Universal Human Rights

         From my vaunted vaults - an essay on universal human rights...

   Universal human rights have often come into conflict with many other existing ideas.  This partially because it is the new doctrine on the block.  There have been many challenges to the legitimacy of the human rights doctrine and so far, the doctrine still seems to hold up well in present day society.  Of the many challenges procured against universal human rights is that it has no regard for other cultures’ standards of a decent and good life.  It cares little for how other cultures conduct their societies simply because universal human rights feels it trumps any other value.  Some people have deemed this idea to be very rude to say the least.  Can these two views be reconciled?  We can make a claim that human rights are universal and that other cultures hold different beliefs about what constitutes a good life because while human rights are universal and always right in any circumstance, some cultures beliefs about what is a good life are wrong and do not benefit their citizens.  So read on to find out why (or not, nobody is pressuring you, but you probably should if you want to find out why).

            Now that you have taken the first step and have decided to read on, let us start with the first point on universal human rights.  Human rights do not have to come into conflict with what some cultures deem to be a good and successful life.  Many times there are similar underlying human rights beliefs that aren’t explicitly stated or written.  Ideas do not have to be written to be validated.  As long as people believe it and practice it, the rights are alive.  Writing down rights and beliefs give people something concrete to look back on when they need to justify their rights.  It is always easier to justify stated and written rights than implied rights.  The idea of different cultures all sharing similar rights can be found in Gayle Binions’ essay, Human Rights: A Feminist Perspective.  In the essay, she describes how different women in different cultures have the same underlying values and beliefs.  She writes that a study of women in forty three countries have four unifying themes and concerns like eradicating male violence, promoting reproductive rights, and changes to promote economic equality for women along with political changes to bring about female empowerment (Binion 522).  These forty-three countries probably do not all have the same standards for what constitutes a good and decent life, but many of their citizens share the same ideas of what constitutes a good life.  Cultural barriers and diversity do not take away the fact that there are universal rights in this world and that all people want to share in them equally.

            Even some cultures that seem superficially opposed to universal human rights can in themselves find a justification for the said human rights they are against (as Stephen Colbert would say, nailed ‘em).  Josh Cohen of MIT (that means he is smart but probably socially awkward due to the theory propagated by terrible shows like The Big Bang Theory) in his very long essay Minimalism About Human Rights: The Most We Can Hope for?, discusses how cultures with a Confucian tradition support the idea of universal human rights despite the assumption that they are against this notion.   In a very general sense, Confucian tradition has an emphasis on fulfilling duties associated with human relationships with others.  Part of human rights is about placing obligations on others and responsibility on oneself in order to fulfill the duties of living a decent life (Cohen 16-19).  Confucianism fits the bill here perfectly.  Cultures with ideas that seem to be incompatible to universal rights due to their own cultural conventions can be proven to fall under the umbrella (‘ella, ‘ella, eh, eh – lyrics courtesy of Rihanna) of human rights.  This understanding of Confucianism does not destroy any Confucian text or seek to discredit what the culture describes as the good life.  It validates views of the good life in a different context and shows how different cultures have underlying human rights beliefs.  You just have to dig deep sometimes.

            Another thing that must be said is that cultures can be wrong in their practices and beliefs.  The only people that will tell you otherwise are cultural relativists that believe in a theory that can be summed up as different strokes for different folks.  Sadly, this theory has no mention of Sly or the family stone or even the television series with Todd Bridges.  Moving back to the point, cultural ideas about what is the good life can be wrong and universal human rights in their pure form are not.  We need to be able to criticize cultural practices and ideas because if we couldn’t we would not be able to stop any unjust practices that go on around the world.  Cultures and societies would be given the free reign to do what they please under the reasoning of it is my tradition and beliefs.  Being able to step back and criticize, but more importantly change cultural practices and ideas through absolute and universal human rights, is necessary to improve the overall good life for all the inhabitants of this planet.  Letting horrible cultural practices of abuse towards women or torture continue just because they fall under the guise of cultural traditions and cultural beliefs about the good life is unacceptable.  The good life here is only defined by who is in power.  What is the good life for the king is not the same as for the abused and battered lower class woman.  Universal human rights put forth a standard of basic practices that make sure we can stop these abuses and improve the good life for everybody involved.  Most victims under these culture traditions would probably give up these traditions for the universal human rights they are being denied.  Would people still want to follow harmful traditions if they knew a better one existed and was justified by a universal code of obligations that specifically forbade the torture these people had to go through?  They probably would opt for the second option, but you can never be so sure (some people are into that kind of thing).  Those people are also into wearing a lot of leather but that is a discussion for a far more interesting essay.

