of the community, first and foremost to ensure that nobody needs to participate in markets in order to meet their basic needs. Then, and only then, markets where people are truly free to choose whether they want to participate in them, and thus cannot be coerced into participation, can exist.
Bibliography here
twitter.com/Johntheduncan/status/1700962677609177240?t=mHWnv-uoEZ1YDuh5p28byw&s=19
Thanks! Sorry if I missed it elsewhere, but will we be able to access a copy of your thesis once you successfully defend it?
Also, curious if these videos are allowed to contribute to your phd?
And would you attempt a 3 minute thesis version 😂 and a checklist/ toolbox of recommended actions?
Cheers
In my experience getting people to agree that food, shelter, and healthcare should be a human right is surprisingly easy and exposes just how flawed our current system is even on its own terms
Yep!
It's kicking and screaming for me
Not so much here in the neoliberal turning fasci wasteland states of the southern United States. Almost everyone thinks that almost everyone should have to "pay" for almost everything. Seems to have to do with stigmatizing and demonizing those who have been institutionalized by "assistance programs"..... Almost like the suffering of certain individuals is acceptable and intentional in order them to be seem as inevitable fodder for profits and pomp. Around here even the most weed and sandalwood stinkin "liberal hippies" are speaking frighteningly about issues not intersecting with their own identity like heartless proto-fascists. As long as you don't insult their sexual identity or any other of their life choices, they'll tell you EVERYONE needs to be working themselves to death doing something for profits or accept that their suffering should be acceptable.
Do you mean that the ease of agreement indicates something systemic?
I wish this was my reality. I wonder if I'm presenting the proposition wrong, but in my experience, anyone close to centrist or right will scoff and get angry and otherwise disagree about basic human rights.
It is true that human rights are a part of the liberal framework, but they can also be used very effectively as an immanent critique of that same system, pointing out how capitalism fails to provide even its own promises. Framing things such as the housing crisis in terms of human rights can obscure class conflict, but it’s also very persuasive exactly because it’s a framework people are already familiar with
Much the same thing can be said about international law. The international legal framework is basically useless except amongst states with more or less equal military and economic clout, but it certainly can be used to demonstrate the lie at the heart of conventional narratives of how the international system works. You could say that there is no more effective way to engender contempt for the 'rules-based international order' than to demonstrate, using the rules that are explicitly supposed to be the basis of that international order, that no such thing exists or ever has existed.
This is a very good point, and something many people often don’t fully grasp. Even Marx, who claimed that there can be no single overarching set of rights because justice is always grounded in a particular economic system, believed that capitalism gave birth to many of the ideas that would lead to its downfall. There is a tendency to assume that because an idea or belief originated in a specific context it must function solely to justify that context, but we know from experience this isn’t true. Where human rights are concerned, even if they exist because of liberalism (they predate neoliberalism by a few centuries) they give us an idea of a free person as being someone more than just free in an abstract sense. They also force us to think about whether such rights can actually be recognised and used, and function at all, in societies that don’t provide for basic human needs (this could be *any* society).
I always tell my students that it was the idea of the human individual, produced in the context of Protestant Christianity, that led humans to the most thorough rejection of religion we’ve ever been able to put together. There’s no way Christianity would have permitted that if it had the choice.
How does saying that housing is a human right serve to obscure class struggle? 🤔
@@serversurfer6169 Because it doesn’t frame housing as part of the economic struggle between the working class and the bourgeoise but as a right that should be granted to every human being regardless of class. Don’t get me wrong, housing IS a human necessity, but this framework leaves out an important part. This is way you see some “humanitarian” capitalists but not so many marxist capitalists, because humanitarianism, at least in theory, is not inherently opposed to capitalism
@@lucastudios86 Okay, that makes sense, but can't we say things like, "People have a right to ____, yet capitalism cannot secure that right, because it's fueled by the threat of the loss of those rights," and just frame capital as necessarily violent against rights? 🤔
love this! there is substantial ground to be gained in essentially subverting the hegemonic construct of human rights as an ideological backing for revolutionary action, rather than merely concede it and any talk about it as inherently neoliberal. there's seemingly a lefty tendency to move away from anything that feels icky because of its mainstream connotation, rather than recognize good and bad potential of extant ideas and work towards delivering on the former
Yes! And people's kneejerk ideological ickiness to human rights makes them miss the substantive sociological point that radical movements making it useful is a real phenomenon that we should understand
I am so pleased at seeing this concept addressed when I have felt it so strongly and seen (at least in my experience) so little discussion of it. It really frustrates me how often leftists commentators abandon ground others claim instead of fighting for ground that's worth fighting for.
Oh hey, Elliot.
