Photo credit: Janet Donovan
If anyone in TV Land is looking for a new game show host they may want to contact energizer Anthony Arend, Professor of Government and Foreign Service at Georgetown University, who was one of two honorees at the Kalorama home of Juleanna Glover and Christopher Reiter.
“I’m going to speak for about an hour and a half, so everybody should prepare for that,” said Arend prior to explaining the theory behind Human Dignity and the Future of Global Institutions which he co-authored with Mark Lagon. Fortunately, for those eying the Sushi table and Champagne bar, he was joking.
“In all seriousness, when I look at the group that is assembled here I don’t need to tell you what a tumultuous time it is for international affairs. One way we can analyze that is in terms of the nature of the actors in the international system. We have so many non-state actors that are playing fundamentally different roles than they were 10, 20, or 30 years ago. The international system is very complex,” he added. “Not only do we have those actors, but we have a variety of non-governmental organizations. Then as a broader question, what normative standard do we use to evaluate these many, many actors? What can be the touchstone of the international system? Our claim is the concept of human dignity.”
Tony Arend, Juleanna Glover and Mark Lagon
Arend went on to explain: “Human rights debates have tended to degenerate into these tireless back and forths about economic and social rights, political and civil rights. The big question though is, what is human dignity, how do we define it?” Rather than explain these complex issues in a few paragraphs, we suggest you pick up a copy of the book and check out the video below.
“We try and define this term that you’ve heard President Bush and President Obama and several Popes and the Dalai Lama and the Aga Khan and many others use……..human dignity. What is it? We thought it was up to us if we were going to write a book about it to actually define how one might pin it down,” said Mark Lagon. “We think it has two elements: it’s agency for people…… people being able to have a choice about their future, being able to thrive, being able to use what some of us consider their God-given talents and to take their capabilities and with time thrive. But people are not just little atoms. There are some here in our political culture who seem to think that it’s all about the individual and there is nothing that’s important in a community. The second element of human dignity is recognition.”
Christopher Reiter, Jonathan Capehart and Nick Schmit
“When a group of people and their children – migrants or minorities or any other group – are not treated as human beings in full, their dignity isn’t being respected. They can’t live a full life. Our book is a collaboration of Georgetown books……full-time professors, adjunct professors who are practitioners, and some interesting alumni like our friend Nancy Soderbergh who wrote an article about the UN Security Council fighting atrocities. We’re trying to spur a debate about how you can take this big abstract idea of human dignity and maybe make it the touchstone of the work of big actors in the world whether they be the UN or a global fund or a multinational corporation.”
David and Betsy Hawkings
The evening also celebrated Mark’s new position as President of Freedom House.
Video courtesy of Berkeley:
