Definition of civil disobedience: refusal to obey governmental demands or commands especially as a nonviolent and usually collective means of forcing concessions from the government Examples of civil disobedience in a Sentence In an act of civil disobedience, the Civil disobedience has played an important role in history thanks to those who believe violence is not an option. The definition of civil disobedience is “breaking laws, usually in a non-violent way, as part of a protest” against laws deemed unfair or that infringe on human rights. Remembering these famous examples of civil disobedience can give the world hope that change is possible, but not guaranteed, A brief History of Civil Disobedience. Civil disobedience is and has been crucial in social change. Types of civil disobedience are outlined below with examples of successful actions from the past, right up to current day actions. 1. Sabotage of trade and business activity
Top 5 Acts of Civil Disobedience in American HistoryThe History Dr
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain lawsdemands, orders or commands of a government, civil disobedience definition us history. By some definitions [ specify ]civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hence, civil disobedience is sometimes equated with peaceful protests or nonviolent resistance.
Henry David Thoreau 's essay Resistance to Civil Governmentpublished posthumously as Civil Disobediencepopularized the term in the US, although the concept itself has been practiced longer before.
It has inspired leaders such as Susan B. Anthony of the U. women's suffrage movement in the late s, Saad Zaghloul in the s culminating in Egyptian Revolution of against British Occupation, and Mahatma Gandhi in s India in their protests for Indian independence against the British Raj.
Martin Civil disobedience definition us history King Jr. Although civil disobedience is considered to be an expression of contempt for law, King regarded civil disobedience to be a display and practice of reverence for law: "Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice of the law is at that moment expressing the very highest respect for the law.
An early depiction of civil disobedience is in Sophocles ' play Antigonein which Antigoneone of the daughters of former King of ThebesOedipuscivil disobedience definition us history, defies Creonthe current King of Thebes, who is trying to stop her from giving her brother Polynices a proper burial. She gives a stirring speech in which she tells him that she must obey her conscience rather than human law. She is not at all afraid of the death he threatens her with and eventually carries outcivil disobedience definition us history, but she is afraid of how her conscience will smite her if she does not do this.
Étienne de La Boétie 's thought developed in his work Discours de la servitude volontaire ou le Contr'un was also taken up by many movements of civil disobedience, which drew from the concept of rebellion to voluntary servitude the foundation of its instrument of struggle.
Étienne de La Boétie was one of the first to theorize and propose the strategy of non-cooperation, and thus a form of nonviolent disobedience, as a really effective weapon. In the lead-up to the Glorious Revolution in Britain, when the Bill of Rights was documented, the last Catholic monarch was deposed, and male and female joint-co-monarchs elevated.
The English Midland Enlightenment had developed a manner of voicing objection to a law viewed as illegitimate and then taking the consequences of the law. This was focused on the illegitimacy of laws claimed to be "divine" in origin, both the "divine rights of kings" and "divine rights of man", and the legitimacy of laws acknowledged to be made by human beings.
Following the Peterloo massacre ofthe poet Percy Shelley wrote the political poem The Mask of Anarchy later that year, that begins with the images of what he thought to be the unjust forms of authority civil disobedience definition us history his time—and then imagines the stirrings of a new form of social action. According to Ashton Nicholsit is perhaps the first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent protest.
Thoreau's essay Civil Disobedienceoriginally titled "Resistance to Civil Government", has had a wide influence on many later practitioners of civil disobedience.
The driving idea behind the essay is that citizens are morally responsible for their support of aggressors, even when such support is required by law. In the essay, Thoreau explained his reasons for having refused to pay taxes as an act of protest against slavery and against the Mexican—American War. He writes. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too.
See what gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, "I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico;—see if Civil disobedience definition us history would go;" and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. By the s, a range of minority groups in the United States : African Americans, Jews, Seventh Day Baptists, Catholics, anti-prohibitionists, racial egalitarians, and others—employed civil disobedience to combat a range of legal measures and public practices that to them promoted ethnic, religious, and racial discrimination.
Pro Public and typically peaceful resistance to political power would remain an integral tactic in modern American minority rights politics. In Ireland starting from the Irish " Land War " intensified when Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnellin a speech in Ennis proposed that when dealing with tenants who take farms civil disobedience definition us history another tenant was evicted, rather than resorting to violence, civil disobedience definition us history, everyone in the locality should shun them.