Being a gender studies undergrad and a socialist, I've seen enough instances of academics concluding from their offices that all counter-hegemony is actually hegemonic, so I appreciate the pushback to that.
You're making a terrible mistake studying gender
You'll stop being a "socialist" the moment you get your first salary. Libs always turn into fascists.
Read Lenin, Mao, Parenti etc. hopefully it will free your mind from liberal brainwashing
Why is it a mistake?
cope. @@DavidWestwater-vq6qy
@@standowner6979Because it is harder to find a workplace with gender studies degree than with other degrees. It's almost as useful as liberal arts degree (not very useful).
FUCK YES JOHN!! I love this video, I'm in the first month of my PhD, so a long way off from submitting like you, but this is wonderful stuff, and the kinda thing I might actually end up citing at some point in my own research, since I'm super interested in stuff like indigenous and trans activism. Congrats again!!!
Thank yoi so much! And honestly you'll get there before you know it!
Congratulations Dr. Duncan! It takes a PhD student to know utterly difficult this is
You can see a pretty potent example of how disruptive a dialectic approach to human rights can be in the designation of Israel as an apartheid state. Amnesty International themselves have adopted this designation in order to maintain their base; alienating them from their bourgeois peers and exposing contradictions in the hegemonic view on human rights.
If the capitalist class is failing by its own legalistic metrics, then that is a weakness that can be exploited. Indeed, it's a failing that exposes flaws in legalism itself.
err ... no, Amnesty International adopted that designation only because Israel's conduct meets the definition.
@AdamFordGhostships Israel's conduct has merited the designation of apartheid for a lot longer than AmInt has been using it, yet AmInt only recently adopted said designation.
Now, maybe there are other factors to consider as to why now and not years or decades ago; but AmInt acting in accordance to an unassailable objective criteria of human rights violations isn't one of them unfortunately. The fact is that there were many people; particularly Palestinian people - who were way ahead of AmInt on that one, and personally, I doubt that AmInt would have followed suit if those people weren't extremely vocal about it.
Abya Yala thinkers have been saying this for decades. Great to finally see it in these channels
I LOVE dense. I've had to leave academia because of [CW mental health] severe depression and (undiagnosed) autistic burnout, but my brain craaaaves these kinds of texts. Please don't dumb it down, keep feeding my former/semiautodidactic inner intellectual.
The concept of human rights is far too useful to just give it away to neoliberals
I'm pretty sure the concept belongs to humanism. You could even say it's in the name.
@@rikospostmodernlife I'm pretty sure that's where the neolibs appropriated it from!
thanks for sharing your research with us! :) i totally love the concept of turning the idea of human rights around to be against neoliberalism, especially since the neoliberal concept of human rights requires some blinders, and once you take them off you can't unsee the messed up bits imo. like housing and food and education as human rights that we absolutely have the capacity as a society to fulfill 100%, but we just don't do it. i can't possibly forget about that and naively think the market will solve it 🤪🤡
Can you give an example (or three) of blinders please? This is interesting to me. I am a very amateur but old student of human nature. It's all fascinating.
@@robguyatt9602 i just mean like how human rights under neoliberalism only extend to like "negative" rights, like right to not be a slave, to not be tortured, to not be discriminated against, to not be arbitrarily arrested or detained, etc. but what about a right to be fed in a society that has the capability to feed everyone but chooses not to? what about a right to housing? what about a right to democracy in economic decisions, especially those that affect you or deal with the product of your own labor? it just seems like once you see how incomplete the "negative" rights are then it's hard to not see the space where "positive" rights should be.
@@robguyatt9602 oh yeah, another comment reminded me that there should be a right to healthcare as well. that's one of those "positive" rights i think are very much missing in a neoliberal perspective bc if your world view necessitates commodifying basic things lije housing, food, and healthcare then how can you possibly recognize those as human rights? like you can't say something is a right and then let there be an economic barrier to it, barring some people from having that right.
@@elliekillsmonsters6137 Gotya. :) As much as I dislike labels, I would put myself in the humanist camp. So yes absolutely re positive rights. My philosophy is that since we evolved like other social species to look after each other in the group, we should continue to do so.
I'm so glad you finally have a microphone.
I can finally listen at a comfortable 2x :D
Fantastic work on such important issues! So interesting and exciting. I hope you've been able to cool down since filming!
Nope!
If I'm understanding this, while any alternative construction of human rights necessarily has to be made in relationship to the hegemonic construction, it can use that to attack the weaknesses of the hegemonic construction, rather than accept the terms of the hegemonic framework.
I'm reminded of the first episode of Community, where Jeff tells Troy, paraphrased, "whether you do it to please them or don't do it to spite them, you are still letting their opinions dictate your behavior". But in this case, the behavior is how we talk about human rights. So rather than accept or reject the neoliberal framing whole cloth, we should take the parts that resonates with people, and reject the parts that that support the current hegemonic power.
