Western construct

(world citizen class)

Respond to at least 2 of the following ideas from the video:

• Some believe that human rights is merely a Western construct.
• We have the idea of right and wrong rooted in religion…When we construct a secular ethic to substitute for the religious one in which we no longer hold any confidence…the instructions turn out to be quite similar.
• All powerfully emancipatory ideas get sucked into a vortex of power which seeks not to remove them but to twist their meaning to suit the powerful.
• We risk our culture if we collude in the idea that our culture is so valuable that we can afford to depart from it in order to secure it.
• We are driven to engage in this energetic, empathetic solidarity…this common intuitive commitment to reaching out. This is what makes us, in the end, a human rights culture.

*Also, please note that this video was created in 2012. Many things have happened since the time of filming; keep that in mind as you listen to the cultural references being made. A stellar response will refer to more recent examples.*