Toward a Postmodern Notion of Human Rights

 Zhihe Wang 

Importance of the New Californians

             The new California immigrants are as significant a part of California’s population as any other group, and they need to be treated as such. If they are unable to become contributing taxpayers, they and their offspring will be permanent tax receivers.

             ---Meeting the educational needs of the nnew Californians by California    

                      Postsecondary Education Commission, March 1992.

The idea of human rights has increasingly been playing a very important part in our contemporary life, the political in particular, the cultural in general. This explains why Dr. Griffin in   Beyond Anarchy and Plutocracy: The Need for Global Democracy includes a chapter on human rights. “ My contention,” Dr. Griffin writes, “ is that now, in the light of globalization, the idea of human rights should inspire a movement for global democracy.”[1] According to Griffin, global democratic government needs the notion of human rights as at least one of its starting points. In turn, the full implementation of human rights relies on global democratic government.  Griffin mentions several obstacles to realizing the idea of human rights. His discussion mainly focuses on the conflict between human rights and the idea of state sovereignty. The idea of state sovereignty is regarded as a major obstacle on the way to the full implementation of human rights.  According to Griffin, “As long as this doctrine of Sovereignty is retained, therefore, the idea of human rights, with its moral universalism, will necessarily remain disembodied.”[2]

In this paper I try to point out that the modern idea of human rights itself is also responsible for the failure of the successful implementation of human rights. To put  in another way, the modern idea of human rights has become another major obstacle due to its own flaws. Therefore a postmodern idea of human rights is necessary for a global democratic government. In turn, the implementation of human rights relies on global democratic government.

The dynamic dimension of human rights

In my view, the understanding of human rights is in process. It is a developmental process closely tied to particular cultures and political realities. Therefore it is natural for human rights to take different forms in different phases of its development and within different cultures, like the Asian and the Western.

Some scholars like Karel Vasak have already noticed the dynamic dimension of human rights. He suggests the notion of “three generations of human rights.” They are: the first generation of civil and political rights; the second generation of economic, social, and cultural rights; and the third generation of newly called solidarity rights. The first generation derives primarily from the seventeenth-and eighteenth-century reformist theories which are infused with the political philosophy of liberal individualism and the economic and social doctrine of laissez-faire. What is constant in this first-generation conception is the notion of liberty. The second generation finds its origins primarily in the socialist tradition. Historically, it is counterpoint of the first generation, putting much emphasis on “social equality”. The third generation is a product of both the rise and the decline of the nation-state in the last half of the twentieth century. it stresses the notion of holist community interests. “Thus”, as Richard Pierre Claude and Burns H.Weston summarize,

         at various stages of modern history—following the ‘bourgeois’ revolutions of   

         the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the socialist and Marxist revolutions of

         the early twentieth century, and the anti-colonialist revolutions that began 

         immediately following World War II—the content of human rights has been broadly 

       defined, not with any expectation that the rights associated with one generation  

      would or should become outdated upon  the  ascendancy of another, but expansively

      or supplementally.”[3]

There can be little doubt that the model of the developmental trajectory of human rights is historically decriptive. However, If we examine the idea of human rights from another perspecttive, we will find that both the first generation and the second generation are “modern” because  both of them  emphasize some aspect of the idea of human rights. In the first generation is liberty, in the second one is social equality. The third generation, to some extent, can be considered a kind of miniature of the postmodern idea of human rights.It is the outcome of an attempt to overcome the weaknesses of the previous two generations. It reflects the demand of non-Western countries for the right to economic and social development; the right to peace, and the right to a healthy and balanced environment. It tends to take note of the individual and collective dimensions of human rights. It requires the concerted efforts of all social forces, to substantial degree on a planetary scale. It implies “ a quest for a possible utopia that projects the notion of holistic community interests.” [4] In some sense, we can regard Griffin’s global democratic government as the implementation of the utopia”.