Does this make sense?
And if I'm not in the right ballpark, am I at least in the parking lot?
Babe wake up, a new John the Duncan video just dropped!
Human rights? More like human wrongs, amirite fellas?
No but seriously, what good are human rights if they are conditional anyways?
How are they conditional?
@@DrDanWeaverbecause of the contractual relationship between state and subjects
@@ultravioletiris6241 I see, thanks. But don't Human Rights theoretically apply to all humans regardless of their state/ status? ie wherever they live, even if it's outside of Unitied Nations or any 'organised' place that supposedly adheres to H Rights? Or would an eg enslaved person (even theoretically) have to find their way to a 'state' where that right might have a chance of being recognised? I guess this goes to benevolent orgs having teeth or not (but we've seen how benevolent orgs have also been corporately captured)...
@@DrDanWeaver I hope to read his thesis about this someday
@@DrDanWeaver I don't know if the theoretical aspect of human rights is what's conditional, rather how they are legally constructed and practically applied. For example we have the universal right to education, but if you don't have the necessary policies, funding, material things to guarantee the right to free public education to children in remote villages, that right is just on paper for them.
Another example would be the right to housing. Some countries theoretically guarantee it, but they don't actually provide the material basis for that right to be fulfilled, and you can get evicted from both state and private properties under certain conditions, that usually have to do with you not being able to pay rent/ to pay off the mortgage etc.
This was such a cool video, even though I joined late. I really liked your diagrams as well
I don't think the cynical use of the concept of human rights by imperialist factions to attack their enemies delegitimises the concept itself. You can gouge someone's eyes out with a teaspoon but that isn't really what it's intended for. I see the steady expansion of human rights as one of the leading pathways towards socialist reform, although I'm sure the revolutionary branch would subsequently hate it.
I love that one of the first things you had to say here is that "words have different uses in different contexts." This is one of the hardest things to get the left to accept sometimes. Language is not clean and neat and we often have conflicting or exclusive definitions within a list of definitions for a word.
Cool, thanks for sharing this! It's great to see more generally approachable explainers for academic research
I'm glad you think it's approachable!
Contested space is a phrase I heard a whole lot of in the nineties in graduate level sociology. Glad to see it raising its head again. Good explainer, and curious about the rest of your uhhhhhhhhhhh. ;)
Congrats to you for finishing your PHD. Ya know what was good slop Andor.
Andor was so good i didn't even think of it when i thought if slop
I know you're not quite finished yet, but congrats on getting your PhD. I'm sure it was a ton of time and effort. Thanks for sharing this with us!
This is a bit of a universal mistake young leftists make when they start getting into more radical spheres. They are still stuck in non dialectical modes of thinking trying to find universal answers and universal tactics rather than considering their tactics based on specific goals and means. The "engaging in parliamentary work in nonsense cause you can't reform out of capitalism" crowd is exactly the same, they read a bit of Lenin and marx and assume these sweeping dogmatism conclusions meanwhile both examples straight up spoke about the necessity of parliamentary work, not because it's somehow how socialists will deal the coup de grace but because you need to show the limitations of these systems while spreading awareness with your work so that a larger movement may come as people learn about you and how shitty everything actually is. This form of dogmatism imo is more prevalent online do to how a. A lot of people lack the practical experience for reflection and b. Talking trans nationally lead to differing perspectives born from differing conditions leading to conversations having to stay around conceptualizations given it can be hard to talk specifics when conditions are so distinct.
I think it's important to understand that many leftists who are in the "engaging in parliamentary work in nonsense cause you can't reform out of capitalism" camp are actually in the "engaging in parliamentary work *with the Democratic Party* is nonsense cause you can't reform out of capitalism" camp. This sort of oversimplification from more "pragmatic" leftists always really irritates me, because the issue isn't so much with engaging with parliamentarism, more so with expecting Leftists to actively engage with and prop up neoliberals in the process.
Thanks for this insight into your doctoral work - I've been looking forward to hearing more about it for a long time. Good luck with the preparations for your viva, although I'm sure you don't need it.
I caught myself saying neoliberalism with a Scottish accent after watching this the other day. It's such a fun word to say with your accent but it doesn't quite mesh with my distinctly rural Aussie accent lmao. The stare I got from my mate was funny as though
Slowly hypnotising the world by letting my pronunciation of neoliberalism worm its way into your heads
@@JohntheDuncan I'll work my way through dense sociological concepts one word in scottish pronunciation at a time.
I believe what this video has proven most thoroughly is the need for synonyms for hegemony.
