Talal Asad on the History of the Idea of Humanity

Berkley Center Event: Reflections on the Origins of Human Rights, featuring Talal Asad (9/28/09)

Event Webpage: http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/e...

The enormous academic interest in human rights is reflected in several excellent histories. Although there has been some disagreement over the origins of human rights, most scholars acknowledge their modern European provenance. In his talk, Talal Asad took it for granted that their origins do not make human rights inappropriate to non-European cultures. Through a discussion of two recent contributions -- John Headley's The Europeanization of the World; On the Origins of Human Rights and Democracy, and Lynn Hunt's Inventing Human Rights-- he explored two concepts generally regarded as central to human rights: "humanity" and "sympathy. This event was co-sponsored by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

The Philosophy of Liberty

The philosophy of liberty is based on self-ownership. This simple but elegant and hard-hitting animation will explain exactly what that means. It's a great tool anyone can use to educate children and adults about our right to life, liberty, and the property we create - and our responsibility to think, speak and act.

For more info and/or to download a free DVD version of this video, see:

http://www.philosophyofliberty.blogsp...


CREDITS

AUTHOR: Ken Schoolland schoolak001@hawaii.rr.com
PRODUCER: Kerry Pearson (aka Lux Lucre)
MUSIC: Music2Hues 'Betrayal' http://www.music2hues.com/m2h_orig/fl...
WEBSITE: http://www.jonathangullible.com
SUPPORT: The Jonathan Gullible fund http://www.isil.org/tools/jonathan-gu...
COPYRIGHT: http://www.creativecommons.org/licens...

Horizon: Total Isolation

The Day We Learned to Think - BBC Horizon

Understanding of humans' earliest past often comes from studying fossils. They tell us much of what we know about the people who lived before us. There is one thing fossils cannot tell us; at what point did we stop living day-to-day and start to think symbolically, to represent ideas about our environment and how we could change it? At a dig in South Africa the discovery of a small piece of ochre pigment, 70,000 years old, has raised some very interesting questions.

"We see features that are almost identical to living humans"

Prof Jeffrey Laitman, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) emerged in Africa roughly 100,000 years ago. We know from fossil evidence that Homo sapiens replaced other hominids around them and moved out of Africa into Asia and the Middle East, reaching Europe 40,000 years ago.

Prof Richard Klein believes art is a landmark in human evolution. Unquestionable art that's widespread and common suggests you're dealing with people just like us. No other animals, after all, are able to define a painting as anything other than a collection of colours and shapes. This ability is unique to humans.

Other scientists agree. They believe art defines humans as behaviourally modern, and its beginning must coincide with the ability to speak and use language. If someone has the imagination to devise a shared way to describe their environment using art then it seems inconceivable that they could not possess language and speech. The search for the moment our ancestors became behaviourally just like us is also the hunt for the first evidence of art.