It is evident that the rights of individuals was something that evolved and was not the state of early societies. In tribal society, too much individualism could kill off the tribe. "I'm sorry chief, but I don't want to be a hunter, I'd rather study theater" - gives a more literal meaning to "starving artist". While some aspects of individual rights date back to the era of Greek city-states, we will start by looking at some of the ideas of The Enlightenment as the basis of the Western idea of individual liberty.
In the 1600's, the rule of monarchs in the secular realm and of established churches in the spiritual was the norm. The monopoly by the Catholic Church had been broken by the Protestant Reformation in the mid 1500's, although the various Protestant denominations claimed the same authority within their territories that the Catholic Church previously did. In general, each reigning monarch decided which brand of Christianity would be "established' in his realm. This changed slightly with the Peace of Westphalia, which although it codified the right of monarchs to decide which church would be established in their territory, individuals received the right to choose a different denomination. Between Westphalia and the Reformation the hold that authoritarianism exercised over Western civilization and culture was weakened.
The next phase of the move toward individualism in Western thought was the broad movement called The Enlightenment. Pioneered by philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Rene Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, the overarching ideas of The Enlightenment was an establishment of a society based on science and reason, rather than religious faith. Some, like John Locke and Isaac Newton sought an accommodation between science and religion. There were several subcategories that were addressed as part of this movement:
- Science: the scientific method, whereby ideas were tested by experimentation, grew to be the scientific standard during this time.
- Law & Politics: the idea of a "social contract" between the rulers and the governed, as opposed to the "right" of the rulers to rule was promulgated; the idea that for power to be legitimate, it must be representative of the people; the essential equality of all citizens; the idea that that which was not explicitly prohibited by law was allowed; separation of powers in government
- Religion: separation of church and state saw its first stirring during this time; as did the idea of Deism
The ideas of The Enlightenment were at their peak during the colonial period and were expressed in several of the founding documents of the United States. It can be seen in the section in the Constitution that forbids religious tests for public office and the prohibition on a national established church. The amendments referred to as "The Bill of Rights" codified Enlightenment ideals regarding individual freedoms.
One of the ideas set forth by John Locke was the idea of "natural rights". These are not rights that spring from laws or a culture, but rights that are, as the term implies, natural to the state of man, and therefore universal and inalienable. He posited that no one can lawfully infringe on another's natural rights, since every man is equal and has the same natural rights.
These ideas had widely different applications in different European nations and in the eventually independent colonies that they founded. In France, a bloody revolution overthrew the old order, in Great Britain a gradual eroding of the privileges of the kings, in other places it took until the aftermath of the First World War for the monarchies to be replaced by representative republics. Ironically, while Western nations at least gave lip service to the idea of individual rights and equality, this ideal was not extended to the areas which they still clonized: much of Africa, India-Pakistan, Southeast Asia and, after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East.
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