‘Human Rights’ — A Limited Act of Kindness

People love stories. And there are some stories which we label as the ultimate truth, but it is still a story — a piece of fiction.

For much of human history, we have lived without the universal concept of ‘human rights’. Today however, we, as a civilisation, are firm believers in the idea of ‘human rights’. We believe there are rights all humans are entitled to merely because of the fact that they are born humans.

The problem with this idea is that it confers a great amount of significance to being human. We may be the most evolved and advanced form of life on the planet, but at the end of the day we are just another form of life on the planet. We just happen to be a more intelligent animal. Why should that mean we exclusively are deserving of some inalienable rights?

No form of life is born with any rights. They are granted those rights by us, by our collective imagination, by our collective belief in the story of ‘human rights’.

This story is indeed a wonderful one, however, we should question why we don’t expand it to include other animals on the planet. The idea of human importance needs to be challenged. We seem satisfied as long as our story protects our species. But if our only concern is our own species, then we can only be humans but never humane.

The very notion of being humane involves compassion and benevolence. So the story needs to change. Other animals are equally deserving of the same rights. If they are not, then our concept of inalienable human rights is selfish. We should accept it as such, rather than masking it as the ultimate act of kindness.

As long as other forms of life are excluded, it will only be a limited act of kindness.

Each era comes with its own morality. Today, we may revel in the glory of human rights, but the coming eras are bound to condemn us because the notion of ‘right and wrong’ would have turned a shade by then.