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Human Rights and the Triumph of the Individual in World Culture

Emory University, USA, maellio{at}emory.edu

Despite ongoing attention to the subject, cultural accounts of the globalization of human rights are surprisingly scarce. Most accounts describe this phenomenon either as a function of evolutionary progress or the rational/strategic action of states and social movement organizations. As a result, they have difficulty explaining both the moral impulse to act on behalf of human rights and the tremendous expansion of the ideology itself. Borrowing insights from global cultural analysis, I argue that the increasing concern for, and elaboration of, human rights points to a world-cultural environment where the individual is increasingly regarded as sacred and inviolable. To demonstrate this, I explore how human rights have developed historically as a `cult of the individual' and present new data on their recent worldwide expansion.

Key Words: cult of the individual • globalization • human rights • sacred • world culture

Cultural Sociology, Vol. 1, No. 3, 343-363 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1749975507082052


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