Following this Captain Charles Boycottthe land agent of an absentee landlord in County MayoIrelandwas subject to social ostracism organized by the Irish Land League in Boycott attempted to evict eleven tenants from his land. While Parnell's speech did not refer to land agents or landlords, the tactic was applied to Boycott when the alarm was raised about the evictions. Despite the short-term economic hardship to those undertaking this action, Boycott soon found himself isolated — his workers stopped work in the fields and stables, as well as in his house.
Local businessmen stopped trading with him, and the local postman refused to deliver mail. The movement spread throughout Ireland and gave rise to the term to Boycottand eventually led to legal reform and support for Irish independence. Egypt saw a massive implementation on a nation-wide movement starting and peaking in as the Egyptian Revolution of This was then adopted by other native peoples who objected to British occupation from and on.
However, this was never used with native laws that were more oppressive than the British occupation [ specify ]leading to problems for these countries today. Along with his companions of Wafd Partywho have achieved an independence of Egypt and a first constitution in Civil disobedience is one of the many ways people have rebelled against what they deem to be unfair laws. It has been used in many nonviolent resistance movements in India Mahatma Gandhi 's campaigns for independence from the British Empirein Czechoslovakia 's Velvet Revolutionin early stages of Bangladesh independence movement against Pakistani repression and in East Germany to oust their communist governments.
Henry David Thoreau 's essay "Resistance to Civil Government" was eventually renamed "Essay on Civil Disobedience". After his landmark lectures were published inthe term began to appear in numerous sermons and lectures relating to slavery and the war in Mexico. It has been argued that the term "civil disobedience" has always suffered from ambiguity and in modern times, become utterly debased.
Marshall Cohen notes, "It has been used to describe everything from bringing a test-case in the federal courts to taking aim at a federal official. Indeed, for Vice President Spiro Agnew it has become a code-word describing the activities of muggers, arsonists, draft evaders, campaign hecklers, campus militants, anti-war demonstrators, juvenile delinquents and political assassins.
the civil disobedience definition us history of a single all-encompassing definition of the term is extremely difficult, if not impossible. In reviewing the voluminous literature on the subject, the civil disobedience definition us history of civil disobedience rapidly finds himself surrounded by a maze of semantical problems and grammatical niceties.
Like Alice in Wonderlandhe often finds that specific terminology has no more or no less meaning than the individual orator intends it to have. He encourages a distinction between lawful protest demonstration, nonviolent civil disobedience, and violent civil disobedience.
In a letter to P, civil disobedience definition us history. Rao, dated September 10,civil disobedience definition us history, Gandhi disputes that his idea of civil disobedience was derived from the writings of Thoreau: [22]. The statement that I had derived my idea of Civil Disobedience from the writings of Thoreau is wrong.
The resistance to authority in South Africa was well advanced before I got the essay When I saw the title of Thoreau's great essay, I began to use his phrase to explain our struggle to the English readers. But I found that even "Civil Disobedience" failed to convey the full meaning of the struggle. I therefore adopted the phrase "Civil Resistance.
In seeking an active form of civil disobedience, one may choose to deliberately break certain laws, such as by forming a peaceful blockade or occupying a facility illegally, [23] though sometimes violence has been known to occur. Often there is an expectation to be attacked or even beaten by the authorities. Protesters often undergo training in advance on how to react to arrest or to attack.
Civil disobedience is usually defined as pertaining to a citizen's relation to the state and its laws, as distinguished from a constitutional impassecivil disobedience definition us history, in which two public agencies, especially two equally sovereign branches of governmentconflict. For instance, if the head of government of a country were to refuse to enforce a decision of that country's highest court, it would not be civil disobedience, since the head of government would be acting in her or his capacity as public official rather than private citizen.
However, this definition is civil disobedience definition us history by Thoreau's political philosophy pitching the conscience vs. the collective. The individual is the final judge of right and wrong. More than this, since only individuals act, only individuals can act unjustly. When the government knocks on the door, it is an individual in the form of a postman or tax collector whose hand hits the wood.
