A DEBATE OVER RIGHTS THAT WE NEED TO HAVE

I LOVE Eve Fisher’s Opinion pieces (GA, 4/5). There should be more correspondents putting strong views, not boring us to death with “correct speech”.

Eve highlights the problem a society faces with individual rights.

We can’t live on our own. We are far too soft and even if we weren’t, we still couldn’t live on our own.

The human is a social animal, always has been, and that is how we got to the top of the food chain. On our own, we would be extinct.

The problem, therefore, is how many rights can the individual have before the society descends into a rabble, ruined by its own lack of cohesion? A viable society has a strong social understanding of where an individual’s rights end and a society’s begin.

We have been frittering away at the grey areas of that boundary since the ’80s. Our society has suffered accordingly.

Good on you, Eve. Society v the individual is a debate that we need to have.

Spencer Leighton, Torquay