What is Wrong with Modern Idea of Human Rights?

Although there is little doubt that the idea of modern human rights played a very important progressive role in Western history, “it stands opposed to all these versions of aristocracy”[5] and to slavery, the idea is a very important constituent of modernity. That means that the modern notion of human rights shares common flaws with modernity.

When Griffin calls for leaving "modernity" behind[6], logically the modern idea of human rights should be on the list.

One of the major characteristics or shortcomings of the modern idea of human rights is its Westerncentrism. Although the modern idea of human rights has been claiming its universality, it is actually western. In Claude and Weston’s words, modern human rights is an “essentially western liberal conception of human rights”[7] As we know, although in the West, human rights can be traced back thousands of years, to “ the Christian belief in the autonomous status and irreplaceable value of the human personality”,[8] the modern version of human rights is a recent idea, being a creature of eighteenth-century Europe. Needless to say, the modern idea of human rights is the ideology of the rising middle class  historically as well as philosophically. As Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab point out,     

    It is clear that human rights as a twentieth-century concept and as embedded in the   

    United Nations can be the particular experiences of these states through the  centuries

    have  led directly  to the concern with human rights as expressed  in the Universal  

    Declaration. It  should not be forgotten that the San Francisco Conference  which

    established the United Nations in 1945 was  dominated by the West, and that the

    Universal Declaration of Human rights was adopted at a time  when most  Third

    World  countries  were still under  colonial rule.”[9]

 For many ages, the colonialization of the third World paralleled the promotion of the modern idea  of human rights in the West.

Thus to argue that the notion of human rights has a standing which is universal  in character is to  contradict historical reality. “What ought to be admitted by those who  argue universality”, as Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab stress, “is that human rights as a Western concept  based on natural right should become  the standard   upon which all nations ought to agree, recognizing however, that this is only one particular value system.”[10] In this sense, I  don’t feel comfortable with Leszek Kolakowski’s use of the term “ contemporary form” [11]of human rights because it confuses the modern idea of human rights and the postmodern one.

 “from the start of the human rights movement there were, situated within the bureaucracies of leading Western stays, strong supporters of the idea of applying external pressure on others to uphold human rights standards”[12]

Due to the fact   that  the notion of modern human rights was  “western derived,”  it is not totally unreasonable to  charge defenders of human rights as serving “western interest”. It is evident that the idea of modern human rights is not neutral but  Europecentric. As Pollis and Schwab point out, “Efforts to impose the Declaration as it currently stands not only reflect a moral chauvinism and  ethnocentric bias but are also bound to fail.”[13]

The second characteristic or shortcoming of the modern idea of human rights is its connotation of individualism.

It is well known that in the West, human rights mainly are individual rights, dedicated to individual dignity. The modern idea of human rights emphasizes individual rights like the right to the freedom of speech and the freedom of association. The emphasis is rooted in individualism as the philosophical basis of the modern idea of human rights, which is based on the notion of atomized individuals.

As Steven Lukes rightly states, modern human rights can be seen as bound up with “ an individualistic  and humanist view of the world, which has become  the currency  of  everyday life in our  society.”[14] According to the modern idea of human rights, to defend human rights is to  protect individuals. This explains why the modern idea of human rights  considers human rights exclusively in the concept of human freedom, referring to the freedom of individuals. To largely extent, the freedom of communities is beyond the category of the modern idea of human rights. For example, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of the thirty articles  only two ( article 28 and 29)  can be considered as dealing with community. It is very important to note that the aim of emphasizing community is still to realize individual rights and freedom. As article 28 states, “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.” [15]

