The Rights Revolution: Rights and Community in Modern America

The Rights Revolution: Rights and Community in Modern America

by Samuel Walker
The Rights Revolution: Rights and Community in Modern America

The Rights Revolution: Rights and Community in Modern America

by Samuel Walker

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Overview

The most dramatic change in American society in the last forty years has been the explosive growth of personal rights, a veritable "rights revolution" that is perceived by both conservatives and liberals as a threat to traditional values and our sense of community. Is it possible that our pursuit of personal rights is driving our country toward moral collapse? In The Rights Revolution, Samuel Walker answers this question with an emphatic no. The "rights revolution," says Walker, is the embodiment of the American ideals of morality and community. He argues that the critics of personal rights--from conservatives such as Robert Bork to liberals such as Michael Sandel--often forget the blatant injustices perpetrated against minorities such as women, homosexuals, African-Americans, and mentally handicapped citizens before the civil ights movement. They attack "identity politics" policies such as affirmative action, but fail to offer any reasonable solution to the dilemma of how to overcome exclusion in a society with such a powerful legacy of discrimination. Communitarians, who offer the most comprehensive alternative to a rights-oriented society, rarely define what they mean by community. What happens when conflicts arise between different notions of community? Walker concedes that the expansion of individual rights does present problems, but insists that the gains far outweigh the losses. And he reminds us that the absolute protection of our individual rights is our best defense against discrimination and injustice. The Rights Revolution is an impassioned call to honor the personal rights of all American citizens, and to embrace an enriched sense of democracy, tolerance, and community in our nation.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780195344714
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication date: 09/24/1998
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Lexile: 1470L (what's this?)
File size: 356 KB

About the Author

Samuel Walker is the Kiewit Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska. He is the author of several books, among them In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU (Oxford, 1990).

What People are Saying About This

Norman Dorsen

With strong and vivid prose, Walker mounts an historically and socially grounded defense of America's new 'rights culture' while respectfully addressing opposing conceptions of the good society. He shows why he has become our laureate of civil liberties.
— New York University law professor and president of the American Civil Liberties Union, 1976-1991

Lawrence Friedman

Lucid and incisive. I know of no better discussion of the pros and cons of the huge changes in law and society over the last 40 years. Walker has made a huge contribution to our understanding of these times we live in. This is a book that should be read by as wide an audience as possible.
— Stanford University

Nadine Strossen

The Rights Revolution is a powerful reminder of the contributions civil liberties have made to a stronger and more inclusive sense of community. The critics are wrong. Far from undermining community, the fight for free speech and other rights builds a healthier society (Nadine Strossen is president of the American Civil Liberties Union).

Kermit L. Hall

A sophisticated, intellectually rigorous, passionate, and ultimately controversial assessment of the idea that human freedom depends on personal rather than communitarian approaches to liberty....The Rights Revolution is must reading for citizens, scholars, and pundits.
— Professor of History and Law, Ohio State University

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