Today, the ascendancy of the nation-state over universality has been accompanied by genocide, ethnic cleansing, sexual trafficking, torture, slavery, and a litany of the most grievous human rights abuses. If Hunt is correct that a sense of common cultural perceptions led to the recognition and acceptance of universal human rights, what are we to conclude from the current rights crisis? Mass culture has never been more commonly shared, from worldwide media outlets to global franchises and Internet communications. Why has this commonality of culture not led to increased empathy but instead to the xenophobic “us” versus “them” aspects of the nation-state? Hunt suggests that the ideology of universal human rights prompted two “evil twins” that “the call for universal, equal, and natural rights stimulated the growth of new and sometimes fanatical ideologies of difference. New modes for gaining empathetic understanding opened the way to a sensationalism of violence.”

The question remains, however, as to which societal factors caused this change in the universal recognition of human rights. It is certainly debatable whether these evils were created by universalism or simply a moral numbness from crisis overload. But whatever evils that universalism may have engendered, why has the response not been increased activism for human rights? Hopefully, the answer may be that from a historical perspective, we are indeed on the cusp of a renewed commitment to universal human rights. Moral outrage and activism in the United States seems to be increasing proportionally in relation to a growing disillusionment with the domestic and international policies of the current administration. The example which is set by the United States in this turn of events, just as in the 1800s, cannot be overestimated.