Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

by Steven Pinker

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a humanist manifesto with thirty articles, was drafted in less than two years, thanks to the determination of Eleanor Roosevelt, chair of the drafting committee, to avoid getting mired in ideology and move the project along.24 (When John Humphrey, author of the first draft, was asked on what principles the Declaration was based, he tactfully replied, “No philosophy whatsoever.”)25 In December 1948 it was passed without opposition by the UN General Assembly. Contrary to accusations that human rights are a parochial Western creed, the Declaration was supported by India, China, Thailand, Burma, Ethiopia, and seven Muslim countries, while Roosevelt had to twist the arms of American and British officials to get them behind it: the United States was worried about its Negroes, the United Kingdom about its colonies. The Soviet bloc, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa abstained.