The modern idea of human rights is abstract, one-dimensional

The third characteristic or weakness of the modern idea of human rights is its abstractness. Modern human rights is ahistorical, isolated from  any  specific social, political and economic milieu. Concretely, its abstractness, on the one hand, is reflected in the fact that  the notion of modern human rights does not treat human rights as an interrelated whole. It puts too much attention on political rights and pays little attention to other rights such as  economic, social and cultural  rights. Or in Falk’s words, it  “pays no serious attention to economic and social rights……” [16] For example, in the Declaration, a great deal of attention is devoted to the political rights; few focus on one of the crucial rights of human being -- economic rights. In terms of the analysis of Pollis and Schwab,  “of the thirty articles only three, one of them dealing with economic rights, can be considered as dealing with economic rights.”[17] Their conclusion is: “ the primacy of political rights in the Declaration is clear.”[18] By ignoring from economic, social, and cultural rights, the conception of human rights is empty. Or, to put it a little more sympathetically, is impractical.

On the other hand, one of the major reasons why the modern idea of human rights  is abstract and one-dimensional , therefore unacceptable for other countries, is lacking the connotation of duty. It   emphasizes the rights rather than duties. Or, to put it a little  more sympathetically, it does not call much attention to duty. Take the Declaration as an example, of the thirty articles, only one article (article 29) deals with duty. Like the dealing with community, once again the aim of mentioning duty is also to make the “free and full development” of individual possible. [19] Undoubtedly, the ignoring of duty is closely related to its philosophical basis --individualism.

The notion of human rights without duty is not only abstract, but also contradicts the idea of  human rights itself. As Griffin points out when he discusses “ duties to people in other countries”: 

If we hold that we have the right  to life  simply  by virtue of being human, then all other beings have this right. If we, however, imply that  some people do not have  this right by our practice -- by  treating  our own preference  to keep our affluent way  of life  as more  important than their  vital  interest in having  adequate  food--then we  imply that there is no  human  right to life. And, because the right to life  is the  most basic  of all rights, we have  thereby undermined the  very idea of human rights and, accordingly, our own claim to have any such rights.[20]

The Postmodern Notion of Human Rights

It has almost become a commonplace among the intellectuals discussing global democracy that the idea of human rights is one of starting points of global democratic government. However, the modern idea of human rights is not qualified to play such a key role due to its inherent flaws. When Falk asks “Can the human rights enterprise, norms and procedures, be sufficiently emancipated from its ambiguous Western antecedents and contemporary mechanism of geopolitics to serve as the basis of human rights in non-Western regions?”[21], the question actually implies the demand to reject the Western modern idea of human rights. In fact, more than 20 years ago, some scholars began to rethink the conception of human rights. Admantia Pollis and Peter Schwab clearly recognize that this Western notion of human rights “may not be successfully applicable to areas...”[22] Therefore, it is necessary to develop a new approach to human rights; we need a “postmodern concept of human rights” in relation to global democratic government. The modern idea of human rights invites anarchy and plutocracy at the global level. The modern idea of  human rights is monolithic and imperialistic. It demands uniformity and conformity .It is a tremendous threat to global democratic government. It is vital to reject the modern idea of human rights in order to develop a postmodern idea of human rights  which is fitted to the global democratic government. In a word, the global democratic government needs a postmodern idea of human rights.

      To a large extent, the idea of human rights Griffin discusses in his Beyond Anarchy and Plutocraty  is postmodern, though he does not use this term “postmodern”. Griffin provides an invaluable insight into understanding human rights from a postmodern perspective.

While this is not place to undertake the huge project of discussing the postmodern idea of human rights in detail, I here just outline some main points related to Dr. Griffin's Beyond Anarchy and Plutocracy.

