Annotation 1 (Revised)

    According to the author's opinion in the composition, individuals' rights should be protected. However, if the individuals violate the interests of society, the latter one should be concerned first. Every individual definitely has his or her rights and freedom. Nevertheless, there is a prerequisite that a person must not do harm to the well-being and safety of other people, or he or she will be considered giving up the rights that a normal person originally have. People shouldn't always take care of individuals' rights and ignore the whole.

    In present world, everyone lives in a big society. It is impossible to live without any connection among other people. In other words, everything a person does may bring about some influence to the people around him or her. Some influence may be nothing. However, some may cause serious problems among people. When the conflict between individual and society relates to fundamental rights or public interests, things will be more complicated. In the composition I mention, a boy committed a crime and his rights might be deprived. It seemed like the punishment or cost after his crime. But, if a person, or people, who didn't commit any crime, suffering the threat to basic rights from society, what's going on? In the case of Wen-Lin Yuan(文林苑), Wang family’s house was planned as urban renewal area. They refused that. They hoped their house could be removed from the renewal area. However, the construction company didn't agree with it. In addition, there were thirty six householders who were willing to cooperate with renewal plan and moved out. With the deadlock between Wang family and construction company, the whole plan fell into difficulty. Those thirty six householders waited for several years and had no houses. Later, Wang family's house was pulled down, and the urban renewal kept going. In fact, there was no one got benefited in this case. Every individual has right of habitation. Nevertheless, Wang family's and other householders' right were all violated.

    The Wen-Lin Yuan(文林苑) case proclaims that the dispute between society and individuals. Everyone just wanted to defend their rights and interests. Who was wrong? Who was right? Or the laws and policies had problems right from the word go? In normal condition, there is no free benefit. For the society's well-being and safety, individuals have to pay or sacrifice sometimes. This is inevitable. It is not only building new houses for inhabitants but also furthering public safety (fire prevention and renovation of public facilities). In my opinion, take the thirty six householders in Wen-Lin Yuan case for example, they gave up their habitation rights and remove out. However, they knew they would get new houses. There are some intersections between society's and individuals' interests. After all, under the common situation, individuals can't just live for his or herself and have to contribute for the society if necessary.

Source: Kozlov, J. (1997). Society's rights should often take priority over individuals'. Retrieved October 22, 2013, from http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/1997/06/19/societys-rights-should-often-take-priority-over-individuals