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Concequences of civil disobedience
Concequences of civil disobedience
Civil disobedience and it consequences to the societal development
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From the beginning of mankind’s recorded history, opposition to established governing bodies have always been recorded. Whether through coup d'etat or a peaceful protest, resistance to authority always causes change in some way. The United States Government changes; laws are meant to change as well. America prides itself on the history of its peaceful protests and revolutions, demonstrating positive effects on a free society. Because peaceful resistance wasn’t creating progressive change, radical disobedience was the key to change in the 1700’s during the American Revolution.
Art Spiegelman's Maus and Elie Wiesel's Night are two novels that show the experience of being a holocaust survivor. Regardless, the two books differ in their narrative style while still keeping the similarities in the themes. The following essay will show the differences between the two texts in their narrative style, the portrayal of the main character's relationships, and the impact of the book on the reader. First off, Maus and Night are considerably different in the way that they use their narrative style. Maus is a graphic novel that uses images to convey the horrors of the holocaust while Night is traditional and uses the same novel format to relay the same horrors.
I consider civil disobedience to be an easily-ignored pillar upon which our democracy was founded. In fact we are only established as a nation now because our founding fathers engaged in civil disobedience themselves. We were in a “social contract” of sorts with Great Britain and when we felt that they had not upheld their part of the contract (they did not allow us to create courts to maintain order, or to create a navy to defend ourselves, or to sustain our economy due to an inability to trade with any other countries), Thomas Jefferson concluded that it was our not only our right, but also our duty to break away. And it was Thomas Jefferson that combined all of the works of the great thinkers before him such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke
Civil Disobedience is an important moral responsibility of a citizen, however it should not get to the level of illegal activity under any circumstances, because great reform can be brought peacefully not violently. In the title named "On Civil Disobedience" by Mohandas K. Ghandi once said: “No country has ever become or will ever become, happy though victory in war”(Mohandas K. Gandhi , 148). Even that long ago, when war was at high, and people embraced it, he knew that the only thing war brought was death, and depression among civilians. This method of civil disobedience has only resulted into more wars, and no real solutions. The most efficient way to the be civilly disobedient is to be peaceful, but willing to stand up for your cause.
I believe that civil disobedience is good for the advancement of the American society. This a simple fact which has been proven many times by history all around the world. A few examples of important historical participants and leaders in civil disobedience include Mohandas Gandhi, Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and much more. Mohandas Gandhi was an Indian man who spent his life protesting the unjust anti-Indian law in Britan using, you guessed it, civil disobedience. Most importantly on March 30, 1930, when he lead a defiance march to the sea.
Herbert J. Storing, an Associate Professor of Political Science, in “The Case Against Civil Disobedience,” writes, “One of the practical consequences of this institution [civil disobedience] is to divert disobedience and even revolution into the channel of law” (97). What Storing is saying is that civil disobedience will encourage people to break the laws and they will hide under civil disobedience to avoid the law. Also, civil disobedience might split society by creating disagreements with the people, and it could create a political instability. However, Storing fails to see that those who break an unjust law, as discussed above, do not avoid the law, in fact they show respect to the law as they willingly accept the consequences. By accepting the consequences, they show that they are not acting for their own interests but for society’s.
Throughout history, civil disobedience has helped societies grow and accept social reforms. The case of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, is an important formal written statement for the need of social change. Civil disobedience has been a useful leveraging tactic in ways to draw attention to the perceived injustice. It has had huge impacts on societies in ways to create tension that
Is Civil Disobedience Really a Disturbance, or a Call for Change? Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. once said that “one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws”, indicating several things: one, moral is more important than the surrounding rules, two, the laws of the government may not always be just and three, to not be afraid of going against what is seemingly right in order to make a difference in the world. Many people in the past have stressed the importance of civil disobedience, such as King, Henry David Thoreau and Arthur Miller in his book The Crucible. In King’s “A Letter from Birmingham Jail”, there is an emotional appeal to the clergymen to join him in his act for equality, after he was thrown in jail for parading
Obedience is a virtue which our elders teach us; however, sometimes disobedience is also a virtue, as it proves one’s ability to stand against wrong. In society, most people perceive disobedience as wrongdoings, but disobedience also causes people to speak up for what they believe. In some cases, disobedience causes social change or progress. Sometimes disobedience is used as a method to spread awareness to the public. If authorities are negatively influencing the audience about a different issue then a rebellion may be necessary.
Peaceful Disobedience Peaceful protest is something our founding fathers felt very strong about. There is a reason they included in the first amendment of our bill of rights. The key word, however, is peaceful. Recently in America, there have been several “protests,” mostly against the new president of the United States. These are not protests however, they are riots.
Henry David Thoreau was a philosopher and writer who wrote “Civil Disobedience.” Thoreau talks about growing up during the time of slavery and wanting the government to stop. Thoreau claims: “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau expresses agreement with the idea “that government is best which governs least.” Thoreau was a man who wanted the people to stand up for their freedom and help stop the government from taking over by all the wrong things they were doing to America. Jacob, Hughes, and Thoreau loved America and knew it was the land of freedom and change, so they fought and never gave up.
Society doesn’t function like a robot that must abide to the commands of the controller. A society functions on the ideas of what a majority of people wish to live upon where then a leader emerges from the people and applies the ideas of the society into a formulaic system that allows the people to flourish. Whenever the standards of the leader aren’t met by the society, it creates dispute causing many people to use the means of protest and rebellion to deliver the message to the leader. Howard Zinn once said,” Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.” Whenever a ruler doesn’t abide to the necessities of their people and begins to order around the people like a herd of sheep, is the time when
I believe peaceful resistance to laws positively impacts a free society. As citizens of the United States, we are born with certain natural rights. According to John Locke, an eighteenth century philosopher, natural rights are not bestowed by the government, but inherited by birth by virtue of the fact that we are human beings. These natural rights include life, liberty, and property. He theorized that the purpose of government was to protect those rights; and if it did not, it would lose its legitimacy and need not be obeyed.
Civil disobedience, also defined as peaceful resistance to laws, is the refusal to obey any laws without any violent acts. Civil disobedience positively impacts free society because these acts spread awareness on unjust laws, and cause the governments to double check laws and question if they are really necessary. People may say that all laws are meant to be followed because they protect us, but that does not mean that all laws are just. All laws have been challenged by someone at one point leading to jail time, and some people that have been imprisoned did time because they stood up to a law they broke that was unjust. Our lives have been deeply impacted my civil disobedience.
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world” These astonishing words that Mahatma Gandhi said made me suppose that Civil Disobedience is a Moral Responsibility of a citizen because when breaking certain laws, a citizen perhaps incorporate a good intention or a bad intention for breaking it. Citizens break the law occasionally to have their beliefs be heard so change can be assemble. Some ways that Civil Disobedience can be a Moral Responsibility would be breaking the law for the right intentions. An example of breaking the law for the right intentions could be The Salt March that Gandhi Created or, Rosa Parks standing up for her beliefs about her actions, MLK wanting equal rights with caucasian. Illegal Immigrants coming into the