First, the postmodern idea of human rights posits a unity of individualism and collectivism, a unity of right and duty. Against the modern idea of human rights based on modern individualism, the philosophical ground of Griffin’s postmodern idea of human rights is panexperientialism. According to panexperientialism, the process of a new concrescence starts with the prehension of a complex network of actual entities. “The essence of an actual entity,” Whitehead says, “ consists solely in the fact that it is a prehending thing.” Also he emphasizes that “we must say that every actual entity is present in every other actual entity. The Philosophy of organism is mainly devoted to the task of making clear the notion of ‘being present  in another  entity.’”[23] That is to say, human beings are internally related to one another. To put in another way, their relationship defines their identities as individuals. Thus, thanks to panexperientialist philosophy, we are able to renounce “a false individualism” [24] We are able to deconstruct the dichotomy  between individual and universal, private and public. John Cobb replaces “persons-in-market” with  “persons-in-community”. In Griffin’s words, panexperientialism helps us to overcome the modern worldview, especially its “individualism, anthropocentrism, patriarchy, mechanization, economism, consumerism, nationalism,”[25] It is clear that individualism is the product of substance thinking, which thinks of something as self-contained and self-sufficient. According to John Cobb, “ any view of people that treats them as self-contained individuals falsifies the real situation."[26]

From the point of view of panexperientialism, it is quite easy to answer the question Griffin poses, "Do we  really have duties to people in other countries?" [27]The question is not only Griffin’s. It represents the heart’s desire of most people in developed countries. As Griffin states, "It is natural for people to ask this question, especially when they  realize a positive answer would imply not only an adjustment of the hitherto accepted principles of  international relations but also, thereby, some reduction  in their  own affluence."[28] The postmodern human idea of  human rights emphasizes the unity  between individualism and altruism, between right and duty.

An important contribution Griffin has made to the postmodern  idea of human rights, in my opinion, is that he consciously links human rights with duty. To put  in another way, he reveals the intrinsic link between human rights and duty.

As we have seen, the advocates of modern human rights in the West have been  claiming human rights without duty. It is very natural for the third world to reject such an idea of human rights. From this point of view, John Cobb is totally right when he suggests a “ new asceticism” in Is It Too Late?, because he sees the necessity for the people in developed countries to help the poor by reducing their living standards.His idea of  a "new asceticism" would be much more convincing if it was related to human rights. Contrarily, Griffin is aware that the notion of duty is "implicit in the very idea of human rights."[29] That is to say, people in the West not only have the duty to “avoid depriving any fellow human beings of adequate food”,[30] but also have the duty to “ protect and to aid.” [31]Such an idea of human rights integrating duty into itself will be welcomed by the non-Western world. As we know, even the best laws are of little use when they are either not understood or respected or when they are insufficiently enforced. The same can be said of human rights.

Second, the postmodern notion of human rights posits a unity of the Western values and the Eastern values.

The one major reason why the Western brand human rights fails to be accepted by the non-Western countries, especially Asian countries, is that its values are based on individualism in contravention to Asian values. “ To most people in the Third World, to justify human rights solely in terms of Western individualism is inconsistent with their cultural traditions.” [32]

Although “The typical reaction in the West has been to dismiss the concept of ‘Asian Values’ by questioning the political motives of Asian governments who seemed to be employing a euphemism for authoritarian rule,”[33]  it is a fact that due to its traditional mode of production, there is some commonality in common in Asian values, which  is different from the Western values. Rice farming through paddy cultivation was the main form of agriculture in “monsoon Asia”. So “it was  essential for peasants to co-operate intensely in accordance with the rapidly changed weather.”[34]

In Asian traditions, especially in the  Chinese cultural traditions, the ideal of harmony and unity plays a key role, “community and obligation have come traditionally before individual and right.” [35] According to the Chinese notion of human rights, the individual  found dignity not  in self-expression but in fulfilling the will of Heaven,

not in individualism but in membership in communities, “not in equality but in mutual respect.”[36]

Therefore “the issue of human rights cannot obtain the status of an  independent and genuine problem, because the relations among  men are only a step toward a much higher goal of harmony of all beings. What ever grievance an individual person may have  must be reconsidered in relation to the value of universal unity.” [37] So it is easy to charge the tradition of “anti-human rights” like  many western intellectuals often did. But in doing so, we would lose an important thought resource for human rights.

