SIGNPOST #4

Social and economic justice and human rights have become the most significant themes in the modern global conversation. Whether we focus on ecological disasters, earthquakes, famines, or social violence, the global response is far more powerful than it was just a decade or two ago. In other words, when bad things happen anywhere in the world, we care—and many of us back that caring up with action.

In 1900, the world’s great thinkers did not acknowledge the existence of “universal human rights.” Today, the whole world knows that certain things must be done for every human being, while certain other things must never be done to any human being. Again, a mere hundred years later, our values have undergone a massive shift.