Rescuing Human Rights from Human Beings

"La Scapagliata," by Leonardo da Vinci, ca. 1500

The whole civilized world takes the notion of "human rights" for granted. Ask an American if he or she has rights and a doctor's hammer below the knee couldn't provoke such an instant and reflexive response. “Of course I have rights!” (Why would you even ask?) Probe a little bit deeper and ask one of those obnoxious "why" questions and you may possibly get "It's in the Constitution." Pursue it further and ask if it would be okay if a Constitutional amendment took away a right like the freedom of speech. You'll either get stony silence or, if this pedestrian is unusually clever (or unusually good at parroting his professors), an appeal to "humanity." People have human rights because they're human beings. It's circular, of course, but, then, didn't Plato believe that the circle was the most perfect of shapes?

Fantastic as it sounds, we're supposed to believe that this rights-by-virtue-of-humanity argument is sufficient.The only problem with it is that an individual who is the sole owner of his rights (as opposed to being “endowed” with his rights) can forever give them away if he or she so chooses – and if history is any guide, he or she often so chooses. Rights that can be given away at whim are, in reality, no rights at all. The government may as well have absolute jurisdiction if it only refuses to infringe on its citizens’ rights when it’s convenient. An even more fundamental problem with basing rights in humanity itself is our era’s postmodernism. You’re telling me there’s no such thing as absolute right and wrong, but an African tribesman still has an absolute right to food, water and condoms? The absurdity is self-evident and goes a long way in explaining why nothing akin to individual rights was ever recognized until the coming of Christianity, and has receded whenever and wherever the tides of the Gospel have ebbed.

One would think this would be obvious to anyone who bothered to take the most cursory glance at the historical record. Even ancient Greece and Rome, where conceptions of humanistic individualism reached their zenith, had no such concept as individual rights. Plato spoke of the importance of the polis as the source of a kind of communitarian right. Romans emphasized the freedom granted by a just legal system. One searches ancient laws in vain for anything resembling our modern versions of individual rights. Slavery was never prohibited anywhere in the ancient world; in fact, it served as the fundamental basis of those societies. Plato and Aristotle both believed that certain people were meant to be slaves by their very nature. The rest of the world was even worse. Most non-Western languages don't even have a word for freedom.

Only with the coming of Christianity did people begin to recognize that all of mankind is made in the imago dei – the image of God—and therefore deserving of certain rights. In the words of the Apostle Paul in Colossians 3, “there is no Gentile or Jew…barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” Christians in early Rome shocked their pagan rulers by adopting the children Romans left out in the elements to die. Over the centuries, Christianity persistently eroded the philosophical underpinnings that had allowed slavery to survive. Significantly, the first widespread movement against the slave trade began, not under the auspices of Platonists, but under a Christian queen of France, Bathilda. Charlemagne was opposed to slavery; Pope Callistus himself had been a slave. Abogard, Anselm and Wulfstan and other luminaries of the medieval church all campaigned against the existence of the institution. As Rodney Stark has written, “The theological conclusion that slavery is sinful has been unique to Christianity.”

The Protestant Reformation’s rediscovery of the believer’s direct relationship to God launched a whole new inquiry into individual rights, particularly vis a vis government. If an individual is justified by his or her faith and not by physically going through a sacrament, the logic went, then no person can force salvation on another. This led to the formal enumeration of the right of conscience, and by logical extension, the rights of speech and the press, where conscience was expressed, challenged and forged. Religious thinkers like the Protestant theologian Hugo Grotius applied the principles of Christianity when theorizing about international law. Regardless of culture, government or race, people everywhere possessed certain rights because they possessed a common Creator. In the 17th century, John Locke’s theory of government went so far as to assert that political bodies are instituted for the express purpose of protecting the God-given rights of individuals. From here it was a short step to the Declaration of Independence. The distinctly Christian idea of human rights now also became a part of civic religion, with all the mixed blessings that entailed.

All our modern ideas on this subject can therefore be traced back to Christian theology, which alone has birthed, and can alone sustain, so sweeping an idea as the dignity of the entire human race. It’s all too easy to view this Christian accomplishment in a vacuum, as many American do today. Most people have never considered that humanitarianism, foreign aid, abolition and systematic resistance to tyranny have only ever existed in countries touched by Christianity. As Christianity fizzles out in this country, we should expect to see our ideas of human rights—already so twisted, mutable and vacuous that we call abortion a fundamental right—die out, too.

