The Cyclical Dynamics and Problematics of Denying the Human Right of Social Solidarity

Of liberte, egalite, fraternite¹, one of the most difficult, complicated, and unachieved may be fraternite. Of liberte, egalite, fraternite, one of the most important may be fraternite.

Much scholarship, activism, and debate through history has focused on inclusion of women, homosexuals, and people of racial groups in discussions of human rights. These groups in particular are highlighted as protected groups, for whom special attention should be paid. I am not stating that there is an issue with this. Historically, these groups have faced significant challenges being recognized for their place in human rights practice. But what of the “freak” next door? The loner? The slightly off but functional coworker? The weird guy who kids call names and adults turn their eyes from? The white male heterosexual who is psychologically or socially awkward, or at odds with normative perceptions of ‘maleness’, may still have an advantage on paper when it comes to economic opportunities and certain social liberties, but not when it comes to fraternity, also known as brotherhood or social solidarity.

And social solidarity is more than just a ‘nice-to-have.’ In the very real world of opportunity and equality, social solidarity can influence career promotion, participation in school and work opportunities, networking resources, and psychological health. There’s a wealth of resources humans gain from social interaction: problem solving, emotional outlets, widened perspectives, and validation, to name a few. Religious texts reference brotherhood and solidarity, and have informed human rights practices through the decades. Discourse on inclusion of women, homosexuals, underprivileged groups, and people of color have been contentious, in part because of critics claiming reverse discrimination. To be clear, this is not in support of such criticisms. But as we think further on what it means to include all humans in discussions of human rights, and build off the scriptural guidance of brotherhood and social solidarity, we must ask:

What does it entail to “love thy neighbor”?

We admonish others for prejudice and racism, but avoid the odd guy across the street and tell children to steer clear of the crazy cat lady. We sympathize with the monster in Frankenstein, at the same as we avoid the quiet, weird guy at school. We cheer for Quasimodo², but scorn the isolated loner who lashes out at his coworkers.

“While human rights force us to think about universality in political and economic terms, they benefit from such portrayal of universal brotherly love as one finds in Micah (the Hebrew Bible), Paul (the New Testament), the Buddha, and others, and also, in a different way, from the detached universal love professed by the Stoics, like Epictetus, and advocates like Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero.”

(Ishay, 19)

In scriptural and ethical literature, “[e]ven discrimination against the disabled was castigated” (Ishay, 28), but what about the emotionally or socially ‘disabled’? For those who are not strangers, but are foreign in behavior, who are not poor, but are lacking in social solidarity with society and social ease, there are but scant references to where human rights apply to them. To what degree is society responsible for embracing and enacting the human right of solidarity? In failing to enact it, even when it may make us uneasy, are we then unjust?

Solidarity (commonly referenced as brotherhood) is a central tenet of scripture. Christianity teaches to love thy neighbor. Buddhist and Hindu texts highlight virtues of “absence of intolerance (Akrodha), compassion (Bhutadaya, Adroha) . . . and freedom from fear, frustration and despair (Pravrtti, Abhaya, Dhrti)” (Ishay, 20) There is need for solidarity observed in Buddha’s middle path, where the journey toward introspection needs balance with connection to the world of society (Ishay, 21), as Buddha himself found great wisdom and understanding in traveling outside his kingdom to see the world of the citizens, the poor, and the elderly. Confucianism centers much of its teachings on the “network of human relations” and “commitment (li) to a social unit” (Ishay, 22). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 22 states, “each human possesses ‘economic, social, and cultural rights . . . indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.” (Ishay, 35) To what degree is this extended to those who stray from social norms and acceptability?

We are quite inept at enacting and embracing the tenets of solidarity. Up to 49% of students report having been bullied (Affairs). In the workplace, up to 70% of employees polled have experienced workplace bullying (Agarwal). One area where I am having difficulty finding any studies is general societal and community bullying, ostracization, and harassment. But we hear anecdotal reports, such as in almost every case of perpetrators of U.S. mass violence (USMV).

Ted Kazynski, also known as the Unibomber, had difficulty relating to his peers, taunted and panned by his students. In one of the earliest incidents of USMV, perpetrator Gilbert Twigg “wrote that he had harmed no man and had never violated the laws of his country and that the deed he was about to perpetrate was for the purpose of ‘getting even’ with those who had shunned him and interested themselves unnecessarily in his affairs.” A closeted gay man raised by a single mother in the 1930s-1940s, Howard Barton Unruh had regular arguments with neighbors, and difficulty relating to others. Leo Held, of the 1967 Hammermill Paper Company shooting, was banned from carpools and passed over for promotions, and felt his neighbors and coworkers were always talking about him behind his back. Joseph W. White (aka Held) of the 1970 New York Department of Labor shooting was teased endlessly, and fellow students labeled him as stupid, although he had been awarded a Regents scholarship (something other students didn’t know). Mark James Robert Essex of the 1973 Howard Johnsons shooting had experienced a relatively happy and social childhood as an African American in a mixed race neighborhood, only to join the military and face derogatory remarks, taunting, teasing, and bullying from white servicemen.

There is no obligation to be friends with anyone. We make decisions for who we will befriend and spend our time with, and this is a reasonable expectation. There is no requirement to be friends with everyone who crosses our paths. But is there a requirement for a basic sense of social solidarity? Should we practice basic human decency, not only out of a moral sense of justness, but out of a societal obligation for peace and humanity?

