Every year I require my freshmen writing students to write an essay that explains the concept of equality. Our class discussion of equality usually leads us into confused talk about rights. In The Declaration of Independence rights and equality are connected. That we are all created equal and that our Creator has endowed us with certain inalienable rights are called “self-evident truths.” In class we get a long list of what students think are “rights”. We have the right to quality health care, family-wage jobs, a college education, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equal treatment in the courts, internet access, adequate housing, food security, and safe neighborhoods.
The problem is that this list throws together two very different kinds of rights. One is a negative right—the right to not have things done to us. This right doesn’t require anything of others except they leave us alone to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Equal treatment by the courts doesn’t require anything except giving me what is given every person by the law. The right to freedom of speech doesn’t mean everyone has to read my blog (a good idea); it just means they shouldn’t interfere with my self-expression.
But a lot of things on my student’s list of rights are different because they are positive rights that require others to do something. A right to a college education implies an obligation for others to pay for it. When I ask students who is obligated to hire them for family-wage jobs, they look bewildered. Some of their parents have businesses, but they don’t think their parents should be forced to hire more people at higher wages. They are also uncertain about whether they should have money taken from their paychecks to pay for other kids to go to college. In fact, most have never considered that the rights to jobs, healthcare, and education all come with obligations that force others to surrender money they have earned.
Teckla points out that this second kind of right isn’t a right at all—but a privilege. We should demand our rights, but it is rude and selfish to demand privileges. We must approach privileges with gratitude and with a sense of obligation for the kindness others have shown us. Approaching privileges as though they are rights alienates those who must willingly grant those privileges.
Part of the decay of our society involves the confusion of rights and privileges. Public education, for instance, is really a privilege our society has covenanted to provide for everyone, but is seldom seen as something for which students should be grateful. Many years ago the Kansas City school district created high-tech new magnet schools to accelerate racial integration. What was most discouraging is that within a couple years some of these schools were completely trashed and vandalized by the students. The covenant between the students and the community didn’t exist. The students, many at least, felt no obligation to care for the new facility they had been given. Regarding privileges as rights is divisive and corrosive. We have a duty to never discuss a new “right” without speaking forthrightly about the accompanying obligations.
A friend of mine asked why anyone, especially a Christian, would oppose universal healthcare. I asked him if he was opposed to feeding the hungry. He said, “No. I think the hungry have a right to be fed.” I then asked him if I had a right to take his paycheck to buy food for the hungry. Here he hesitated. He said he was willing to give some of his check for the hungry. But I told him that in my judgment he could live on ten thousand less a year by driving used cars and doing less traveling. He didn’t like this idea, and also didn’t like the idea of me—not he—deciding how much he should give. Of course, this is exactly what taxes do. They coercively take money from some to provide services to others.
For years we have often had the problem of the rich not thinking of the others—the other half that needs help. But I think we have the other problem today. Many demand rights to what are actually privileges with almost no thought for those who were obligated to provide those privileges. We have lost the glue of gratitude that holds society together. The language of generosity and gratitude has been drowned out by the angry rhetoric of rights.
