The Way to Peace
Human rights as natural rights are not social and political creations conferred by the state, and just as easily denied and withdrawn by the state. Such rights are not mere functions of power but belong to each person innately on account of their common humanity. Natural rights are grounded in natural law. The liveliest minds of the modern age, imagining themselves to be the creators of all good things, mistake the fruits for the roots, seeking to turn their own preferences and prejudices into foundations which apply to all. This is how people who are ostensibly libertarian and non-judgemental in their relativism become dogmatic, authoritarian, and repressive in short order. There is such a thing as natural law and ethics and its application is a work of reason, a natural reason which informs, orients, and orders the governance of society according to principle. There are transcendent standards of truth and justice which enable us to evaluate and adjust behaviour, holding the institutions, laws, and practices of societies in time and place to account. When institutions start to fail, societies unravel, and standards of behaviour deteriorate, people who were once happy-going relativists and libertarians start to notice that the fruits they once thought to be firm foundations are turning sour, that there may be something awry or absent in the roots, feeling instinctively that there is an intrinsically better way to do things.
My view on rational freedom, natural law, and transcendent standards has never remotely been the popular view. It is the view that the liveliest minds have sought to deconstruct to unmask power claims. In the process, they have reduced everything to power, made everything politics, and weaponized truth and principle.
They have succeeded in their aim. When you reduce everything to politics and power, then everything is weaponized and everything and everyone is divided into friend or foe.
I offer an alternative, the way out that people are seeking.
Lost in the 'dark wood,' Dante looked up, looked within, and looked beyond.
Dore, The Angel of Peace indicating where to ascend.
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