The document discusses the evolution of civil, political, economic, and social rights from the 18th century revolutions through modern times. It began with the rights to participate in government through voting, freedom of speech and assembly in the American and French Revolutions. Later revolutions expanded rights to include economic rights and social responsibility as well as self-determination. An authentic democratic culture requires respect for individuals, recognition of human dignity, and concern for the public good through open communication.

2. 1. The Affirmation of Civil and Political
Rights(1776). Both the American and
French Revolutions asserted the right of
the individual to participate in the affairs
of the state through the right to choose
key leaders in government who were to
represent the interests of their
constituents.

3.  Coupled with this right were the rights to
freedom of speech, freedom of
assembly, freedom of worship and
freedom or arbitrary arrest and
detention.
 These rights at this stage , reserved only
for men and property-holders.

4. 2. Economic Rights and Social
Responsibility(1848). The first French
Revolution(1789)overthrew the dominant
nobility and the clergy and replaced
them with the bourgeoisie. Henceforth.
Privileges were to be gained on the basis
not of inherited rights but individual,
acquired merit. The second French
Revolution(1848) removed the clause on
property ownership as a prerequisite and
gave the workers the right to vote.

5. 3. The Struggle for Self-
Determination(1776). The American
Revolution was a struggle against the
dominance of the people, the Britons,
over the Americans who had come to
regard themselves as different. The
struggle against both colonialism and
neo-colonialism is premised on the
notion that a people have the right to
run their own affairs, free from external
control.

6.  On the basis of these conceptions, an
authentic democratic culture would
seem to require the ff values:
1. Respect for and affirmation of the
individual. The struggle for the civil rights
was waged because powerful people
ignored the individual and used him/her
as a means for their own ends. In the
democratic culture, therefore, the
individual is affirmed as possessing
inherent value and has the right to
decide on matters affecting him/herself.

7. 2. Recognition of the Inherent dignity of all
human beings. Although it is obvious that
distinction of class , ethnicity and
political office separate human beings
from each other, the democrat assumes
that beneath all this is a common
humanity that links one to the other and
gives his/her dignity.

8. 3. Concern for the Public good. In creative
tension with the affirmation of the
individual is the affirmation of the public
good. Defining the “public” is no doubt
one of the most hazardous enterprises.
The public is that community which in a
given political organization subsumes all
other communities under it. Thus in a
village, it is the village a a whole rather
than individual families, while at the
same time including them.

9.  The same can be said of the “public” on
the level of the city or on the level of the
democratic state. The public good on
the level of the city and the state is
harder to define than on the level of the
village.

10. 4. Willingness to listen to the other. A truly
communal undertaking requires of the
willingness to lend an ear to one another.
The assumption is that no one person,
despite that person’s expertise, has a
monopoly on information; the experts
decision may have consequences on
another person’s life that the expert may
not be aware of. Because each person is
valuable by him/herself, that person’s
concerns, either as an individual or as a
member of a group, ought to be heeded.