Reports on the murder of George Floyd focus on the injustice of police tactics that exceeded necessity and used undue violence. Outrage over such an overuse of force is expected. Behind the acts that took Floyd’s life was a more sinister injustice that so often gets overlooked. In response to a report to police that Floyd might have used a counterfeit $20 bill, police treated him as a criminal, before even looking into whether the currency was counterfeit, or whether Floyd was even aware of it. This is a prime example of a black man being prejudged as a criminal, being prejudged a danger and a threat, being prejudged a monster.

David Livingstone Smith, in his article Paradoxes of Dehumanization, outlines how less than humane/human treatment of others is often predicated on a dehumanization of them, to make them out to be less than or outside of human. Even worse, we dehumanize in order to quell our own discomfort at wishing harm to another human being. Creating an image of them as inherently violent and dangerous, as incapable of human decency, is to create an image of them being less than just, as being unjust, and unworthy of human/humane treatment. Social outcasts become hybrid humans, human monsters, explaining away their difference as a fault that separates them from humanity.

This is not to deny the horror of an incident of mass violence. But should we allow an incident to blind us from seeing the real human behind the event? There is no doubt that to shoot up a school or a workplace is something we shouldn’t condone — I think that goes without saying. But at what point did society first treat the perpetrator as a monster? Was it only upon hearing of the act of mass violence? Or was it long before that?

Ishay describes how various scriptures allow room to consider an unjust person unworthy of just behavior. In some scriptures, there are situations where unjust behavior is forgiven, when it is in response to unjust behavior acted upon them, as by a tyrant or tyrannical government. (Ishay, 25) This begs the question, is being “unjust” a condition of birth? Or a condition of circumstance? Can an unjust society create an unjust person, and if so, does society hold responsibility through its collective unjust behavior?

Does our sense of who is deserving of human rights give humanity justification in denying human rights to those who are deemed by society as unjust? “[W]hereas the Stoics grounded moral equality on the human capacity to reason, Christians saw individuals as equal by virtue of their capacity to love their neighbors as themselves.” (Ishay, 26) The Quran admonishes that “only the righteous . . . will be rewarded.” [Ishay, 34; “let there be no hostilities save against the unjust” (Ishay, 46)] But what if none of us are truly righteous?

Howard Unruh of the Walk of Death (aka Camden Shootings, 1949) was a highly religious individual, with a passion for the Bible and scripture. He also felt persecuted by society and his neighbors, constantly facing disagreements and clashes. Was Unruh then justified in retaliating against neighbors who were unable to love him as a neighbor, to love him as they loved themselves? An argument can certainly be made that verbal spats, smoke from grills, and disputes over gates and fences pale in comparison to shootings, but there is also a much unspoken toll taken on people who experience continued ostracization, criticism, harassment, and bullying. In future posts, I hope to bring more of this research to light.

The questions I leave you with for further thought: When the oppressed rise up, do they justly or unjustly become tyrants? And if the oppressed are now tyrants, are their oppressors now relieved of their role in being tyrants?

1. liberte, egalite, fraternite: central tenets of human rights theory and policy, they stand for liberty, equality, and fraternity, also known as social solidarity or brotherhood. (Taylor)
2. Based on the original script, not the Disney script.

Sources
Affairs (ASPA), A. S. for P. (2019, September 24). Facts About Bullying [Text]. StopBullying.Gov. https://www.stopbullying.gov/resources/facts

Agarwal, D. P. (n.d.). Here Is Why We Need To Talk About Bullying In The Work Place. Forbes. Retrieved June 6, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/pragyaagarwaleurope/2018/07/29/workplace-bullying-here-is-why-we-need-to-talk-about-bullying-in-the-work-place/

Daily Review Newspaper Archives, Oct 23, 1970, p. 20. (1970, October 23). NewspaperArchive.Com. https://newspaperarchive.com/daily-review-oct-23-1970-p-20/
Inc, T. (1949). LIFE. Time Inc.

Ishay, M. R. (2008a). Early Ethical Contributions to Human Rights. In The History of Human Rights (2nd ed., pp. 15–62). University of California Press; JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxscm.6

Ishay, M. R. (2008b). Introduction. In The History of Human Rights (2nd ed., pp. 1–14). University of California Press; JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxscm.5

Johnk, Z. (2017, October 11). Mass Killings of Long Ago: 3 Early Eruptions of ‘Suppressed Rage.’ The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/us/mass-killings-us-history.html

Life Magazine (1949). “Twelve Minutes of Murder.” Originally published Sep 19, 1949. Accessed from Google Books, Feb. 2019. https://books.google.com/books?id=yEkEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA61&dq=Unruh&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjb3_-z7vLeAhUBz1MKHdjNCLcQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=Unruh&f=false

Smith, D. L., & Department of Philosophy, Florida State University. (2016). Paradoxes of Dehumanization: Social Theory and Practice, 42(2), 416–443. https://doi.org/10.5840/soctheorpract201642222

Taylor, A. (n.d.). Crimes of solidarity: Liberté, égalité and France’s crisis of fraternité. The Conversation. Retrieved June 7, 2020, from http://theconversation.com/crimes-of-solidarity-liberte-egalite-and-frances-crisis-of-fraternite-90010