James Bryce Professor of European Legal History at Columbia University, Samuel Moyn, spoke Thursday evening in the McBride Gathering Space at the Numen Lumen Pavilion.

The room was filled with many students and faculty who came to hear Moyn speak about how human rights have changed since the Holocaust and how these changes have affected the United States' national welfare.

Moyn's story conveyed the ideas of ObamaCare following the British ideals of a welfare state and how human rights should result in the decolonization of peoples.

"We worry about the state doing too much and not providing freedoms," Moyn said. "We still doubt the capacities of the state to bring us national welfare."

Although the Holocaust was over sixty years ago, Moyn questioned how we continue to move away from dehumanization ideals and strive for human rights.

One example is that people of the 1940s did not associate World War II with the Holocaust; they saw the war as Hitler's power taking over and that other countries should be the influence to change the him. Now when people think about World War II, most people consider the Holocaust its most horrific aspect.

After his speech there was a short question-and-answer session for students and faculty to delve deeper into the topics discussed.

"I thought it was a very insightful presentation mainly because when I studied the Holocaust, I studied it in high school. We only focused on the horrors it caused and the destruction, but we never focused on how other people saw it and the human rights perspective," said first-year student Steven Armendariz.

When Moyn was asked if his speech affected students he replied, "I really enjoyed the response. And students asked really interesting, penetrating questions."

"Like any professor, we're in this to think about ideas and communicate them to any student."

Moyn concluded by reminding us that human rights are not only about the world, but about the world we want to live in.