Article 30

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Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

And finally we get to an important disclaimer. All across the political spectrum you can find people who will point to the opposite point on the spectrum and accuse its adherents of manipulating regard for these rights to increase their own power, to set themselves or their group above others. All across the political spectrum you will find instances where these accusations are unfortunately all too accurate.

These rights need to transcend political, religious and yes even personal ideology. Am I emotionally invested in them? Certainly, but that has absolutely nothing to do with their ultimate importance and why they need to be, as is right in the Declaration’s name “universal.” Yes, we feel better about agreeing with the Declaration, but its importance lies in the fact that adhering to it makes the world a safer, saner place for everyone, including ourselves.

To deny these rights is to invite continued chaos. It denies people a place at the table of community and when they are so denied, after a while, they decide to take a place at the table. That is undeniably, empirically true. To quote RATM “hungry people don’t stay hungry for long.” We’ve been sharing this planet for possibly 2 million years. We’ve been able to save and share our articulation on that experience for at least 12 thousand. We are long past the need to continue the cycle of power exchange and resource hoarding that has plagued us as long as we’ve been “us.” The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an important step in breaking that cycle. Let’s help each other out by spreading the word as far and wide as we can.

Article 29

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(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

There has always been a curious dance between individual liberty and community responsibility. These are not mutually exclusive ideas, but they are often at odds. Sometimes the individual can thrive when the community allows him to, or the community can benefit greatly from a strong individual. Still, it is the rare person whose wants and needs never conflict with those of their neighbors.

In all likelihood the struggle to balance these needs will never be completely settled, but Declaration, along with our own Constitution and the Constitutions of most Industrialized Democracies, reflect an honest attempt to resolve this. Have we fallen down? Have we failed to live up to our high ideas? Have we even ignored them in the name of base desire? The answer to all those questions is yes, but that does not mean we should give up on our attempts to find a more perfect harmony between the one and the many.

At best giving up on solving that question is a sad admission of weakness. At worst it is opening the door to chaos and pain. When the individual is lost to the community we lose the very things that make being human special. When the community is forgotten in the chase for individual gain, despotism takes root. Neither is a very appealing outcome. We may never have the answers, but the search for them is a necessary endeavor just the same.

Article 28

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Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Sixty years. It has been sixty years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been written and in most of the world most people do not have access to most of these rights. Indeed there are groups that have access to none of them. We have done such a poor job of meeting the needs of the oppressed even though there is more than enough wealth to meet everyone’s needs and still have the ridiculously wealthy enjoy their lavish lifestyles. What stops us from keeping the Declaration’s promise?

Part of the problem is the lack of institutions. The UN has tried to enforce its rules over the years, but lacks any real teeth. Unless the most powerful nations agree on a course of action, it seldom acts to protect the weak. This happens, in part, because the most powerful nations disagree not so often as to what needs to be addressed but rather how to address it. Our own nation, rather than take advantage of the international courts in dealing with Saddam Hussein, damaging both the courts’ and our own legitimacy. Sometimes this is a matter of simple misunderstanding and stubborn insistence on the primacy of our manner of handling things.

Much of it, though, is selfish neglect and a certain degree of dangerous nationalism. Many fine, compassionate people, particularly in the Western World, still have problems with their beloved nation being second guessed by a larger organization. This works fairly well for the moneyed elite around the world, as such an organization could keep them in line as well as the brutal dictators they often deal with. Because people put their national identity above the collective good, their politicians either ignore the UN’s needs, or actively malign that body.

So far that has worked OK for the relatively wealthy people of the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany and the rest of the great economic powers. That can’t go on forever though, and as our civil liberties are eroded, as our basic human dignity is stolen from us by a financial crisis that turns us into beggars or slaves, the more we may wish there was had a guiding order to the international community to protect the rights set down in the Declaration.

Article 27

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(1) Everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

I know the first clause of this Article will seem alien to so many people. You may ask why we even need to mention this. After all, there are some people in the world that the only thing they have is the cultural life of their community, and this is true. However there have been many instances of one culture trying to suppress another, think of what Europeans did to the natives of North America, or Australia, or Africa, or… wow, um yeah, everyone really.

All lefty snarkiness aside though, this was written at a time when communist dictators were trying to quash the very idea of culture. They turned generations of tradition on their head simply because they thought all tradition was bad.  This is kind of disturbing because to me culture, be it art, music, poetry, dance, food or what have you, is what separates us from other animals. It is what makes being human special. Without it, we are just existing, not living.