Sowing Wind and Reaping the Whirlwind

"Snow Storm: Steamboat off a Harbour's Mouth,"
by J. M. W. Turner. 1842 

I've lately begun noticing what the Bible doesn't say, and what was left unwritten impresses me just as much as what was put down. There's something smacking of divine inspiration when a man could write Romans 13 after suffering what he had at the hands of the Romans. Why not come right out and condemn things like the Roman Empire, emperor-worship or slavery? God's Word is the complete and authoritative guide to everything in existence, and yet there are things it doesn't directly address. This is because if everything was spelled out for us, there wouldn't be room for our faith and reason, and God created us to exercise free will.

Constitutions operate under a similar principle. Like the Bible, the Constitution of the United States is also notable for what it doesn't say, and these things it doesn't say are an important recognition of our God-given freedom. At only 7,200 words long, the Constitution is very short. Its brevity is a reflection of its wisdom. It recognizes that rights are preexisting in nature and in the states, and thus, instead of spelling out all our rights, it limits itself mainly to telling the federal government what it cannot do. "Congress shall make no law respecting..." The conception of rights found in the Constitution is one of "negative rights," meaning that it prevents the government from infringing on all the rights we as citizens are already understood to possess. Even though a right to pursue education or employment isn't found within the document, its only because its understood that human beings possess them intrinsically. The Tenth Amendment makes this point vividly: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The E.U.'s constitution, on the other hand, totals about 78,000 words. Why so long? For one thing, because it's fundamentally based on humanistic assumptions. There is no God, therefore mankind isn't made in his image and doesn't have rights intrinsically - they're concessions from the state. Thus, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms (the equivalent of our Bill of Rights) is obligated to give a comprehensive list of all the rights its citizens may want or need. The long, dreary litany includes such things as the right to education, the right to affordable housing and the right of the handicapped to have accessibility to buildings, etc. etc. Unlike the U.S. Constitution, if a citizen of the EU can't find a right within his constitution, well, too bad. The state hasn't decided that he has that right.

Notice how insidious this can be. A right to healthcare? A right to education? Rights become entitlements under this kind of "positive rights" system - a system where people have the right to have a specific good or service. Now, don't get me wrong. All the "rights" I just listed are good things in and of themselves. People should have the right to be educated and to be able to buy a house. Here in the United States we have the same rights - even though they're not included in our Constitution, . We have the right to pursue affordable housing and education, but we're not entitled to them.

Why is Europe facing the most daunting fiscal crisis that's ever beset the modern world? Because the EU's humanism has created an entitlement culture of unprecedented size and scope. Since education, healthcare and many other things have become fundamental "rights," the state is now obligated to make sure every citizen has them. To this end, it's had to take over from the private sector the job of supplying education, insurance, food, clothing, housing and many other commodities. Think about the costs involved in that. We've all seen how inept government is at stimulus projects and the like, so how much worse must it be when it's effectively running whole swathes of the economy? No amount of taxes that an average citizen pays in can possible finance the individual entitlements he has to a "free" education, healthcare or social services. The only answer, then, is debt and inflation. In their quest to have all the benefits of civilization without recognizing its Author, nations of the European Union have sown nothing but wind, and now they are reaping the whirlwind (Hosea 8:7).

A Tale of Two Philosophies in the Civil Rights Movement

 

Ecclesiastes 9:11: “The race is not to the swift - It is not by swiftness, nor by strength and valor, that races are gained and battles won.” The Bible teaches that “races” are won by humble virtues like perseverance, excellence and diligence. Christianity’s spread across the ancient Mediterranean world was due in large part to Christians’ persistence in doing good –from saving unwanted babies to caring for the poor and orphaned on Rome’s streets- even under the enormous pressure of persecution. Christianity didn’t conquer the ancient world by overturning the Roman state. No doubt there were those who resented Rome and wanted to fight fire with fire, like the Jewish zealots before them. But this was not to be. Christians chose the plan laid out in the Bible. It was doubtless far harder in the short run, but it guaranteed a lasting victory. Christianity won through sheer perseverance, beating an overconfident but napping Rome at its own game. As the Emperor Julian said, “Nothing has contributed to the progress of the superstition of the Christians so much as their charity to strangers… the impious Galileans provide not only for their own poor, but for ours as well.”

