Wheat from the Chaff

Michael Ignatieff`s The Rights Revolution: A Review

Here's the first of a series of revamped book reviews that I've published in the past on Chapters.ca and Amazon. They're not meant to be exhaustive, but they have helped me to focus my understanding of the books and my memory of their key ideas. Eventually I will publish most of my older reviews and then add new ones... if I have time to read.

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The Rights Revolution

By Michael Ignatieff

The Rights Revolution is a thought-provoking book, and a praiseworthy attempt to confront the issues of national unity, individual identity and multiculturalism. Nevertheless, it is so riven with contradictions and concessions that it’s sometimes hard to pin down what Michael Ignatieff actually believes.

Ignatieff’s book is an effort to define a conception of civic nationalism based on a theory of human rights. As such, it builds on past books like Blood and Belonging. Ignatieff discusses rights in a particularly Canadian context: his theory of human rights attempts to strike a multicultural balance between group rights and individual rights. Nevertheless, Ignatieff is philosophically a liberal, and in a conflict between the two types of rights, “we should allow individual rights to prevail” (19). Thus, if rights are sought in order to protect the identity of a minority group (e.g. Muslims and Aboriginals), these group rights must not infringe on the rights of its individual members. A “rights culture” accomplishes many things for Ignatieff: rights help articulate and moderate conflict; rights create trust (assuming that both sides respect the rights of the other); rights demand permanent self-questioning; rights help define common meta-values that allow differences to co-exist; right provide a counterbalance to a democratic majority; rights create reciprocities between mutual rights-bearing people; and they defend individual autonomy. Ignatieff therefore places a great deal onto the political centrality of rights, and the discussion of mutual entitlements that they will generate.

One of Ignatieff’s central arguments is that we must go beyond mere tolerance and move towards what he calls “recognition”, which is an “act of enlargement” (136). In such an act, differences should be “acknowledged and welcomed” (87). As long as the majority is also respected, Ignatieff believes that the long term prospect for minority individual rights in Canada is usually towards recognition. For example, in terms of gay rights, he believes their rights will soon be recognized [and were, not long after the publication of this book in 2000]. “Rights equality changes moral culture because groups demand recognition. As they do so, they force sexual majorities toward acceptance and approval… The process will take time and properly should do. But again, it seems hard to imagine that this respect will not follow eventually” (88-89).

There are many frustrating parts in the book. Ignatieff avoids one of the most important questions about rights: where do they come from? From at least Edmund Burke onward, the clash between “inalienable” and “communally derived” rights has been a central debate. But Ignatieff ignores their fundamental distinctions and simply answers that rights come from both sources: “We already possess our rights in two senses: either because our ancestors secured them or because they are inherent in the very idea of being human” (28). And that`s it. He never pursues the essential differences between the two, though he seems to favour “inherent” individual rights. Had he explored the other perspective in greater detail, he might have answered his own question of why liberal “rights talk” ignores social inequality, a collective problem not easily solved by an aggregation of rights-bearing individuals. And had he explored the communitarian view that rights are earned by reciprocation, and ought to be retracted when not advanced equitably, then perhaps he would have seen how individual rights may not be sufficient to create a foundation for a successful polity. By addressing what we are obligated to do for others, in order to help ourselves, Canadians might exhibit greater empathy for others and not simply demand respect for one`s own entitlements. This would certainly broaden the concept of citizenship, and command a greater respect for our country.

Ignatieff contradicts and equivocates to the point of distraction. He starts with the central Canadian perspective that the “essential distinctiveness of Canada itself lies in the fact that we are a tri-national community” (124-125). Then he concedes that “Canadians from [non tri-national] communities refuse to accept the very concept of Canada as a pact between founding races… This concept seems to accord no place to them.” But then concludes, very optimistically, “Most of them can accept that original inhabitants may have claims to territory and language that are withheld from newcomers” (130). The potential for multi-tiered citizenship is never acknowledged or explored. He also believes that the “criticism most often advanced against a civic nationalist vision of national community is that it is too thin. It bases national solidarity on rights equality, but neither rights nor equality make sufficiently deep claims on the loyalties and affections of people to bond them together over time…Clearly, rights are not enough” (126-127). But then he concludes, because of our lack of ethnic unity, “This is essentially why Canada has no choice but to gamble on rights, to found unity on civic nationalist principles” (129). Finally, he argues that the “precondition for order in a liberal society is an act of the imagination: not a moral consensus or shared values”. Then he concedes that “Imagination only carries us only so far…” (138), but flips back and argues that the “entire legitimacy of our institutions depends on our being attentive to difference while treating all as equal. This is the gamble, the unique act of the imagination on which our society rests” (139). By the end, it is difficult to say where Ignatieff actually stands on many key issues. Ignatieff seems skilled at identifying and analyzing problems, but not so skilled (or perhaps willing) to defend a particular solution or point of view. If this is how he acts as a politician, then ``flip-flop``-itis seems to be a much more appropriate criticism by his opponents than his lack of residency.

So, Ignatieff’s book explores some significant issues, but it never provides the clarity and resolution that he thinks “rights talk” offers.