Real talk
I genuinely can’t wait to hear this take. Jonas Ceika has made a video critical of the concept of Human Rights, but I have faith in a more expansive vision of it than the straitjacket it’s been forced into by Neoliberalism.
I'm currently trying to wrap up research for my dissertation on reproductive justice activism in Wisconsin, so hearing about your work was great but also anxiety producing! (I have to write a whole dissertation now!) Loved hearing about this portion of the research and congratulations on almost being done!
As soon as I saw the thumbnail I screamed and then I got angry because I saw Thatcher's face and immediately lost it. Good video though.
Brilliant. You're an expert, John, and your eloquence and sincerity made me trust your analysis immediately. I too felt it was getting a bit abstract and out of my grasp when you drew my attention to that and reintroduced your wobbly whiteboard for clarity. Great stuff. Really interesting and useful. Amusing imagery and usage of the dire and woefully intellectually-dishonest, money-fed Ben Shapiro. Especially enjoyed your deployment of advanced pointer at c 14.40. Off to consider some counter hegemonic ideas. Hugs and love. Ps: a thought- at c 15m you say that counter-hegemonic thought likely wouldn't disrupt neoliberal hegemony without at least revolutionary action or etc but would certainly weaken it, adding some kicks to the stabilisers...BUT... in a situation where A has 100 resource units and B has only 1, where B voices their challenges to neoliberal hegemony, then A, who monitors B's activity solely for selfish interests, pays C (eg Ben C-piro!) to inject proactive populist arguments against B's nascent intellectual reasoning... could it be that inactivated musings weaken rebellion (by feeding a propaganda machine which mobilises strong forces to pre-counter in popular narrative) rather than strengthen it? We then have to rely on a burgeoning popular awaking to fallacious but persuasively delivered argumentation and we seem quite slow to do so (or at least a vocal minority do). Also, then a still stronger counter needs to be created as the narrative has now moved further (likely further right). Edit: is this related to enshrining human rights then realising they help bolster the hegemony in myriad ways? Personally I do think it helps, as with time (which we may not have) the false arguments will be exposed, but that seems a lengthy process, any better way forward or must we bring all critical thinking skills upwards before we see substantive/tipping point type change? Edit; relatedly you mention the differences between practitioners and academia...more on that please and how to meld- I feel I/humanity fall between 2 stinky stools here. TLDR- notwithstanding great but quite sophisticated analysis such as yours, how can (often bad faith) populist hegemony-stabilisers be countered most effectively?
Also, 'inherent limitations of legalism'/pursuing change via hegemonic institutions @ 18.40; does our new tech offer the possibility of democratising bringing swift but carefully considered law/action into being? PPS burping after mentioning viva etc, coincidence or long swallowed stress of PhD process?! (Certainly not talking sht!). Obviously you will be fine/great in viva- you're super knowledgeable about this subject, thanks for educating me and creating impact! Here to stay, here to fight, housing is a human right.
Thank you Dan! I'm not sure I have answers to all the questions here but to focus in on the TL;DR and the tech question cause I think they're related , I'm not sure things like right wing media empires and methods of Ben Shapiro-ing to the world can be directly countered by people like me and the many other great left wing youtubers about. Rather, all we can do is try to present our views of the world, hope that the audience takes it on board, and critically, hope that they take ideas and take them to places where organising work is happening. However, like I say in this video, these ideas are born from those people (including myself) who are already organising against the force of hegemony so the directionality from where these ideological musings come is already complicated!
On tech and democratisation, I'm quite skeptical of its democratizing potential given the forms of ownership and corporate control at work. The push against open source and towards total comodification is ongoing!
cheers
I hope your work gets into the neocolonial aspects of human rights, it being the highest form of neoliberalism ;)
Perhaps, though i suspect after this big piece of research i will likely move away from human rights research. Think the questions i wanted amswers for have been found (and there is so much exellent work already on neocolonial human rights)
That white board was so clutch
Say the line, John!
"Hegemony"
Yaaaaay!
Ever thought of doing a video on Wikipedia and its fundamentally hegemonic approaches to knowledge production and credibility? It seems like a subject that is absent from people's minds in a way it really needs to not be considering how many 'leftists' still seem to default to scrolling wikipedia when they want to 'know' something
I think the issue I have with entities that criticize human rights is that they almost invariably act exactly in a way that which would indicate why people tend to value human rights.
examples being
Congrats on the dissertation! I'm still working through a Labour Studies MA myself, must be relieving!
Love this vid. I feel I learned a lot! :D
Hoots sent me to you. What a treat you are.
Hoots is a treat!
