75 years ago, our species did something incredible.
We tried to codify aspects of our condition as universal: to say that everyone - no matter your nationality, creed, age, sex, racialized ethnicity - deserved access to the same fundamentals.
We have *never* lived up to the promise of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
Not ever.
We spend more time defending why X doesn't deserve Y.
We don't have to - but we do.
What would the next 25 years look like if we didn't?
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
@MLClark "The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice" This is one of those places where we can look back and see the bend, though the journey before mankind is still long.
The idea that something like this can even exist as an ideal was impossible 500 years ago.
Progress is the proof of hope, even if the progress is yet to be fully realized.
500 years ago is an interesting comparison!
That's when Queen Isabella, furious with actions in the Americas, established rules of conduct. Europeans didn't know what to make of so many non-Christians (some felt heathens could be abused) but she maintained that they were to be treated as subjects deserving of equal protection (while of course being indoctrinated).
Both it and the UNDHR are ambitious texts! The problem has always been the follow-through.
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/amerbegin/settlement/text4/OvandoHispaniola.pdf
@MLClark Interesting! 500 years ago was also when we had the establishment of the discovery doctrine from the Pope. It established the concept of Terra Nullius, inhabited land, if the holders are not christian, can be claimed by a sovereign christian power.
That was indeed the debate!
And it carried forward into advocacy work from missionaries in the Americas over the next few decades, with many religious orders pushing back on abusive policies, and trying to report the cruelties they saw enacted by military personnel and others of the faith.
In short, again, we've *always* been struggling between those who recognize the cruelty transpiring in their era, and those whose livelihoods depend on it continuing.
Ever was it thus for us!