What Is Civil Disobedience?

On August 11th, 2017, White Supremacists rallied at the University of Virginia for a white ethnostate. They rally did not go unchallenged however, as a group calling themselves Antifa (Anti-Fascist Movement) staged a counter protest, and the ensuing clashes left one counter-protestor dead (Gluckman, 2017). This relatively new movement that takes pages from antifascist movements across Europe is a loose conglomeration of activists across the United States who have taken to the streets in violent protest (and counter-protest) against what they see as the rise of White Supremacy. Thus far they have been critiqued in the news media over their sometimes-violent tactics (Ganin, 2017). This essay will attempt to analysis this new movement through

The reason for this is because definitions of civil disobedience is important in determining the legitimacy of these protests. The main issue with defining civil disobedience is that there are major fault lines by many theorists about what constitutes civil disobedience, and more important what does not (Milligan, 2013: 13). John Rawls famous described civil disobedience as a “Public, nonviolent, conscience, yet political act contrary to law.” (Rawl, 1970: 104). The major sticking point in this definition of civil-disobedience comes from the inclusion of “nonviolence”, and while this essay will touch on the definition of violence itself, it is important to note this point of tension. Other theorists have concluded to the contrary that protests need be only “largely non-violent” as it is not acceptable to require a large body of people to all act as one as tension flare or security personal are sicked on them to maintain a sense of moral high ground (Milligan, 2013:

I will start with the working definition of legitimate civil disobedience first, leaving violence off the table. Even without violence understanding civil disobedience, is trick, as various debates occur, enough that there is not enough space within the purview of this essay to look at them all (Mulligan, 2013: 10-13). Despite this this essay will take away two major factors of consideration that are required to consider non-violent civil disobedience legitimate. First: The act must be born from a sincerely held moral belief that the policy or event that is happening is inherently unjust, after all it is unfair to suggest the counter protestors in Charlottesville are equally as legitimate as people gathering in the streets after their sports team lost an important game. Second: the act must be done to communicate. Even if protestors are protesting for a sincere reason, if they do not explain their reasons than nothing can be done making the protest moot (Bownlee, 2004: 350). If these two paradigms are properly represented in a non-violent protest we can consider it an appropriate use non-violent civil disobedience. With violence, however, things become murkier, so it will be important to define violence before proceeding