Are “rights” as they stand today a tool by the ruling class to maintain its position of power?
Yes and no. When I started doing the research on the animal rights movement my perspective was that rights language is a tool predominantly being used by those in power to frame ideas and perceptions. I think yes. Again in the United States as they are primarily construed on the whole are primarily reinforcing the existing structure and the prevailing hegemonic system but I also think that rights language, a lot more generally, are open, malleable and indeterminate and there’s room within language and there’s room with the law to challenge that power. I don’t mean that the room is sufficient to overturn the prevailing system or to demonstrate an absolute victory or to have a radical revolution or anything like that but I do think there is space to sometimes use the language of the ruling class, of the elite, against the ruling class. That’s an important aspect of rights language whether it is being used by the animal rights movement or some other movement. Unleashing Rights is your boo