The postmodern idea of  human rights puts its emphasis on the communities  rather than on  individuals,  on duties  rather than on  rights. In addition, the postmodern idea of  human rights  should value their emphasis on the nurturing role of the state and the reciprocal relation between the state and individuals.

Moreover,  postmodern idea of human rights puts an emphasis on egalitarianism and “the concern for the social welfare of citizens.”[38] All of these are lacking in modern Western societies. They are  necessary for global democratic government. Global democratic government should encourage, promote and advocate these values instead of repudiating them.

We should acknowledge and respect the fact that  there is a big difference between the Asian and the Western concept of human rights because of different historic backgrounds, different cultural traditions, and different social and political systems. Falk worries that “The Western origins and orientation of human rights may be a burden in a period of greater civilizational assertiveness.”[39] Beyond question, his worry is reasonable. Falk writes, “because of the hegemonic past and present of the West, it is initially important for the dialogue between Western and the non Western” to pay much attention to other non-Western voices about human rights. It is unstandable to claim that there is only one conception of human rights, namely the Western one. It is clear that when Jack Donnelly strongly denies the non-Western conceptions of human rights by arguing that “non- Western cultural and political traditions lack not only the practice of human rights but the very concept”,[40] what he has in his mind undoubtly is the modern idea of human rights. He fails to note that the modern idea of human rights is not the only one conception in the world. There are other conceptions of human rights.

One major characteristic of Postmodern human rights is regarding human rights as a whole. “To think of human rights in the world  as a whole is a recent phenomenon.”[41]

in this sense, we can say that the postmodern notion of  human rights broadens the conception of human rights.

The idea of human rights in terms of a postmodern perspective is neither the western nor the Eastern but the global human rights. At the same time, it is both the Western and the Eastern. Such an approach can successfully respond to the challenges from the East about human rights.

At the world conference on human rights held in Vienna in 1993, some Asian delegations seemed to challenge the universality of human rights. “They insisted that human rights has to be understood and  applied in the context of  particular cultures and their particular  values, and that Asian values  differ from Western values in relevant  respects.”[42]This requirement is reasonable. We indeed should pay much attention to the differences. It is a virtue of the postmodernism to respect difference. Postmodern human rights involves genuine respect for otherness.

For example, from the typical Western point of view, the phrase that I quoted at the beginning of this paper is totally right. It is not inconsistent with the idea of human rights.

However, from the point of view of a contemporary Chinese intellectual trained by Marxism, the phrase does contradict human rights. Because the overall development of human being is the aim of education in the light of Marxist philosophy about man. Treating a human being as just a “taxpayer” is to treat the human being  as a means only. Can we say it values human dignity ? Without a doubt, it devalues human dignity.

Beyond question, for Asian scholars there is a problem to pay attention to the differences between different phases of development, between different countries in the West. When some scholars like Prof. Yang Shi claim that the Western human rights  considers the human rights entirely in the concept of human freedom, the “Chinese tradition views what makes people human totally in terms of  their relationships.”[43] He apparently confused the  ideas between modern and postmodern human rights. He homogenizes the idea of the Western human rights. He fails to pay attention to not only the new changes  that have  happened in the past several decades, but also the history of the idea of  human rights. The modern idea of human rights has been regarded by him as the only one form of human rights throughout whole Western history. In fact, there is still a tradition of emphasizing communities and duties in the Western history.Put much emphasis on individual and rights is just the product of modern era. As Mark Amstutz points out, “The idea that human beings have individual rights is of comparatively recent orgin. Throughout  antiquity and the medieval  age,Western political thinkers emphasized the development of just political communities by calling  attention to the duties and responsibilities of individuals. Human dignity was assumed to be a by-product of participation within and obligations toward a political  community.”[44]  The postmodern idea of human rights should integrate all of these valuable ideas into itself.

