It's probably not surprising that a document with the word "rights" in the title would take on the theme of rights and privileges. (That's kind of the whole point.)
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen is a list of rights and privileges that, according to it, all men are born with and governments should stop trying to take away. The Enlightenment thinkers of this era were obsessed with the idea that there are natural laws that have always existed, but that people weren't clever enough to list them until now.
Aren't we lucky they finally put quill to paper?
Questions About Rights and Privileges
- Why do you think multiple titled aristocrats were willing to approve the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen despite the fact that it aimed to strip them of their inherited privileges?
- Should the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen have extended the rights listed to people beyond land owning men, or would this have been too revolutionary and negated the entire document?
- How have the rights within the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen withstood the test of time? Do they still apply today, or do they need extensive updating to be relevant?
Chew on This
Because it fails to include the emancipation of slavery, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen cannot be taken seriously or ever raised up as a serious list of human rights.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen replaced one type of privilege (that of the nobility) with another (that of the voter), and for this, it has earned its place among the greatest achievements of the modern world.