The US constitution included a statement of human rights that remains
relevant as an idealistic view of civil society. It is a matter of record that
the US failed to realize these ideals, although some tenuous progress has been
made. Malcomson observed that human rights under the cover of humanitarianism
became popular in affluent countries in the 1980s and ’90s. He stated:"
Nongovernmental organizations proliferated; governments integrated human-rights
advocacy into their budgets and their diplomacy; the United Nations bureaucracy
likewise seized the opportunity to promote human rights as central to the
Michael Ignatief reviewed the discouraging history of the human rights
movement in the world. Analysis of the feasibility and methodology of human
rights needs to be grounded in a clear understanding of human nature. Ignatieff
asks the question that lies at the heart of my philosophical inquiries: “If
human beings are so special, why do we treat each other so badly?” He argued
that discussions of human rights usually focus on defending one’s autonomy
against the oppression of family, religion, employers, state, and other groups.
The proper emergence of human rights is from the bottom up, from individuals who
insist that the group they belong to respects the rights of each member as an
individual. Almost by definition, rules imposed from the top-down, by a moral or
political authority are not human rights. Ignatieff reminds us that human rights
come to authoritarian societies when activists risk their lives and create
popular demand for these rights. In many countries, activists are imprisoned and
often perish if they do not receive support from influential nations abroad.
To recall our fundamental truths: at the level of the largest organizations,
small groups decide on policy and procedures that effect many nations, even the
fate the entire species. Members of these small leader groups have vested
interests, limited knowledge and limited ability to create effective policies.
The tendency to impose universal rules and policies from the top down will fail
because distant policy-making groups do not understand the diverse needs and
beliefs of local groups. They will develop policies based on limited
understanding and will ignore the tendency for humans to relate most strongly to
the values and beliefs of their local group. World government is an oxymoron.
Instead, forums of cooperation may allow diverse groups to meet, discuss and
share resources when they have problems in common.
The United Nations is a multilayered assembly of groups and functions best
as a host for forums of cooperation. Forgotten is the hope that the UN would
become a world government with the power to police its member states, arrest
political criminals and bring them to justice in an impartial world court.
Whatever we value about civilized human existence - culture, knowledge,
social justice, respect for human rights and dignity must be practiced anew and
stored as modifications of each person's neocortex. Success at humanitarian
efforts within a society reveals that portion of human attitudes, beliefs and
behavior that can be modified and/or are supported by innate tendencies. Failure
of moral authority reveals the extent to which innate negative tendencies
prevail no matter how diligent the effort to modify or suppress them.
Human destiny as a species still lies with the programs in the old brain
that offer only limited empathy and understanding and insist on the priority of
survival at any cost. Individuals can transcend the old programs by diligent
learning and practice but individual effort and learning does not change the
genome, so that there can be no enduring human rights without the persistent and
relentless initiation of new humans into a rational and compassionate world
order. This, of course, is so far an impossible goal to achieve. You can then
argue that if only 10% of the human population is not properly initiated they
will have the power to destroy the civil order accomplished by the more
reasonable 90% unless they are vigorously constrained, depriving them of their