Fuck yeah, John. Fuck yeah. (For the algorithm, you understand.)
this was on my to-watch list since it came up and i'm so glad i finally got around to it. i do understand how human rights fits into the broader power structures but it's still a really compelling concept and i'm glad there's an argument that it doesn't Have to be a tool for the powerful. not just bc it's a concept that people can readily get behind (and something that can be really offputting to people who aren't yet on board to say human rights are bad full stop) but because in a hypothetical future where neoliberal hegemony isn't the power structure there Will still be powerful people committing violent acts and this Is language that can be used to combat that and help with organizing
Interestingly, I know an anarchist through twitter that's opposed to human rights on the basis that the state cannot *grant* you rights, only restrict them; and that the specific form that human rights take is fundamentally reliant on a system of capitalism and nation states.
Edit: as far as I know he still holds this position, but he stopped openly advocating it a few years ago after heavy backlash from the broader "leftist" community.
I'd say the first part of that is pretty indefensible. States do frequently grant citizens rights that don't directly restrict them. It's a pretty foundational distinction in rights theory between positive and negative rights. The question then gets to how the state interacts with such distinct forms of rights. That the institutional/NGO human rights system is part of capitalist hegemony is true, but like i say here, its not everything
@@JohntheDuncan I think the point is more that rights as a concept only need to exist when there is a power structure that seeks to restrict freedom. That is, rights are nothing more than concessions hard-won, and in a truly free society, we would neither have nor require defined "rights"
@@RaunienTheFirst no I get that, but often rights are not direct restrictions on state power but obligations to state action in which case you have to have a different conversation about the role of the state which is beyond the context of rights here. Also worth pointing out that in the cases in this video, the resistence is often placed on market power than anything else
@@JohntheDuncan yeah, that's fair
I hope you use the colloquial "wee" in the book
six seconds in and I'm already pullin out a dictionary 🤣 this won't end well
Yeah this one was aimed more at an academic audience given it was adapted from a conference paper, but hopefully you should still get somethibg from it
@@JohntheDuncan I'm on my second watch, really trying to take it in this time
great title lmao the idea that the concept of human rights as a whole being neoliberal just didn’t make sense on a base level. that being said i def wanna read up on how it can be used in a neoliberal hegemonic way. any further reading recs aside from the ones mentioned in this video? or maybe another video of yours?
i also appreciate your attention to what’s happening on the ground as opposed to pure theory. i wanna know what actually works in real life, not just in intellectual debate. you’re doing important research!
Congrats on you PhD again btw 🎉🎉 is your thesis published fully already and like is it available to read online?
Thank you! Not yet, still need to put it through the viva
Oh ok I am looking forward to the day when it will be available 😂. I come from a legal background education wise and through the years I have been trying to see how to reconcile this knowledge with a way to actually do meaningful work and praxis for like meaningful change (in like social material conditions terms). And I find the snippet of your work really interesting and would definitely want to read more into it.
I'll prefer the ten short chapter self published and free or stealable epub please...and accompanying ten part short vid😂❤
ohhhhh, this is on the same topic as “human rights in the soviet union”
So interesting!!!
In your thesis do you go into at all the potential incongruities between what these activist subjects believe themselves to be doing and what their work actually materially contributes to as they are not necessarily the same thing?
And in reference to the limitations of the 'new left' contributing to the birth of neoliberalism, do you explore at all what these theoretical limitations could be producing in an emerging new regime of post-neoliberalism?
I'm not sure I understand what exactly your question means unfortunately. I'm also not particularly clear on the assumption that the new left was particularly instrumental in the creation of neoliberalism
@@JohntheDuncan Sorry not well worded! I haven't studied this closely so it's probably wrong haha.
I was asking if your thesis goes into the material impacts of the actions taken by these social movements based on this analysis of human rights rather than just their 'Understanding' of what they're doing, if that makes sense? Or is that beyond the scope of the work?
It was my understanding that the impacts and limitations of the left in each period contributes to the formation of the next regime of capital accumulation. For example the New Left's focus on individual rights and psychoanalysis allowed neoliberalism to co-opt the radical individualism in consumer activism and aesthetics and then sold back to us a further dissolution of collective action and subjectivity?
You ever say a word so many times that it starts to feel funny on your tongue, like it's barely even a word anymore, just a spasm from muscle memory completely devoid of meaning?
congrats on your phd!!!
My dad calls himself a human rights activist. It was believable when I was growing up, but when I grew up I realized the correct term is "philanthropath". He grew up in a polygamy sect, left and became atheist. All I ever heard from him growing up was "flds is bad this" "warren jeffs is bad that" it was like having a westboro baptist for a father except instead of gay bashing it was him bashing a religion that had zero relevance to his wife and kids. Last I remembered he was calling his political views "cosmopolitan" and I saw enough of his charade that any time I see the words "human rights" paired with a buzzword like "neoliberal" it's a good chance they aren't real human rights and it's got a catch
Really interesting to here some more about your PhD, also congratulations on finishing it!
