The Wayward Axolotl

This is a response to an article by JayMan: The Rise of Universalism . I am going to critique the ideas he presents in that article. If you don’t read his article first, this won’t make much sense. I will start with the notion of Universalism. He defines it as follows: Universalism is, broadly, the belief that all humans deserve the rights and recognition that historically people would only reserve for their own clan, own tribe, or at best, own countrymen. Let’s analyze this definition. Like all definitions, it depends on other definitions. It depends on the meaning of “rights”, for example. Does Universalism specify what rights people should have? Do those rights come with responsibilities attached? What exactly are these “rights and recognition”? This is an important point, because a claim of universality for an ideology/religion is not unique. Consider Islam, for example. Islam claims to be a universal religion and way of life. Any human being can be accepted i...