This classic conflict between power and humility, speed and patience, self-confidence and endurance has been played out many times in history. A more recent example can be found in the civil rights movement. The man who was in many ways the father of the movement was Booker T. Washington. He had been born in slavery, the illegitimate son of a white landowner. After his family was freed following the Civil War, Washington had to pull himself up by the bootstraps through working grueling jobs like tending a salt furnace and mining coal. He then worked himself through a secondary education and was appointed as the head of the Tuskegee Institute, a new school for freedmen. Over the years, Washington created a vast network of entrepreneurs, philanthropists (many of them white) and charitable organizations to fund schools and vocational opportunities for African-Americans throughout the South. Although he also worked to end Jim Crow laws and supported civil rights initiatives, his philosophy was not primarily one of setting blacks’ political power against whites’. He believed that any enduring victory won by African-Americans would have to rest on a more solid foundation than ballot-boxes and legal jargon on paper. Just like Christians’ victory in ancient Rome, this would have to be a victory over the hearts, minds and pocket books of the enemy. Better to overcome mistreatment and discrimination by showing how baseless they were than by wresting power and winning a legal victory only. The key was "…industry, thrift, intelligence and property." Washington encouraged African-Americans to become the very best in whatever field they worked. This far-sighted and conciliatory attitude is made even more remarkable when one recalls the difficult circumstances of Washington’s early life and all the reasons he had to harbor bitterness.

But it made him enemies, including a fellow black intellectual named W.E.B. Dubois. Dubois had tremendous talent, the result of an innate gifting helped along by both an upbringing in relative wealth and a Harvard education. Understandably, he was tired of African-Americans plodding along at a snail’s pace towards freedom and acceptance. But this impatience and frustration with discrimination in attitudes and laws - though he had not experienced them the same way Booker T. had – pushed him to advocate for a faster solution. Dubois viewed education and power as the only way to achieve true equality, and he vocally opposed Washington’s strategy, even going so far as to give him the nickname “the Great Compromiser." Through attaining positions of influence in the government, the legal system and academia, African-Americans would be able to shape society to win full equality. Eventually this emphasis on a top-down approach to equality led Dubois and the organization he helped found, the NAACP, to embrace socialism. According to this view, the slow, steady methods of Washington were tantamount to treason

Dubois’ desire to see his race achieve equality in his lifetime was certainly a noble intention, but noble intentions can be hijacked by impatience. If that impatience is allowed to define beliefs, it can lead to embracing the gravely erroneous notion that the “ends justify the means.” Booker T. Washington’s ideas promised no immediate change and may not have not had as much appeal at the time for that reason, but they’ve been vindicated in retrospect. Regardless of the political power wielded by African-Americans, the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s would have been impossible to win long-term without the support of whites nationwide. That support was gained between the 40s and 60s largely because African-Americans had (knowingly or not) followed Washington’s advice: they became the very best at whatever they did. African-Americans’ skill as sports heroes (like Jackie Robinson and Mohammed Ali), singers and musicians (Sam Cooke, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, the Supremes and the Temptations) defined the popular consciousness of the entire nation during the 1960s. Every teenager listened to Doo-Wop, Rock and Roll, Soul and Motown – all genres that had their beginnings in African-American music. Through television and radio, African-American stars found their way into every home and car. A whole generation grew up seeing that the other race was every bit as capable of innovation as their own. African-Americans had won the battle of the mind and heart, therefore ensuring victory in the political battle that Martin Luther King Jr. would lead.

Booker T. Washington’s capitalistic and individualistic philosophy was thus vindicated, making it all the more unfortunate that fifty years later it’s in danger of being thrown away. When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, people mistook the culmination of the civil rights movement for its cause. They seized the opportunity to invoke Dubois and use the state as a sort of “savior” for African-Americans. This has since become the prevailing philosophy in talks about equality between the races. It has created endemic dependency on government, poverty. It has also fostered a bitterness and victim mentality that had no place in the life of the one who began the movement - one who had actually known the horrors of life as a slave. Washington would be appalled. In eschewing power and instead stressing industry, excellence, patience and winning the war of the mind, he recognized that it was folly to exchange aristocratic Southern masters for a whole government of far more powerful masters.

