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This idea that fundamental human rights are “western values” is profoundly unhelpful, because it implies that in some sense to fight injustice is to no longer b
by heraclius 7y ago
This idea that fundamental human rights are “western values” is profoundly unhelpful, because it implies that in some sense to fight injustice is to no longer be truly Chinese—a nonsense whose propagation is both supported by and helpful to the CCP.
- jasonjei 7y agoTaiwan is a very democratic and open society, but evolved on its own from a dictatorship to a proud free society. I think many Taiwanese would be very proud to say they developed it with their own distinctive Taiwanese values (and bento box throwing matches in the Legislative Yuan).
- gwright 7y agoAt one level I understand what you area saying but at another level I think your statement undermines what it means to relinquish one set of ideas in favor of another. It is perhaps a hindrance that we don't have an ethnic-neutral term for the set of ideas associated with "western values" but "western" is descriptive of the origin not the applicability of the ideas. In order to genuinally adopt and espouse "western values" you have to at some level abandon "non-western values". This of course has as a pre-requisite that you've discarded the notion of multiculturalism -- at least the version of multiculturalism that insists that avoiding value judgements between cultures as a virtue unto itself.
- rayiner 7y agoWhat makes it tough is that many more cultures have a concept of "fundamental human rights" than ones that agree with western countries on which specific rights are fundamental.
- gwright 7y agoYou have to add in a lot of other ideas though to come close to the basket of ideas associated with "western values". For example: limited government, representative government, scientific inquiry, equality of women, due process, free markets, private property, contract law, and so on.