75 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

By Luis Alemañy
December 10, 2023.

We are who we are by the chance of nature. At the very moment of our conception, thanks to the passionate love of our parents, we become a possibility of being others, among millions of genetic combinations. According to the most recent scientific research, the number of these possibilities amounts to 99 numbers.

Hence, each human being is innately different from all others, thanks to the chance of what has been called the genetic lottery. Furthermore, being intrinsically different, we are born endowed with intelligence, capable of innovating, riding on the shoulders of what our millenary ancestors accumulated. Human beings do not procreate: we create unique creatures.

Yet both neurological scientists and researchers, as well as cosmographers, far beyond their advances in the last century, continue to encounter the same challenge: the very complex structuring of human brains and the universe remain great mysteries to be revealed. Many academics and thinkers are coming to the conclusion – shared by the author – that the development of the capabilities of the human brain and the structures of the universe are infinite. As infinite as the possibilities of being others, at the very moment of our creation.

Such gifts of nature distinguish us from all other creatures in the animal kingdom. And it is these gifts that have the greatest chance of developing, within the framework of authentic democratic societies, governed by the strict separation of the three powers of the Rule of Law.

Previous attempts at constructing ‘perfect’ societies invariably commenced by stifling freedoms, beginning with restrictions on thought and the diversity of ideas, and extending to control over political, economic, and social progression. These endeavors have ultimately proven to be dystopian and xenophobic, fostering a regressive and oppressive environment. In some cases, the pursuit of a superficial ‘equality’ has resulted in the collective misery of towns and their inhabitants, both materially and spiritually. Meanwhile, the authoritarian leaders revel in access to the most opulent material goods of their era.

Since the beginning of history, the essence of human nature and the evolution of intelligence have taught us that the most sensible, reasonable and fair paths are none other than to continue building, brick by brick, for just a little while longer than two centuries – after millennia of efforts by human intelligence to violate all absolutism and authoritarianism – increasingly free, democratic and just societies.  

Of course, they are imperfect, and that is the greatest challenge that each new generation faces: to continue perfecting them thanks to the plural consensus of the intelligence of its members.

This very complex diversity, so typical of human beings, was already noted from the moment of the invention of all religions that commanded their faithful to love each other. Later, with the development of intelligence in Ancient Greece – three and a quarter millennia ago – its most renowned thinkers proposed the creation of democracy, as the highest path for people to coexist in society.

Despite the residual weight of the authoritarianisms and despotisms that survive to our present, continuing their abuses and threats to world peace, recovered with so much effort after the Second World War – only 78 years ago -, authentic democratic societies are increasingly more, open works that are in harmony with the true and essential human nature.