I think back on what has been lost, especially the past century and a half of empire and I shake my head. So much beauty gone and for what? A burning need to feel superior because of the way we hold a fork, or how we express our love for this world, or simply to get all of our ducks in a row. I also find myself grateful for those that never gave up and never gave in. The Ukrainians, the Plains Indians of North America, the Polynesians, the Bantu speaking people of sub Saharan Africa. They have had mixed success, but their cultures, and those of a few others, will not be forgotten because they refused to completely give up their identity, sometimes in the face of brutal violence.

We need this now more than ever. I write this as I sit in Starbucks, partaking of (as much as I enjoy the coffee) our bland, homogeneous culture. America has lost a lot of its color, and the sad part is, we just kind of drifted into that. We make much ado of our slight regional differences, but really, when push comes to shove, we consume the same mass processed food, drink and music. Maybe it’s easier that way, but don’t forget to occasionally hit your museum, eat some East Indian Cuisine, listen to a little Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and read a little poetry (yeah, I just went there) and above all, remember where it came from.

Article 25

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(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

It amazes me, after thousands of years of civilization, with all of the philosophy and social theory we have developed in that time that any of this can still be in question. How necessities of life can be considered luxuries is a bit beyond my understanding. I don’t care how lazy you think someone is, or even if you are right about them, how does that exclude them from being fed, or kept out of the cold, or receiving proper medical attention? It seems petty to me to be so wrapped up in how hard you work that you think someone not working makes them so loathsome that they deserve to suffer horribly.

Clause two is a bit more problematic, not because I disagree with it, but because I see it being manipulated by some elements in our culture. Mothers, especially new ones, and of course children are vulnerable. Because they are vulnerable we need to look out for them. Unfortunately I can see some people deciding that this is somehow proof that women need “looking after” and don’t deserve the same rights as men. Also, while I am not interested in getting into the abortion debate just now, some would use this to define the unborn as children and having human rights. There are important reasons why I believe the unborn are not children, but that is far more than a 300 word blog post.

The simple fact of the matter is making sure people have the bare minimum is not just the nice thing to do. It is not why I support it. I believe helping little old ladies cross the road is the nice thing to do as well (and not just because I am not that far off from being one), and do so, but I don’t think it should be codified into our laws and culture. No, we should take care of the least among us because for one, we never know when we might be among them, and for another, it makes for a stabler, safer society for everyone. Desperate people behave desperately. There are two obvious ways to deal with that, and the one not suggested by this Article has been tried, to horrific effect.  This way works and it is the kinder option.

Article 24

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Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

As I mentioned yesterday, work is good. We need work to earn a living, at least for the most part in the economic model the vast majority of the world lives in. We also need work to feel productive. Always working, however, can burn you out. Most Americans get no paid vacation, and many go without vacations at all. Most Americans have it far better than people in countries opened to corporate abuse by the forces of globalization.

For too many around the world, not only do they not get paid vacations or vacations at all, they do not get days off. Many live on premises, in apartments “provided” by their employers, paying rent and utilities at rates that keep them working. There are many reasons this happens but ultimately it happens because we allow it to.

It happens because we need “brand new” but we don’t want to, or cannot, pay too much for it. It happens because we allowed ourselves to be sold a bill of goods about “free trade,” that has not just sent away jobs in this country, but opened up others to out an out slavery. It happens because we are apathetic and frankly more than a little weak.

We allow our leaders to write trade agreements that allow American companies to do business with countries that have no labor laws at first ostensibly in the name of diplomacy and later for “economic growth.” No one has bothered to ask whose economic growth. Certainly not mine and probably not yours.

No instead, we have fewer jobs and are more desperate for them. Because we are desperate for them we are willing to work longer hours for less benefits and pay. Too many of us believe them when they claim to have avoid shoring up labor laws or even suggest gutting them in the name of “job creation.” We swallow bad pill after bad pill and we do it because we think they have the only medicine in town.

Well, they do not. There are other schools of thought and I do not just mean socialism and communism. There are private communes, employee owned businesses and intentional communities. We do not even have to go that far to shake them off our backs, but shake them off we have to, otherwise before long the weekend will be the stuff of distant memories.