            Naturally when one puts out an essay with a thesis, there are bound to be some objections that sprout up around it.  Since there are no direct questions being thrown around right now, it is time to come up with some hypothetical objections and to answer them in a concise and intelligent way (and maybe some clever witticisms, who knows).  The first objection to this thesis would come from the work of Frederique Apfell-Margin and Loyda Sanchez.  They would contend that human rights can be used by governments to continue to destroy indigenous people who are already leading a life that many people in the indigenous community do not complain about.  They use the case about the Bolivian government introducing birth control and western ideas of feminism to the indigenous campesino community and other Andean communities in an effort to limit and eventually destroy the populations (Sanchez 178-79).  The government wants the land these people own and find that using birth control could help to eventually wean out and slowly destroy this population so then they can swoop in and steal their land like the conquistadors of old.  This does hold some sway to the people of the region.  They have a cultural belief of the good life that does not seem to fit with the modern definition and have survived through great adversity which has included many attempts of annihilation.  Family planning does not fit in with the idea of human regeneration and communalism that this culture has deemed the good life (Sanchez 172-173).  In short it looks like Apffel-Marglin and Sanchez have a point.

            Apffel-Marglin and Sanchez have a point, but it is a point that will be proven wrong by simply reading on (zing!).  While Apffel-Margin and Sanchez are right to be skeptical towards the governments’ plans, that doesn’t mean that the women of these areas should not be able to make a choice about what they feel is right for their lives.  They may feel that for the betterment of their collective and community, they should not have multiple children, but to try and work or help out in other regions of the society.  The good life that they imagine may be different than that which is prescribed by the society and they have a right to fulfill their own definition of the good life.  Not every woman who gets introduced to ideas of western style feminism or birth control will immediately turn their back on their old cultural values.  Look at America.  We’ve had feminist waves and ideas going back to the founding of this nation, and not every woman has agreed with them.  Some women were against the Equal Protection Amendment.  That could not be a stronger rejection of feminist values.  The same goes for birth control.  We have had legal birth control since the 1960’s but that doesn’t mean that everybody is a proponent of it.  One needs to look no farther than Bristol Palin or the entire state of Mississippi to see a rejection of birth control ideas.  Just because something new is introduced into a culture doesn’t mean that the old ways of beliefs will be completely abandoned.  Those who want to change will change and those who do not want to change will not. 

            Furthermore, if the government is using ideas of women’s rights and universal human rights as a means to genocide than they are not using these rights the way they are intended to be used.  Universal human rights are meant to prevent genocide rather than to encourage and promote it.  Manipulating human rights for evil purpose does not invalidate universal human rights; it invalidates the legitimacy of the governments who do such actions.  If caught, these governments will not be able to say that human rights allows for them to destroy members of their own population.  They will be tried under crimes against humanity and under human rights abuse.  Human rights will survive, but not people who grossly misrepresent and abuse such rights.

            Another objection is that universal human rights come from a western background and only seeks to validate the western cultural idea of what is a good life.  Universal human rights are specific only to western culture and do not bother to extend and include other cultural practices and beliefs.  In a way they serve to extend western cultural hegemony and destroy any culture that stands in its’ way.  This belief isn’t necessary true.  Many people believe that universal human rights are not just a western idea.  Kwasi Wiredu, in his essay An Akin Perspective on Human Rights, discusses how the Akan people of West Africa have come up with their own concept of human rights that is not dependent on the western one.  He discusses life in this culture and how it subscribes to ideas of human rights that everyone would be able to relate to.  They have a principle of “justice that no human being could be punished without trial” (Wiredu 164) and ideas of religious freedom as well; demonstrated by how open they were to the intruding Christian missionaries (Wiredu 167) when in reality they should have probably just sent them to the lions like the Romans had done previously (this last part could be construed as a joke if one is inclined to do so).  Universal human rights existed in all cultures and are not just western.  Other civilizations ideas of what constitutes a good life seem to share some underlying beliefs with what is recognized as universal human rights.  While they seem to be overtly Western, they have enough of a multicultural background to be taken as universal.  By looking at numerous cultures one can find the many similarities to the current human rights doctrine. 

            In conclusion, we can believe in universal human rights without denying that other cultures have their own beliefs about what makes up a good life.  Many cultures already share underlying human rights beliefs.  Just because they are not written down or explicitly stated doesn’t make them less true.  Also, some cultures are wrong about what they believe is the good life.  Universal human rights seek to right the wrongs that many cultures cannot see by taking the outside view to such practices.  It is easier to judge something from an outsider perspective.  If there is one thing everybody loves it is an unbiased outsider perspective.  Especially when one goes clothes shopping. 

Works Cited

Apffel-Marglin, Frederique, and Loyda Sanchez. "Developmental Feminism and Neocolonalism in Andean Communities." Feminist Postdevelopment Thought. N.p.: Sanders, 2003. 159-80. Print.

Binion, Gayle. "Human Rights: A Feminist Perspective." Human Rights Quarterly 17.3 (1995): 509-26. Print.

Cohen, Josh. Minimalism About Human Rights: The Most We an Hope For? N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Wiredu, Kwasi. "An Akin Perspective on Human Rights." Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1996. 157-71. Print.