The Importance of a Duties-First Approach

THE IMPORTANCE OF A DUTIES-FIRST APPROACH Focusing on one’s duties or responsibilities towards the wider society helps resolve conflicts and, in the long run, also leads to securing and preserving one’s rights. This approach provides two benefits. Firstly, it brings an end to social unrest. Moreover, in the long run, it helps enable people to have their rights. The reason for this is that this concept is based on the laws of nature, and in this world, one can achieve anything positive only by following the laws of nature. In this context, discourses about human rights that ignore human responsibilities towards the wider society cannot truly give us any positive results and prove counter-productive. This is because when one insists on rights and ignores duties, one is promoting a culture based on the idea of ‘we versus them,’ which is premised on the notion of the existence of two supposedly antagonistic groups: a group that ought to possess certain rights and a rival group that is thought to have snatched the rights of the former. However, in contrast, when one speaks of human responsibilities towards the wider society, it promotes a ‘we-we’ culture, informed by the idea that we need to be givers, not demanders or mere takers. Once, someone asked me, “If, in a certain context, one’s human rights are being grossly violated, what should one do? Should one, even in this context, focus only on one’s duties and not demand or struggle for one’s rights? However,