As someone with no formal training or education for this stuff I do want to ask if I actually understand what you are saying...
As I understand the basic theses of this video is that because the common (legalistic) understanding of human rights are foundational to neoliberalism this can't be used to effectively challenge it. But other understandings of human rights are used to effectively challenge it. However not the whole neoliberal order, just specific parts. So for example disability liberation activists use their "counter-hegemonic" understanding of human rights to attack (the neoliberal ways of) how disabled people are treated in our society, and other activists do the same for their focuses. Also these tactics are surprisingly akin to each other even though the activists are fighting for very different things. So this means that (non-legalistic) human rights can and are probably used to challenge how the current order deals with different components of society, but probably can't be used to challenge it as a whole.
Also thanks for the whiteboard bits, they really helped!
You've nailed it! The one other thing worth emphasising is that these different groups that use human rights exist in "socially reproductive" areas which are being commodified. That is, areas where previously the state would have taken the lead in ensuring that people can continue living (and working) such as welfare, housing, and education. They're using human rights to resist the marketisation of those areas
Congratulations and best of luck!!
This is a bit dense for me, as I'm not very well-versed in academic language haha, but from what I understood of the premise/discussion I agree! The concept of human rights is something capitalism seems to have commodified and redefined in order to serve/justify its (arguably inherently) inhumane structures -- e.g. denying food/housing/education/medical care/...life, ultimately, on a systemic level.
Human rights and wellness are an important common knowledge/interest that can be used to unify and, like you said, prompt people to Ask Why. I think curiosity and questions are crucial in challenging the status quo (slick bit of alliteration there), and can prompt dreams/demands for a more humane alternative!
Actually I was thinking about going to pee, so I guess you couldn't hear what I was thinking.
Absolute banger!!!! 🔥🔥🔥
Spot-on in every respect - well done (soon-to-be) Doctor!
I have so many thoughts, and only 10 minutes before I have to clock in to work, so I'll just drop this here:
A meme (in the classic sense) I've been trying to spread in urbanist spaces where neoliberal "YIMBY" build-baby-build (and never mind the cost or displacement) is the commonly-spouted "solution" to the housing/homelessness crisis:
*Housing can either be a lucrative investment opportunity, a way to build wealth that only ever goes up in value, **_or_** it can be a right that people have because people need to live indoors. It can't be both.*
(I just heard FD Signifier shouted out - w00t!)
Very illuminating and entertaining and real. Human rights are of course a human myth, not a true transcendent law; they are like any other imaginary sacred horizon, but are they not the most inclusive and thus universal and thus JUST fiction we have come up with so far - for our species only, of course? And is that really the same as neoliberal ideology? Still thinking about it. (And high right now.)
A UA-cam series about your dissertation would probably be actually very sick
Calling all new Star Wars shows slop like he hasn't cried watching Andor at least twice
No shame, for the record, we've all been there
The internet is not helping me find out what GRT liberation is (specifically, the GRT part - gross registered tonnage liberation is really hard to make sense of!). Anyone?
It's the acronym for Gypsie, Roma, Traveller groups
@@JohntheDuncan Aha! Thank you, I thought it might be something like that but 'Roma' slipped my mind.
I like these catorigorizations: coercion and consent. Stick and carrot. In my own experience, there is a third leg that is distinct: distraction. Media, depoliticization, diversion to nonsensical world views and theories, and most importantly: a sapping of energy and free time of most people to actually engage in political activity.
Finally got time to watch this! And depending on if I have anything to say I’ll probably come back and edit this or something XD.
Edit: def gonna need a rewatch to properly understand this lmao.
Wait, I didn't know Tilda Swinton had a YT channel.
Weirdly, my passport photo really does look like tilda swinton
for a while now i've been thinking human rights are kind of contradictions in themselves. i mean one of the assumptions for human rights is that everyone is equally effected by them. one might say equality is a human right in that sense. however doesn't the idea of a right imply that someone gave that right, that theres someone out there (governments) who has power over a group of people, thus making this equality impossible. there's probably more to say on this argument/question/idk but i haven't spent time to develop this a lot
Fuckin' great fuckin' video fuckin'.
So, you are saying you can dismantle the master’s house with his tools? Congrats on finishing the thesis.
Not dismantle it but you can weaken the foundations with them.
My bad, maybe we should start on a 10,000 year endevor to develop our own tools sophisticated enough to dismantle the masters house 😂
Human Rights? what about Human wrongs? Hmm yeah I thought so, mr youtube man
does the pretty blue book contain a chapter on chicken run? i hope so
The human right to own other humans is neoliberal?
Do I get a banana sticker now, or...?
