Robert Fuller: Patient Revolution: Human Rights Past and Future

Published: Aug. 13, 2005, 2:30 a.m.

b'From time to time a portion of humanity declares a new human right. Behavior thought normal for thousands of years is suddenly challenged.  What does it take for the new right to prevail?  It takes steady bearing down on the issue over decades and centuries...\\nBob Fuller is the author of Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank.  The book defines "rankism"--- the pervasive misuse of power relationships that is expressed not just in racism and sexism but in every form of humiliation.  Humans have the universal right, the new movement insists, to be treated with dignity.  Fuller was president of Oberlin College when it integrated racially in the early 1970s.  Before that he was a highly regarded physicist working with John Wheeler.  After that he was a "citizen diplomat" quietly helping end the Cold War.  On stage he is a vivid story teller.'