Since postmodern human rights is the unity between the Western values and the non-Western values, it can answer China’s question. In the White Paper of  1991, Human Rights  in China, China emphasizes that “ the evolution  of the situation in regard to human rights is circumscribed by the historical, social, economic and cultural conditions of various nations, and involves a process of historical  development.” Due to these reasons, “countries differ in their understanding and practice of human rights.”[45]  The postmodern idea of human rights provides the answer as follows: “It must certainly be admitted that man always exists in a particular culture, but it must also be admitted  that  man is  not exhaustively defined  by the same culture....[T]he very progress of cultures demonstrates that  there is  something in man which  transcends those cultures. This ‘something’ is precisely human nature: this nature is itself the measure of culture and the condition ensuring that man does not become the prisoner of any of his cultures but asserts his personal dignity by living in accordance with the profound truth of his being.”[46] It is very important to note that the postmodern idea of human rights does not  devalue autonomy; contrarily, it allows large autonomy for individual as well as for communities.

Third, the postmodern notion of human rights puts much emphasis on survival rights and the right to life. Against the modern idea of human Rights, which has paid no serious attention to the right to life due to the fact that it focuses exclusively on civil rights, such as freedom of speech, the postmodern concept of human rights stresses the importance of the right to life.

 In my view, another considerable contribution Griffin makes to the postmodern idea of human rights is that he takes the survival right of whole human being as an important constituent of human rights by pointing out the threats to survival as such from the global environmental crisis and from nuclear war. Griffin profoundly points out, “The Security of most countries is nowadays more certainly threatened by environmental deterioration than by military attack…..”[47] Then, Griffin stresses that  “whereas nuclear war may be avoided even if we continue the present trajectory, a catastrophic environmental collapse is inevitable unless we drastically modify this trajectory.”[48] What I would like to add is that even if the violation of human rights may be overcome, the catastrophic environmental crisis and nuclear war are still inevitable if we can not radically modify this trajectory. In face of the tremendous threats to survival, so- called human freedom shows its limits, paleness and falseness. In relating human rights to other sectors of human rights like the right to survival  and the life to food, Griffin widens and enriches the idea of human rights.

As we know, the modern idea of human rights puts much more emphasis on civil and political rights. It ignores, or in Griffin’s word, “belittles  the idea of economic rights.”[49] Beyond question, the neglect represents “the ideological bias of the  wealthy

,who don not want to recognize rights on the part of the poor that might require redistribution of the  world’s  wealth.”[50] Of course there also are other reasons to

explain the ignoring. Like in terms of American history.[51] The postmodern notion of  human rights stresses that the right to life, the right to food, is an elementary  human right, which is of “paramount importance to the majority of people in the world.”[52] This emphasis reveals an important connotation or dimension of human rights which has been neglected. It reminds us that “the right to life has as much to do with providing the wherewithal to keep people alive as with protecting them against violent  death.”[53]   It is evident that this is is a simple but genuine truth. This reminds me of a Chinese proverb, “The person who is well-fed does not know what hunger is like.” This ignoring of the right to subsistence  partly explains why poor countries do not care human rights even  though its rhetoric sounds so beautiful. It is obvious that they trust the assertion that “ human rights begin with breakfast.” [54]

In fact in China the reasons why every time the Chinese intellectual’s struggle for human rights was suppressed by government, this suppression almost received support from the peasants and workers. The reason is very simple in terms of Griffin’s theory of human rights. That is,  the human rights that the intellectuals demanded  like liberty, freedom of speech,  and freedom of association, is not what the workers and peasants want. What they pressingly want is the right  to food. Freedom of speech  is  not yet on their agenda. The idea of  global democratic government acknowledges that the rights to food is the fundamental human right; on the other hand, it needs to take many active steps to overcome the fact that one fourth of the human race is now unable to enjoy the most elemental human rights.

