It’s OK to Feel Uncomfortable

Citing over eighty movies, television dramas, and documentaries, this volume delightfully explains human rights in a pithy and witty style. Although they are an issue close to daily life, human rights always seem remote because we do not feel inconvenienced in particular in leading our lives unless the issue directly concerns ourselves. While countless people are discriminated against simply because they are different, countless others lead indifferent everyday lives simply because the fact does not inconvenience them. The author warns that the moment we let our guard down, thinking, “Oh, someone is bound to be taking good care of it,” violations of human rights begin and that if we continue to overlook them, thinking, “How can I mind other people’s business when it’s hard just to keep my body and soul together?” we will discover that they have been structuralized unawares and eventually become our own problems. This is why cultivating human rights sensitivity in everyday life is indispensable.
The most noteworthy characteristic of this book is that it lightheartedly provokes and reawakens our sensitivity, which has been accustomed to inconvenience. However, that process of coming to feel new inconvenience or discomfort is quite pleasant and joyful instead of being ponderous or truistic. The range of the topics covered in this work is broad, starting with daily problems such as the human rights of adolescents, sexual minorities, women, and people with disabilities, moving on to the problem of state power such as laborers, religion and conscientious objection, and censorship, and finally concerning international problems such as racism and genocide.