Before Thoreau's imprisonment, when a confused taxman had wondered aloud about how to handle his refusal to pay, Thoreau had advised, "Resign. But if government is "the voice of the people," as it is often called, shouldn't that voice be heeded? Thoreau civil disobedience definition us history that government may express the will of the majority but it may also express nothing more than the will of elite politicians.
Even a good form of civil disobedience definition us history is "liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. The majority may be powerful but it is not necessarily right. What, then, is the proper relationship between the individual and the government? In A Theory of JusticeJohn Rawls described civil disobedience as "a public, non-violent, conscientious yet political act contrary to law usually done with civil disobedience definition us history aim of bringing about change in the law or policies of the government".
Ronald Dworkin held that there are three types of civil disobedience:. Some theories of civil disobedience hold that civil disobedience is only justified against governmental entities. Brownlee argues that disobedience in opposition to the decisions of non-governmental agencies such as trade unionsbanks, and private universities can be justified if it reflects "a larger challenge to the legal system that permits those decisions to be taken". The same principle, civil disobedience definition us history, she argues, applies to breaches of law in protest against international organizations and foreign governments.
It is usually recognized that lawbreaking, if it is not done publicly, civil disobedience definition us history, at least must be publicly announced to constitute civil disobedience. But Stephen Eilmann argues that if it is necessary to disobey rules that conflict with morality, we might ask why disobedience should take the form of public civil disobedience rather than simply covert lawbreaking. If a lawyer wishes to help a client overcome legal obstacles to securing her or his natural rightshe might, for instance, find that assisting in fabricating evidence or committing perjury is more effective than open disobedience.
This assumes that common morality does not have a prohibition on deceit in such situations. Exodus 1: 15—19 [31], civil disobedience definition us history. There have been debates as to whether civil disobedience must necessarily be civil disobedience definition us history. Black's Law Dictionary includes non-violence in its definition of civil disobedience. Christian Bay's encyclopedia article states that civil disobedience requires "carefully chosen and legitimate means," but holds that they do not have to be non-violent.
Civil disobedients' refraining from violence is also said to help preserve society's tolerance of civil disobedience. The philosopher H. McCloskey argues that "if violent, intimidatory, coercive disobedience is more effective, it is, other things being equal, more justified than less effective, nonviolent disobedience.
in the inevitable tension accompanying the transition from a violent world to a non-violent one, the choice of means will almost never be pure, and will involve such complexities that the simple distinction between violence and non-violence does not suffice as a guide the very acts with which we seek to do good cannot escape the imperfections of the world we are trying to change.
Zinn rejects any "easy and righteous dismissal of violence", noting that Thoreau, the popularizer of the term civil disobedience, approved of the armed insurrection of John Brown. He also notes that some major civil disobedience campaigns which have been classified as non-violent, such as the Birmingham campaignhave actually included elements of violence.
Non-revolutionary civil disobedience is a simple disobedience of laws on the grounds that they are judged "wrong" by an individual conscience, or as part of an effort to render certain laws ineffective, to cause their repeal, or to exert pressure to get one's political wishes on some other issue.
Revolutionary civil disobedience is more of an active attempt to overthrow a government or to change cultural traditions, social customs, religious beliefs, etc revolution does not have to be political, i. The earliest recorded incidents of collective civil disobedience took place during the Roman Empire [ citation needed ].
Unarmed Jews gathered in the streets to prevent the installation of pagan images in the Temple in Jerusalem.
Civil Rights and the 1950s: Crash Course US History #39
, time: 11:58Civil Disobedience | Definition of Civil Disobedience by Merriam-Webster
Civil disobedience definition, the refusal to obey certain laws or governmental demands for the purpose of influencing legislation or government policy, characterized by the employment of such nonviolent techniques as boycotting, picketing, and nonpayment of taxes A brief History of Civil Disobedience. Civil disobedience is and has been crucial in social change. Types of civil disobedience are outlined below with examples of successful actions from the past, right up to current day actions. 1. Sabotage of trade and business activity Apr 16, · Civil disobedience, also called passive resistance, the refusal to obey the demands or commands of a government or occupying power, without resorting to violence or active measures of opposition; its usual purpose is to force concessions from the government or occupying power
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