In a riveting review of the new book, Inventing Human Rights: A History by Lynn Hunt (W.W. Norton), essayist Joanna Banks makes the well known point that human rights are invented, and a recent invention at that.
Yet the contradictions between ideals espoused and lives lived among those who espouse human rights, like slave owner Thomas Jefferson fascinate Mr. Obie Joe. How is it possible that men like him could come up with the revolutionary concept of "inalienable" and "self-evident" rights?
Romance novels.
"Hunt believes the burgeoning expression of sympathy toward strangers was the outcome of the dramatic explosion in the publication and reading of the (popular) novel." Three titles draw particular note: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded, Clarissa, and Julie -- all published during the raucous time in America when the concept of the rights of men became the cornerstone of American democracy. Each of these titles showed that the inner life existed even in the lowly of young women, and in this identification with these beset-upon protagonists, the concept that all men are equal began.
Given the certainty of fans of romance novels...then and now...it's possible.
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