Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Facing Human Rights: Theorizing Out Of The Experience Of Suffering, Patrick Ahern

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In contending that “the freedom of philosophy is nothing but the capacity to lend a voice to unfreedom,” Adorno recognized that the role of philosophy is to illuminate the deformity of that which is deformed in the structures of power and the institutions that preserve the status quo. A critical treatment of those concepts that obfuscate the realization of emancipation led Adorno, along with Horkheimer, to claim that, “the purpose of human rights was to promise happiness even where power is lacking.” In other words, the language of human rights served to stifle the experiences of the oppressed classes under …