Fourth, the postmodern idea of human rights is not a tool for state nations but an aim. The modern idea of human rights has been a tool which serves the interest of the nation states. According to Alasdair MacIntyre, human rights are “fictions--just as is utility.”[55] “There is a danger here that human rights becomes discredited to the extent that the issue is used  insensitively  as an instrument of inter-civilizational pressure, intensifying conflict and engendering misunderstanding .” For the global democratic government, human rights  is not only a starting point, but also an aim.

For the postmodern idea of human rights, to defend human rights is not only to protect individuals, but also to protect the activities and relations that make their lives more valuable.

Global democratic government is encouraged to enhance human rights in many ways, including Rorty’s sentimental stories, friendship, intermarriage and the way we raise  our young: in the  continued progress of  sentimental education. In  his article entitled “human rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality”, he writes, a better sort of answer to the question “Why should I care  about  a stranger?” Is the sort of long, sad, sentimental story that begins, “ Because she might become your daughter-in-law,” or Because  her mother  would grieve for her.” Such stories, repeated and  varied over the centuries, have induced us, the rich, safe, powerful, people, to tolerate, and even to cherish, powerless people.”[56]

There can be little doubt that the postmodern notion of human rights is a kind of rejection of the modern idea of human rights. But it is very important to note that while the postmodern notion of human rights rejects the modern idea of human rights, it  rejects not the idea of human rights as such but only the excess of the modern idea of human rights. It enlarges  the idea of human rights rather than diminish it.

In this sense, we can call the rejection sublation. In doing so, we get one richer postmodern notion of human rights which not only takes account of the Western values, but also the non-Western values; not only encompass civil and political rights, but also economic, social, and cultural rights, especially the right to life; not only emphasizes rights and individualism, but also duties and collectivism, and “balancing individual rights and the common good.” [57] At the same time, the postmodern notion of human rights emphasizes  dialogue  between different values and  “tolerance toward the various dimensions of difference and fundamental community sentiments.” [58]  Accordingly, the postmodern notion of human rights  requires the implementation method of human rights is persuasive rather than coercive.

Although the comprehensive postmodern notion of human rights is an advance on the way to deepening the understanding of human rights in the sense of transcending the modern idea of human rights, its implementation is impossible without  democratic government at global level. My conclusion is that only the global democratic government can make the postmodern idea of human rights work because only the global democratic government can make knowledge and the energies of the warring nations harness to a common project. They might achieve such progress as the world had never known.

Griffin's theory of global democratic government  might be charged of  "romantic" like Tilley did before.[59] But if "Romantic" refers to oversimplizing the "complexity", Griffin is not; if it means "adventurous", Griffin is. Confronting anarchy and plutocracy at the global level and the various serious problems such as the environmental crisis and nuclear war threat,  there are two typical responses, one is  despair, the other is complacency. Griffin tries to transcend both of them and actively seek a solution to these problems by suggesting global democratic government.   This kind of romanticism is just what our time most needs.

            Needless to say, the stakes are high, the chances of success uncertain, but the goal  is so compelling that the idea of postmodern human rights must be  made to work. Only global democratic government can master the complexities that lie ahead.

Bibliography

 David Griffin, Beyond Anarchy and Plutocracy: The Need for Global Democracy

      (Manuscript, 2000).

Human Right in the World Community, eds. Richard Pierre Claude and Burns H.Weston  

      (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989).

Human Rights: Cultural and Ideological Perspectives, eds. Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1979).

Richard Falk, Predatory Globalization: A Critique (Polity Press,1999)

Robert Trace, Faith in Human Rights( Washington, D.C.:Georgetown University Press,1991).

Confucianism and human rights, ed. Wm. Theodore De bary and Tu Weiming ( New York: Columbia University Press,1998).

Asian Values, eds.Josiane Cauquelin,etc.(Curzon Press, 1998).

Michael J. Perry, The Idea of Human Rights ( New York Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

On Human Rights, eds. Steven Shute and Susan Hurley ( New York: Basic Books p, 1993).

R.J. Vincent, Human Rights and  International Relations(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

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