I try not to optics troll but I think if you hear "housing is a human right" and your response is to berate that person about how "human rights are bougie and should be abolished" its going to be hard to convince people of a whole lot
and this video did not do that, hurray!
@@spoonikle yeah this was in response to the people yelling at him lol
I agree with the video/topic fully, but as I'm waiting for 'Ahsoka' finish so I can binge it, you saying TLJ is the best SW movie leads me to not take your "Ahsoka sucks" comment seriously.
I am unreservedly correct about Star Wars
@@JohntheDuncan Sequel Trilogy is a hot load of garbage, don't quit your day job, comrade.
@@parthiaball 7 is fun, nothing special; 8 is the best Star Wars movie; 9 is probably the worst star wars movie, managing to pip the prequels to the post
@@JohntheDuncan The order of movies from best to least, unironically, is: 3, 6, 5, Rogue One, 1, 4, 2, Solo, The Clone Wars, 7, and 8+9 are tied at last for different reasons. We can argue some stuff in this order except Sequels getting anything higher than the bottom three spots.
@@parthiaball comrade, you have lost your way
I want to say the hegemonic neoliberal conception of human rights has always been a mere recouperation. Human rights are counter-hegemonic from the start, but capitalism has over and over again proven itself capable of swallowing up its critics and spitting them back out turned on their head.
What good timing, I was preparing to write a piece about whether or not human rights should be considered a priori.
Is that essay available somewhere Mr The Duncan?
Just musing and commenting for the Al Gore rhythm:
Counter-hegemony as described here sounds like anarchy using tai chi principles. Still building community based alternative power, but subverting the hegemony's against itself.
Social reproduction brought to mind artificial wombs and how they're sold as liberating the worker, for more profitable forms of work. Negating the value of social reproduction, while further commodifying it and outsourcing it - maybe the maid could even tend to the womb while you're doing your long shifts of actual work and after?
Hegemony. Hegemony! Hegemony... Neoliberalism. Hegemony. Neoliberalism. Hegemonic. Hegemony.
I must say though, you couldn't even fit in _one_ dialectics? For shame.
We just need a better universal declaration of Human Rights that includes economic rights, rights of youth, Rights of nature, rights of animals, Labor rights and so on. It will be a lifelong battle to get the assholes who make laws to adopt these but it's a battle worth fighting.
I mean, the UDHR already contains economic rights and labour rights and various international legal covenants cover most of what you've listed here. The issue isn't that the laws are not good enough, its that international law is not an avenue of liberation
Anyone trying to make a "seeing the world through rose tinted glasses" joke can shove it bc they're more plum and they're badass 😎
Hey JD, can we read your thesis anywhere?
Not yet but once it's gona through viva it'll be available through the british library, I'll post it to patreon, and I'll send it to literally anyone who wants it
Good video 😊
Hi, thanks for the video, very informative.
Also, there's no s in coercion, just a heads up :)
Der 'human rights' muss aufgehoben werden
Doctor The Duncan!
While I find this very interesting, I don’t agree that the prevailing idea of human rights is a *neo* liberal phenomenon. It has its origins in classic liberalism, and philosophers like Hegel were some of the first try and conceptualise it in a social context (as well as thinkers like Rousseau writing about how such rights are jeopardised by a society of free economic exchange).
I think that we should probably examine different notions of human rights within the context in which we find them. Obviously the french rights of man aren't neoliberal, nor is the UDHR (though institutional historians of neoliberalism would point to the influence of neoliberals in the early days of the UN there). But I think that it's certainly true that the global legal/NGO human rights order operates as part of global neoliberal hegemony. I think we have ample theoretical and empirical evidence to support that perspective (whyte's book itself does an extremely good job at that). But just as id take the specific manifestation of human rights to argue their dominant form is a supporting feature of neoliberal hegemony, so too would I acknowledge the specific counter hegemonic form
Liberalism is closer to fascism.
That doesn't even make sense. Fascism is directly opposed to individualism, which is a key component of liberalism.
Mussolini in the Doctrine to Fascism states this quite clearly. They're inherently opposed ideologies.
@@Jon_Snowhite you have to see how both operated in practice, not their principles.
Check out Michael Parenti's "Blackshirts & Reds", Domenico Losurdo's "Liberalism: A Counter-Historyand" and Ishay Landa's "The Apprentice's Sorcerer: Liberal Tradition and Fascism"
Opening hot take, may correct after I've watched:
No, almost definitionally since they predate neoliberalism. They *are* Liberal in their current conception, but that's not intrinsic to the idea of humans having rights, just a product of Liberals writing the current list.
