The idea of universal human rights is one culture’s tradition, not a self-evident creed.

Evidence

Looking at this pluriverse of community-enhancing traditions helps us see what is often so hard for Westerners to see—that even something as widely accepted in the West as the concept of “universal” human rights is in fact one particular tradition of one particular culture rather than a self-evident creed. … As an Anishinaabeg Elder relayed to us at a recent teaching, his people are taught that humans have only two rights, which they share with all other living creatures: the right to be born, and the right to die. Everything else, he told us, is a privilege. — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 1668

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sharpens the pluriverse concept: even universal human rights is a single local tradition.
• XREF: connects to: Universalizing Western norms is colonizing and reproduces racism. — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 1686; The desire for freedom from social conventions is not innate but culturally constructed.; Human rights discourse does not exhaust political languages of the human. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 681 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Human rights discourse does not exhaust political languages of the human. #expands (0.82) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 681
• The desire for freedom from social conventions is not innate but culturally constructed. #expands (0.80)
• Human rights only hold for those who hold citizenship in a nation. #contradicts (0.80)
• The universality of human rights versus cultural relativism is the core civilizational divide #qualifies (0.80) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 522
• The Rights of Man were grounded in a supposed human nature rather than history #corroborates (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 728
• Rights are exercised through group membership like citizenship, not universal humanity #complicates (0.75) — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt, 2059