The New Religion of Human Rights
Human rights may be one of the most typical examples of an “empty signifier.” The term “empty signifier” itself is also an “empty signifier,” but according to Wittgenstein it can be explained as metaphor, the last gesture a human being can make. It is like a hologram: from each angle it shows a different image, yet when you try to grasp its substance, nothing is there. Is “making coffee for your boss” a violation of human rights? If you think it is not, are you confident you could persuade a young liberal woman in her early twenties? In this way, the meaning of human rights shifts from person to person, and even its existence is unclear.
For centuries humanity gathered data on “royal lifetime systems.” One generation might succeed, but the very efficiency of that success often crippled the next. As time passed, corruption spread, and outdated modes of thought—out of step with the Zeitgeist—produced miserable rulers. At a certain moment, part of humanity, “enlightened” about human rights, witnessed the end of monarchy and devised a new method: leaders chosen by vote, with limited terms. Because this system was influenced by individuals with rights, it was expected to distribute benefits more broadly; because terms were short, failures would not last long; and because leaders were chosen by reasoning individuals, utterly disastrous rulers would not appear. Yet this was nothing more than belief, never proven by sufficient data. Considering that shared belief in something beyond experience is what we usually call “religion,” it is not an exaggeration to say that a new religion was born for humanity.
Every era pours its own anxieties, hopes, and moral instincts into words like “rights,” “freedom,” or “authority.”
So the terms don’t lose meaning but rotate meaning, almost like your hologram metaphor:
the image shifts not because the object is hollow, but because the observer keeps changing.
What you wrote about the “new religion” of elected leadership feels painfully accurate.
Democracy was never proven; it was believed into existence.
But maybe that’s the only way humans ever create systems — through shared stories that we temporarily choose to trust.
Sometimes I wonder if the real question is not whether the signifier is empty,
but whether we are willing to take responsibility for the meaning we place inside it.
And that part, I think, is the most human of all.