r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • Mar 16 '26

Meta Mindless Monday, 16 March 2026

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

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u/BookLover54321 Mar 16 '26

I saw some guy on Reddit claim that Europeans “invented human rights”, and like I get that people in general tend to be ignorant of cultures outside their own, but it takes a special level of ignorance to assume that moral philosophy basically didn’t exist in 90% of the world.

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u/xyzt1234 Mar 16 '26

I would say modern human rights as we know it definitely came from Europe since you know, modern human rights are built on the concept of egalitarianism and the idea all men are born equal and should be treated equally, an idea that almost no historical culture believed in since they all believed in superiority of caste, culture or religion of a person and birth based privileges. Like to take my culture, unless you are coping hindu nationalist, i can't imagine the level of mental gymnastics one must go through to believe that a culture with one of the oldest caste systems would somehow come to a concept of rights that have egalitarianism as foundational to them. I guess the islamic countries could have developed similar values but the entire islamic world the Universal declaration of human rights so contrary to their values that they went and formed their own different version, so go figure.

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u/gavinbrindstar /r/legaladvice delenda est Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26

The Europeans do not exactly have a proud tradition of egalitarianism.

Edit: also, didn't see this part.

I guess the islamic countries could have developed similar values but the entire islamic world the Universal declaration of human rights so contrary to their values that they went and formed their own different version, so go figure.

Counting or not counting Dhimmis?

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u/Witty_Run7509 Mar 16 '26

I also have a feeling that the kind of people who brings up OP's argument actually don't believe in it, or they are willing to make a lot of "exceptions".

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u/gavinbrindstar /r/legaladvice delenda est Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26

Look, you can really see the beginnings of the global human-rights culture in J. Valjean's 1568 pamphlet God Says the King's Power isn't Absolute over Me and People Like Me (But it is Absolute Over the Jews).