Civilization's Prodigal Generation

"The Course of Empire: Consummation," by Thomas Cole, 1836

Hatred of “civilization” is back in vogue. The storm clouds have been gathering for generations, but until recently they were a mere speckling on the horizon, confined to whimsical people like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Paul Gauguin or Margaret Mead – people who could afford to wile away their lifetimes turning their angst into fashionable theories. Few men and women had that privilege. That changed when the Industrial Revolution radically improved living standards all around the world (but particularly the Western world). Not surprisingly, as each succeeding generation saw their parents do things once thought impossible, they began to see the world in new ways. Their sense of mastery grew. With freedom from economic and governmental constraints came a longing for freedom from morality. Evolution wasn’t new (indeed, the essential tenets would have been familiar to all students of Greek philosophy) but the intellectual climate was. Darwin’s theory would have been universally rejected even fifty years before, but now the academia who ruled the Enlightened world jumped at the thought of boarding their ships like Tolkien’s Numenoreans and taking their grievances to the very shores of God’s country.

One hundred and fifty years later we’re still dealing with the fallout. If there is no Creator, then truth is relative, good and evil are mere conventions and life is meaningless. This new understanding of the world has been behind a relentless degrading of civilization, including the institutions, religion and arts that sustain it. It wasn’t so very long ago that Western Civilization courses were considered one of the brightest ornaments of a liberal education. Now there's an extensive campaign to mitigate them where they aren't discarded entirely. Multiculturalism reigns supreme, imposing its fluency in Ebonics, minority history courses, feminist, gay and lesbian studies on impressionable minds. Whether or not there's any intrinsic worth in such subjects, what's galling is that they're passed off as equally important as the humanities or Greek, Roman and American history. We’re essentially told nowadays that the art, architecture and culture of past civilizations, still magnificent to travelers even in ruin, are really no more remarkable than native huts and whittling. It just depends on how you look at it (And parents and teachers wonder why children are underachievers). Triumphs of science and technology that launched revolutions of the human condition are, by extension of this relativistic worldview, fruitless and vain. Thinkers, philosophers and conquering heroes represent oppression, not innovation. Consequently, where real oppression does happen, like to women in Muslim countries, we can’t be morally indignant because that would be insensitive to the culture or circumstances that produced it.

We must be quite a spectacle. Awash in wealth -even in what’s apparently the fiercest economic downturn since the Great Depression- with hardly a care in the world, yet hating every moment of it. Or is this self-loathing only a pretentious front put up to soothe our guilty consciences? If popular culture of the Avatar sort is the slightest indication, the American is to style himself a sort of Citizen Kane. This time disenchantment in Xanadu isn't confined to doubting whether the love of money can satisfy. It extends to doubting the morality of money and money-making themselves. And "Rosebud" is even more elusive. The neo-hippies of the self-sufficiency variety, the entertainment industry and Occupy Wall Street are all panting for a return to some fantastical, pre-Industrial state. Not that this ever existed, but the idea is that everyone farmed (but wasn’t a serf), ate only their own food (but didn’t die of malnutrition), made everything they needed themselves (including mining, smelting and forging all metal implements, presumably) had no need for society’s institutions (but was perfectly safe from theft, war and other myths), money (that cardinal token of vice whereby people are inspired to make things others want to buy) or banks or loans, and yet had plenty of time leftover for self-expression and writing free verse poetry (with homemade paper and ink?). If our familiarity with civilization has bred contempt, then our unfamiliarity with the lack of it has bred fantasies.

The Schism in Modern Political Thought

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” It’s better to be consistent - to be hot or cold. Even a man who sells his sword to the wrong cause, but fights like the Devil in defense of it, wins honor and respect from his enemies. In the same way, if a man believes something false, but believes it with all his heart, he earns a kind of honor by his sheer dedication. He weighed the sides of the controversy and chose one to throw his whole weight behind. But a man who's weak, inconsistent or illogical is not only wrong; he’s contemptible.

Perhaps this is why the philosophies of two men continue to inspire so much respect. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton could not have been farther apart on the political spectrum of 18th century America. Where Jefferson trusted “the people” to order their affairs better than someone in Washington could, Hamilton excoriated them as slaves to the “impulse of passion.” Jefferson wanted low taxes and the self-reliance of local governments; Hamilton wanted high taxes and a policy of easy credit for industries, roads, canals and bridges. Distribution and decentralization of government, the Jeffersonian ideal, stood in stark contrast to Hamilton’s desire for a “common, directing power.” The differences extended into foreign policy as well. The gentleman from Virginia wanted the policy of limited government he advocated on American soil to be equally as limited abroad: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” The New York lawyer had his heart set not only on establishing a European-style government, but an army and navy imperial enough to win battles, glory and overseas possessions. Despite all these differences, these two men had one thing in common: the beliefs of each formed a logical, reasoned whole.