Not to say you're mecessarily wrong here, but on the teleological point, most advocates of the "human rights are part of neoliberalism" will point to the relative obscurity of human rights as a frame pre the 1970s and that the coterminous rise of both to global consciousness is evidence for their embroilment in neoliberal hegemony
Sure, so I definitely think you can make a case for them in their present state being an element of modern neoliberal hegemony! As with a lot of adapted elements of earlier political structures and ideologies, representative democracy for example. What I was getting at (perhaps pedantically?) was that, like representative democracy, the fact that they're now integrated into a neoliberal world system doesn't make them intrinsically part of that system - they have been part of an earlier one/s and could (regardless for a moment of whether they should) be part of later ones. That feels important when the issue under discussion is whether they can be used by those of us with radical aims rather than just "whether they sometimes get used to do an oppression." I guess I should have included an "intrinsically" in my comment.
That said, really liked the video. I agree with basically every point you make in it, and on a related note appreciate that you're still engaging in comments despite how much the channel's grown. That can't always be easy!
@@jago2503 it's easy when they're nice and interesting!
@@JohntheDuncanD'aww, thanks :) and congrats on the PHD, by the way - I must have missed that stream somehow
Am I the first thing to point out Human Rights are a human construct ?
If humans actually had rights children would not die from lack of medical care, people would not freeze to death ten feet from a heated building.
The only rights we have are those enforced by the state and that seems to be selective at best.
Human rights being constructs is very much the background assumption of this work
You got it past the IRB. That's what matters. 👍
First off, congrats on the PhD! Second, how dare you call Ahsoka slop, that show has been better than the movies so far 😂
First of all, thank you! Second, you are dead wrong!
Invoking liberal framework can only result in liberal results, ""radical"" reforms are still just that, reforms.
Reforms are.. fine.. but, equating movements that undermine the importance of the political primacy of the proletariat's liberation for the sake of reforms to benefit 1 fragment of the proletariat (homeless, queer, disabled etc) with radicality is disgraseful.
Anywhere we can currently (or soon) go to read your dissertation in full? Would love to develop a more complete understanding of the findings of this work.
Once it's done with the viva (and any corrections) it will be available through the british library website. I'll also post it to patreon and just send it to anyone who wants it
I would love to hear your view on animal rights! I do think animal liberation can be squared with marxist theory although anti-speceism as being against all exploitation (with emphasis being placed on humans as being part of this) should be the focus, not veganism (although veganism I think is important for internal radical protest). I've drifted from welfare based vegan groups but I feel even suspicious in more intersectional rights based ones; the property status of animals is rejected by them, but there isn't much said about the validity of private property in the first place.
Not sure about "animal rights" as a frame, largely because i just haven't read all that much on it. But i think animal liberation and marxism are quite compatible. Marxism requires a complete altering of our relationship with the "non-human" and should recognise that the way we currently exploit and mass slaughter animals (and destroy ecologies) is innately tied to capitalist dynamics. That's not to say all marxisms recognise this. Some are just awful in how they reproduce capitalist dynamics of exploitation. But i think there are Marxisms which are very compatible with animal liberation
What level of Patreon would net me an audiobook version of the thesis?
Yes, they are. Can’t wait for your approach.
What did JohntheDuncan do to get himself suspended from reddit?
Who knows!
@@crashtestdolphin5884 i wasn't involved in drama! I hadnt been on reddit since i last posted a video a month ago
@@crashtestdolphin5884 well, that is what seems to have happened so where to now?
27:23 I don't care how true it is i'm out
I have a couple friends who are very alternative and also endlessly poly, so i get it.
(great vid)
Lmao
I know it's not the focus of the video, but I still wanted to give my thoughts on it:
I think markets themselves aren't coercive, but rather being forced/coerced to participate in markets is the coercive element. When there is a truly free market, i.e. a market where all are completely free to choose (not) to participate, isn't coercive.
Labour markets are coercive because many people don't have any choice but to sell their labour; they don't have that choice, because they lack the land/resource access to utilize their labour directly for their own benefit instead of selling it.
Markets for basic necessities like food and shelter are coercive because people lack the land/resource access to produce such basic necessities for themselves.
And why do people lack this access? Because land and natural resources, things provided by nature through no human action, are commodities and privatised, taken away from the commons into private ownership without any compensation to the community.
We need to reclaim the value of nature and make those who wish to have exclusive access to a part of it pay the community for that access: make landowners pay rent for the land they use, and make miners and loggers and such pay for the natural resources they take; use that money for the benefit of the community, first and foremost to ensure that nobody needs to participate in markets in order to meet their basic needs. Then, and only then, markets where people are truly free to choose whether they want to participate in them, and thus cannot be coerced into participation, can exist.
is there anyway to access and read your PhD in fullflegded form? I would love to read the full form of the ideas and data gathered
Excellent