Why Human Rights are Culturally Relative
In Nhina Le’s article, Are Human Rights Culturally Relative Or Universal, she lists and describes the ways in which the American Anthropological proves the proposed doctrine Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to be culturally biased, and thus not universal. There were four claims made, and all of which have something to do with different people of different backgrounds seeing things differently. For example, one of the claims of culture bias pertained to culture practices which the article quotes, “Fourth, some rights that the UDHR recognizes, such as the right of private ownership of the means of production, equality, and marriage and religious freedoms, are at odds with traditional practices and norms in non-Western societies” (Le, 204). This claim shows how the UDHR, based on American and Western European philosophies, values their practices as “proper” and non-Western as “improper”. I agree with the argument against the UDHR being universal rights, considering things in America that I see. For instance, there was a Supreme Court Case, Reynolds v. United States, of a Mormon man being denied his religious belief to marry multiple women. While the Americans and Western Europeans would be quick to point out that arranged marriages in Eastern culture are anti-human rights, the same could be said for the violation of human rights in the United States in the case of marriage laws. This is one example to highlight the cultural relativity of human rights.
As I read Le’s article, my mind instantly connected the vagueness of human rights to an article that I read in my PHIL 100 class this semester by Plato called The Allegory of the Cave. In this article, there was a group of prisoners who never saw the light and were stuck behind these large statue-like artifacts. They were trapped in an underground cave and never thought of coming up, until one eventually did. Plato’s quote that drew my mind to this discussion of human rights being culturally relative is, “Then the prisoners would in every way believe that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of those artifacts” (Plato, 187). My point for introducing this Plato quote is that people are programmed to believe what they have seen and been taught. This is why the argument against UDHR being universal is strong, as it will be very hard for two sides of an argument to accept what is considered to be a “human right”. Catholics will argue that abortion is horribly wrong and considered to be murder, while progressivists will argue that abortion is a choice that is for the woman and her support system to decide. Who is right on the topic of human rights? To be honest, I am not sure. This is why human rights will never be entirely universal. With the different religious, ethnic, and national cultures in the world it would be nearly impossible to determine which is correct.
I completely agree Austin. I think that us, Americans, think everything we do is right, everything we have been taught is right, but compared to people from other backgrounds, other countries, we might have completely different views. I do think it is all culturally relative, however, in some cases like the treatment of women in Afghanistan or Muslims in China, don't you think we should interfere and fight for their human rights? It is a confusing topic because we have to choose our battles to fight for those who can't fight for themselves, but we also have to respect cultures and countries priorities and values.
ReplyDeleteThis is a little different but every time I discuss or read about human rights, I think about a class I took senior year in high school where the questions was: is water a human right? Does every human in the world deserve to have access to water? I feel everyone should say yes, but this one person said no because it is impossible. It is impossible (nearly impossible) to ship clean water, deliver clean water, or give clean water to every human in the world. If the UN decides it is a human right, does that even matter if the solutions are impossible to get it to everyone?
This addition to the conversation might be stupid, but I do think it plays some relevance. If human rights are universal, then they should be plausible and achievable, yet so many issues today seem to be unsolvable because of restrictions through access or power. Just because people say something is a human right and it is universal does not mean anything, it must be achieved and accepted, which many are not.
Therefore, Austin, I agree with you that human rights are culturally relative, but it is hard when some rights seem obvious to us westerners, but to non-westerners it would be blasphemy.
I appreciate the in depth response. I had many similar questions as I was righting this blog post. I agree that things like women's rights and water should be universal, but devil's advocate says that it would be almost impossible for every group of people to be treated fairly across the globe. I wish that this was possible, but being that there will always be a group of people will not have the rights that they wish they could have is the point why I argued that human rights are culturally relative.
DeleteAt the end of the day Austin, should westerners ever interfere? I agree human rights are culturally relative, but there has to be a limit of violations until we say enough is enough, right? Today, I would say that about the treatment of women in Afghanistan, but we already messed that up a fair amount, do you think we should interfere with that because our morales as westerners believe in women's rights but the Taliban's dont?
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I believe Westerner's should interfere if there is a war-like dispute between multiple countries or a civil war if it threatens world peace. To interfere on every single belief that Westerner's believe is a human rights violation would be too much to handle, in my opinion.
DeleteI completely agree with you as well Austin, and your inclusion of the Plate quote really hit home for me. It makes complete sense that since we are all different, and everyone values different things, that it is impossible for one to synthesize a list of all universal human rights. However, I don't think it is wrong to try to do so. I think that the UDHR is not ill-intentioned in its purpose, but I do think that its actual human rights cannot be applicable to everyone. Do you agree with this, or do you think that there is an issue with the UDHR trying to generalize rights for everyone and ensure the provision of some semblance of equal quality of life for all?
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that UDHR has good intentions. As much as I would like for it to be back and white on what is a human right and what is not, I do not see this happening so I think that human rights can not be applicable for everyone.
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