Regardless of which man history vindicated, both have an unimpeachable record of intellectual honesty. Both were consistent. They understood that beliefs filter through one’s whole worldview to form an integral whole; beliefs can’t be mixed and matched according to preference. They can't be pawned to win votes or do what’s politically expedient without shaking the whole foundation on which they rest. Hamilton knew and admitted that an aggressive foreign policy required a complex, bureaucratic state at home. Jefferson knew that power corrupted. This led him to the conclusion that small government at home was meaningless if a powerful military establishment tempted the young republic into wars and empire-building. As his friend James Madison said, "War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few." Republicans today have rebuked their heritage as the party of humble foreign policy and instead embraced a massive military-industrial complex – as if this can be maintained with the low taxes and small government they trumpet. Democrats are no better. How can a welfare state of crony capitalism and exploding government hope to preserve the liberties the party professes such attachment to? Today's administration and its rivals insult our intelligence. Hamilton –whatever else one might say of him- would have known better.

Rousseau, Human Nature and Our Foreign Policy Problem

Put aside for a moment the constitutional arguments (and they are many) against being involved in the internal squabblings of governments overseas. Put aside the pragmatic arguments of finance and sustainability that see these wars for the vacuous black hole that they are. Even put aside the Founding Fathers' warnings against "foreign entanglements." Let's examine the philosophical moorings required to think we can"make the world safe for democracy."

As Christians, it is our duty to not only recognize, but actively live like we believe that sin is something each of us has the choice -the free-will- to indulge in or resist. Furthermore, God tells us in his word that man is fallen, that he delights in sin, just as St. Augustine delighted in stealing an apple, not to eat, but for the pure pleasure of sinning.  How does this reverberate into how we should see man's place in civil society? He is a law-breaker by choice. 

Not everyone agrees with what the Bible says, however. In fact, for a couple hundred years now it's been in vogue to take a position that owes more to Jean Jacques Rousseau: that man is born free and decent, and it's society's institutions that corrupt him. Break the back of these institutions and a violent man suddenly finds himself cherubized. Freud agreed. Man is a complex animal without a soul who responds to impulses in his environment. Pavlov believed that his famous discovery of reinforcement and the salivating dog was equally true of human beings: man is mechanical and needs stimuli to provoke the "right" responses. As these theories became mainstream, education shifted from its classical focus on searching for truth and instead began treating children like Pavlov's dog. It became about conditioning children to make the right responses to stimuli in the world.

Once this generation of children became adults, they could be found at the helm of this nation and most others in the Western world. They had a firm belief in the innate goodness of man - if only the harmful stimuli can be removed. Man is perfectible if he can just be given the right environment. Crime was no longer the rebellion of the soul, it was the automatic response to poverty and inner-city decay. Housing projects and the welfare state resulted. But there was something else, too. If this picture of human nature was true, then it was now within the grasp of the government of the United States of America not only to perfect its own citizens, but to perfect the citizens of the world - in effect to create a new world order of peace and prosperity for all. To free them to that natural state that Rousseau had talked about. Remove the evil effects of institutions and governments and you will cure the men under them. Or in more modern terms: "If we only remove the dictators, they will be good people." The French tried it in their Revolution of 1789. We did it in Cuba, in Europe (twice) and all across the third world ever since, and we've seen how it's played out. Iran was one of our first projects in the 1950s. Now it's Iraq and Afghanistan, which, despite all dreams of flag-waving Iraqi children, are not Jeffersonian democracies or anything remotely like. Egypt has been delivered, not to democracy, but to the Muslim Brotherhood. Now there are reports that Libya may be falling under the sway of Al Qaeda.

The problem of our foreign policy is primarily a problem with our view of human nature. Try as we might to export freedom and American ideals, our plans will continue to backfire until we understand that we cannot make men and women desire freedom by getting rid of the evil around them. Correcting our foreign policy starts with understanding that sin is a choice; that any inherent desire for freedom and democracy in the human race is outweighed by an inherent desire to sin. People around the world need to be reached by the Great Commission, not by Operation Odyssey Dawn.