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Content
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https://warpcast.com/~/channel/dropglobalnews
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Murtaza Hussain
@mazmhussain
This might sound grim but one thing that I have learned over the years is that secular "human rights" do not really exist. The entire concept of human rights was borne primarily out of the trauma of WWII and a sense that legal protections for the weak needed to be enshrined to avoid another apocalypse. Yet the idea never really took hold globally. Or at least it did not supersede other ideas of how the world is best organized. The U.S. as the world's only superpower worked to weaken those few enforceable international law mechanisms that were built, out of belief that they would unacceptably constrain its power. We can see that even countries that made human rights part of their brand do not take them seriously when they have other interests or beliefs at play. What really matters is power. This does not mean that there is no way to defend the weak. But the best way is to find means to help them level the balance of power, rather than appealing to abstract concepts in which few really believe.
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Ben
@benersing
In your experience does this hold true at the individual person level, or only nation-state?
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boscolo.eth
@boscolo.eth
The best way to keep a balance of power is to not let any one entity gain too much power in the first place. But even the Internet has proven that human behavior tends to follow the inverse of the second law of thermodynamics, always centralizing.
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F. Dilek Yurdakul 🎩
@fdilekyurdakul
If human rights are indeed abstract concepts that don't truly exist Murtaza, how can the balance of power be leveled, and what concrete steps can be taken to protect the weak
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alixkun🟣🎩🍡
@alixkun
Just like any laws & rights, they're not enforced "naturally", so yes, they can be broken. Doesn't mean they don't "exist" or have moral principle shared by most human beings. I believe the best way we've found to help weaks not getting bullied by more powerful entities is the formation of states, which goes back to sets of laws governed by moral principles.
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Cooki
@cooki
Completely agree, I mentally refer to them as adult fairy tales: there to make folks feel good but entirely fictional in practice.
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JB Rubinovitz ⌐◨-◨
@rubinovitz
The book “Sapiens” agrees with you and argues human rights are a story we made up.
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anewname
@anewname
there are plenty of critiques about the legal and philosophical infrastructure of human rights—namely, who is deemed human, and what kinds of rights are inscribed therein—but rejecting the imperfect for chaos and a slide into humanlessness and rightlessness doesn’t really seem like a good answer.
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Andi
@0xandi
As was stated in the comments before: Lackluster enforcement and self-serving individuals acting under the brand of a nation are no proof of non-existance. Every body of law is abstract by its very nature. In a sense of applicability they are more abstract than state laws, as they lack geographical boundaries. Nevertheless they are guidance, frame of reference, norming, inspirations for more concrete laws (e.g. the German Grundgesetz, the country's highest book of law which was directly inspired by the UDHR) and serve as a clear moral compass when judging human, corporate and nation behavior, laying the ground work to stand up against, organize and counteract atrocities. If you feel they are not concrete enough, make them concrete. Reference them when people are forced into religion, discriminated against for their sexuality, race and gender or barred from participation in governance. All of that said, they can be improved significantly.
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Harpocryptes
@harpocryptes
Are you thinking specifically of international cases? Orherwise, while no country is perfect, there are still parts of the world where basic human rights are mostly respected, and where there are legal recourses against violations.
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Ivy
@ivy
yep when TERF's play the 'sex-based rights' wrt bathrooms they are inventing their own fiction which is based on a UN-invented fiction
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