When we ask ourselves if peaceful resistance to laws positively or negatively impacts a free society we are ultimately asking ourselves if we defend and support our Constitution. Civil disobedience has largely changed in the status quo from its true meaning and can have many different impacts on society, depending on the way we view the act. Whether or not it’s moral also depends on the manner the disobedience is carried out. Throughout history, we’ve seen many cases of civil disobedience take effect. We saw it in the 1919 Egyptian revolution, Gandhi’s idea and application of “Satyagraha”, or “Truth-force”, and even cases such as Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement. All of these examples have led to the betterment of some societal group or even an entire nation, showing that civil disobedience has great benefits to any form of society. Using the United States as a model, it’s clear that we are neither a perfectly free nor a perfectly just society, and …show more content…
That is the America I want to live in. I want to be free and I want to know that Liberty for all is more than just words. I want my country and countrymen to honor freedom and liberty above all else. It may be idealistic, but loving one’s country, being a patriot, often comes at a huge personal sacrifice. When this sacrifice-worthy time speaks and we do not heed the call of justice and liberty, we are devolving rather than evolving as a nation.
It’s clear that civil disobedience ultimately serves to improve society as shown through history. When government oversteps the bounds of their authority and government officials do not honor their oaths, patriots must ensure their voices are heard and they will not tolerate excessive violations of rights. I am proud to know there are men like Snowden among us and I only wish I saw more action against those setting out to enslave us through dishonest means and for personal
Oscar Wilde, an Irish author, once suggested that if one were to ever look at the discourse of history, they would find that disobedience is man’s original virtue, and through disobedience social progress is made. The study of history is the study of social progress. Social progressions are the changes that occur in society that progress or improve social, political, and economic structures. Social progress can be achieved in several ways, but just like Oscar Wilde, I believe that disobedience is a valuable human trait that just so happens to be a huge part in the progression our society has made and continues to make.
In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr passed away from a sniper’s bullet. He gave us thirteen years of nonviolent protest during the civil rights movement of the 1950’s. Before I can give my opinion on the history of race relations in the United States since King’s assassination in 1968 strengthened or weakened his arguments on the necessity and value of civil disobedience? You should know the meaning of civil disobedience. The word civil has several definitions. “The one that is intended in this case is "relating to citizens and their interrelations with one another or with the state", and so civil disobedience means "disobedience to the state". Sometimes people assume that civil in this case means "observing accepted social forms; polite" which would make civil disobedience something like polite, orderly disobedience. Although this is an acceptable dictionary definition of the word civil, it is not what is intended here. This misinterpretation is one reason the essay (by Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849) is sometimes considered to be an argument for pacifism or for exclusively nonviolent resistance”.
Civil disobedience has been around for a long time. In Bible times Christians would disobey laws that would go against their beliefs, such as the law that they couldn’t preach. (Acts 4) Christians still disobey laws in many countries that do not let them practice their faith, some end up in jail or killed.
Henry David Thoreau, a philosopher and creative artist as well as an anti slavery activist, wrote his short story “From Resistance to Civil Disobedience”. In this story he’s arrested for not paying his state taxes. At the time the state was engaged in the Mexican-American War that was not only fought over boundaries expanding slavery but was also enacted by President Polk under his own decision. Thoreau thought the war was too aggressive and without just reason.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. received a Nobel Prize and was honored by the President of the United States for his contributions to society. On the other hand, he was prosecuted, convicted, incarcerated, and had his sentence reaffirmed by the Supreme Court. These explanations seem rather contradictory. If what he did was noble, why was he jailed for his actions? When we take into account these manifestations of the government's attitude towards Martin Luther King, we can safely make the assumption that the government is not always justified in the laws that it creates. Our government's original purpose was to keep order and ensure freedom to its people. As history has shown us, as in the case of African Americans, the government will expand its role and take away liberties of the few. The individual is justified in acting out in civil disobedience when the government restricts the liberties of the individual.
Civil Disobedience is a deliberate violation against the law in order to invoke change against a government policy. Civil disobedience can come in the form of running a red light or j-walking, or in more noticeable methods such as riots. Coined by American author and poet Henry David Thoreau, the term has developed to define the act of disobeying a law one sees as unfit or unjust. Usually the purpose of civil disobedience is to gain public attention to a perceived injustice and appeal to or gain support from the public in a non-violent way. The idea is to force the government to negotiate or else continue with the unwanted behavior; or in simpler terms, to “clog the machine” (“Civil Disobedience”). It is believed by many that the act of civil disobedience is justifiable in a democratic government like that of the United States. A Democracy is defined as a form of government controlled by elected representatives or by the people themselves. However, in order to have a stable government, it must be built on a stable society. Societal welfare is the general good for the public and how its members take action to provide opportunities and minimum standards. According to societal welfare, which is the sake of the emotional and physical well-being of the community, the laws must be abided and civil disobedience is morally unjust in our society. Once any member of the society questions the affairs of the state, the state may be given up for lost (“Jean Jacques Rousseau”).
