Just reflecting on a few threads and where we are and thought about what has happened politically over the last few years.
We've had a big narrative about this idea of the poor and the 'undeserving poor' and I think it's framed a lot of political thinking in other areas
It was brought on by the financial crash in a response to try and balance the books.
In this narrative you have this demonisation of one group.
If you think its restricted to the Right, you are wrong. Part of the narrative is the creation of the saintly victim of the left. Yet ironically the Labour Party's last manifesto actually continued to support the idea of austerity, though not as aggressively as the Tories, and the idea of the benefit scrounger in different ways.
This has leaked into other areas. You have the idea of the 'perfect victim who was utterly blameless' and the victim who deserved it because of their 'own stupidity' or carelessness or lack of moral purity.
You have the idea of the 'right kind of trans' versus 'the wrong kind of trans'. Rather than considering the rights of all people in a neutral fashion. (This includes transsexuals getting higher status in gc circles as well as 'truscum' being lower status in twaw circles. And the vice versa)
You have the 'right kind of vulnerable person' and then the ones who are not as important such as sexually abused girls, who are often invisible, not considered or just not thought as, as important. Look at the threads about viewing trans women as women.
There is this desperate need to reestablish this new ultra hierarchical framework to society across everything.
I think my point is, we need to be a lot more aware of it and where its happening as its a divisive thought process which unpicks the foundation of human rights in ways we don't even notice.
All of this works particularly against women as they are more reliant on their rights being both enshrined in law and there being the political will to enforce those laws and socially are more likely to be at the lower end of hierarchical power.
There is no discussion on the principles of rights being grounded in the idea that we are ALL deserving of rights, but these must be balanced to ensure the most vulnerable are recognised even if they have no political voice and little political advocacy because they belong to a group which aren't politically popular.
The idea of being 'deserving' always undermines the concept of the need to balance rights above and beyond the pursuit of power. If you have the narrative of deserving in any way, you are ultimately stepping on someone else to establish a power grab through the exploitation of denying their Human Rights.
As there is an erosion of discussion of why Rights exist, their purpose and their aim the rise of the narrative of the Deserving has emerged in the form of the undeserving Sinner and the untouchable Saint. This eats away at the critical though we apply to the structure, and maintainence of human rights.
We need to change the narrative on this, and be more considered and watch out for the Sinners and Saints and instead focus on Rights and Responsibilities to maintain a balance and why modern rights emerged in the first place (through abuses of power in a system which had people with unquestionable power at the expense of the vulnerable who were invisible or undeserving). We need to acknowledge when we are guilty of it too.
I note intersectionality as part of this, and how it has been corrupted into a hierarchical concept of victim, in which there is no nuance or considered thinking of conflicts of rights.
I think we are aware of the dehumanising nature of language and how it assists this, but I don't think we are quite so conscious of the flip side of that also being a risk.
I'm rambling, but its something that has touched a nerve with me today, and it doesn't just seem to be me. I've read a few things over the last few days reflecting on this idea of untouchables.