“Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind… “-Preamble of Declaration of Human Rights
The very first article of the Declaration of Human Rights defines human beings as rational agents with a conscience. A conscience in this case simply means that humans are animals that feel the need to give value and lack of value to different actions and objects. Humanity trends towards categorizing things by importance and value. The Declaration of Human Rights is a document intended to put down in writing the things obligated to human beings simply due to their existence as humans. If something is an obligation, the lack of it in one’s life is a travesty. In the preamble it describes the disregard of these rights as ending in “barbarous acts” which “outrage” humanity. However, in reality, are people really outraged by disregard for these rights?
In class today we discussed how people view human rights violations: only in the most extreme cases. When referring to instances of slavery and torture, any person would respond with disapproval and anger. Most people would argue the need for more to be done to help decrease these horrific things happening every day. The thing is: there are constant human rights violations everywhere that would probably not be seen in the same light by the general public. Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless, receiving inadequate healthcare, children are not being educated and that is only the beginning of the violations seen. Each of these living conditions are stated as not entitlements but rather obligations of which humans have the right.
I personally think there are two main contributing factors to these human rights violations lack of attention in our society: the desensitized view Americans seem to have towards rights transgressions and the lack of knowledge of this declaration. There are human rights violations going on in society yet they are constantly disregarded as common occurrences rather than priorities to be dealt with. I am not saying society is not trying to find solutions to problems such as homelessness, but rather that they are reworded to seem less extreme as one would see a human rights violation. Like when the president reworded genocide into ‘genocidal actions’, similar perspective is happening in society towards the constant occurrences of humans living without their basic rights.
As discussed today in class, a very important part of the preamble is the, “common understanding of these rights and freedoms (as) the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge…” Very few Americans probably even know about this declaration’s existence, let alone fully understanding all that it entails. More priority is put into teaching the state capitols to people rather than the fundamental rights of humanity. More focus needs to be put into this or else the goal of the declaration will never be achieved.
So the questions that arise are: How exactly do we move society towards maintaining more of the rights humans have? Is the declaration really just an optimistic view of what is possible, or is there a way to allow humans to live within the 30 articles stated?
The questions you pose should undoubtedly already be answered and put to use, ideally. But as it is, even the people and countries that DO know about this or are a part of it do not implement it. For this to spread across the world, it would have to start here in the Western hemisphere. I think America's true implementation of this would lead to other countries making similar changes. But, even here, it would be a huge, difficult, dramatic change. The changes would be so dramatic and sudden that I don't think it could be done smoothly or without strife. If we had this declaration as a part of America's elementary education, it could be easier to change laws to go along with it. In short, I know people COULD create laws that work based on these articles, but it would be a really difficult change to make, and of course is that really living by the articles? Not every law is obeyed, so of course there will always be violations of the articles. It's a matter of how many violations go unpunished or unchecked.
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