The political concepts of justice and how a society should be governed have dominated literature through out human history. The concept of peacefully resisting laws set by a governing force can be first be depicted in the world of the Ancient Greeks in the works of Sophocles and actions of Socrates. This popular idea has developed over the centuries and is commonly known today as civil disobedience. Due to the works of Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr. civil disobedience is a well-known political action to Americans; first in the application against slavery and second in the application against segregation. Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience” and King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” are the leading arguments in defining and encouraging the use of civil disobedience to produce justice from the government despite differences in their separate applications.
Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience is a piece that denounces the role of government and promotes the individuality of man. He argues that government rarely proves itself to be useful, and that anything achieved under the influence of that government could have been even greater had the system not been involved, evident in paragraph 2, “Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.” (Thoreau, lines 12-16) He states that the American government derives its power from the majority, not the strongest group, and not necessarily the most moral. Thoreau wants us to believe that we the people should follow what we think to be ethically just, not what the government and the majority force upon us. In my opinion, I agree with Thoreau in the aspect that we need a more improved form of government, however I disagree with the type of government that Thoreau wishes for. He believes we work better without restraint and that we must command our individual respect, but I heartily argue the opposite; a society must have order and an infrastructure, we need a system to oversee the problems that we cannot solve as humans with individual mindsets. I do not believe that the government should have the right to pry into our lives without solid evidence, but I do believe that we need a fair and balanced administration that is required to look after its’ peoples’ well being.
Civil disobedience has long proven a positive force in American society. In the early decades of the United States, Thomas Jefferson understood why the right to rebel is written into the Constitution. When government institutions fail to act, Jefferson believed that protests could force action. Honest rebellions, as Jefferson called them, educate the public and make the concerns of the minority important to the majority. Overall, Jefferson understood that civil disobedience benefits the constitutional system. The Vietnam War protests illustrate how exactly civil disobedience can positively impact on American life.
All in all, civil disobedience has made many positive changes in the world today. Nevertheless, the end goal or result of any act of civil disobedience is not meant to benefit the individual, but the community as a whole. The ends of such an act should not be a private gain, but a public gain. Just like in The Hunger Games, how Peeta and Katniss remained brave by risking their lives to stand up for their districts.
Not only does peaceful resistance positively affect a free society, it is the bedrock for its survival. When the Founding Fathers congregated to ratify the Bill of Rights, they considered those ten as unalienable because they were representative of the American people’s values. As questions about which rights are guaranteed constantly circulate, civil disobedience can be a critical reminder to lawmakers about which rights the public refuse to forfeit. In a country of such rich diversity, unanimous agreement is a profound rarity. Unrepresented citizens cannot always rely on their peers to represent the same values, and as the late Howard Zinn once stated: “Protest beyond the law is not a departure from the law; it is essential to it.” Civil disobedience grants a voice to the otherwise voiceless. Ideological minorities can voice their discontent by refusing to conform to policies that breach their moral compasses. Without civil disobedience, those unfavored ideologies would struggle to compete in the marketplace of ideas.
Over 200 years ago, the founding fathers of America revolted against Britain due to unfair treatment. It was during this time, patriots took actions that included: pooring hot tar and feathers onto tax collectors, dumping massive amounts of British imported tea into Boston Harbor, and assaulting British soldiers in mobs like in the Boston Massacre. At this point many identify these actions as justified, but that does nothing to take away from the violent nature of these actions. Generations later Americans would continue to take action when wronged, yet they would do so without the extreme measures of our four fathers, but be looked upon instead as the offenders. So Civil Disobedience is questioned constitutionally, when in fact it positively
The institutionalised violence and murder of young Americans with dreams of a better future enraged Americans nationwide calling forth and demanding a change. The call for change began with an African American taking a seat in a restaurant or another public building as a demonstration of peaceful civil disobedience. Civil disobedience as a whole has been a positive addition to our free society because people can see that there is a problem worth their attention. Doing is more effective and attention grabbing than just saying what one believes in and actions speak louder than words for a reason. According to Newton's laws of motion, objections at rest will stay at rest until acted upon by an outside force. That outside force can be one person who does one thing that may seem insignificant but as that motion gains momentum, when the object hits its target, the impact will be far too large to ignore. Though civil disobedience may be illegal, as time progresses our laws need to progress with
In physics class, students learn all about Newton’s first law which states that an object at rest will stay at rest while an object in motion will stay in motion unless it is acted upon by a force. So, it shouldn't be a surprise that we the students, believe that civil disobedience is necessary to keep America great. If we the students apply Newton's first law to our world, as the Enlightenment encouraged, we can see that only by applying a force can change occur. Likewise, it is only through civil disobedience and peaceful resistance to laws that can change the course and society and propel social progress for humanity as a whole.
Peaceful protests have seen a rise the past few months since the election. The most notable and recent of which being the Women's March. Over five million people worldwide joined in on January 21, creating a historical protest that wowed the public. But many object to peaceful protesting. A march will not change the fate of country. It will not create new laws. So, this begs the question, does civil disobedience have a place in free society- and how does it effect us?