What Is the Meaning of Civil Disobedience?

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, civil disobedience is the "refusal to obey governmental demands or commands especially as a nonviolent and usually collective means of forcing concessions from the government." At its essence, civil disobedience means standing up for strongly-held convictions by protesting government policies in a non-threatening manner. While it is most often a peaceful method, it does not necessarily have to be a "passive" way of protesting government action or inaction.

History

Civil disobedience is by no means a new concept. Its roots as a concept can be traced back to ancient times. In fact, Socrates posited the idea that there is a higher law that takes precedence over civil law in the fourth century B.C.E. Classical Greek tragedies promote this notion as well, and the Indian concept of "dharma," or duty, sets forth the same theory as well. According to these sources, whenever civil law comes to blows with this higher law, individuals are obligated to uphold the higher law by disobeying the civil law. St. Thomas Aquinas further developed this theory in the thirteenth century, defending the concept that unjust laws should not bind citizens of good conscience. Four centuries later, John Locke taught that the people grant to government its authority and that government's duty is to protect the people's natural rights. He firmly believed that in situations where the government failed to discharge that critical duty, the people had every right to change that government.

Thoreau

The writer perhaps most well-known for putting the theory of "civil disobedience" into our modern-day lexicon, he is actually credited for first giving the practice that name, is Henry David Thoreau, who lived from 1817 to 1862. He put forth most of his ideas on the subject in a celebrated lecture he gave to the Concord Lyceum in Massachusetts in 1848. Originally titled "On the Relation of the Individual to the State," it was initially published in print a year later under the title, "Resistance to Civil Government." Four years after Thoreau's death, the lecture appears in printed form under the title "Civil Disobedience" in a collection of his writings called "A Yankee in Canada with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers."

Thoreau promotes two primary principles in his view of civil disobedience. First, that any government's authority relies upon the consent of those it governs. Secondly, that justice as a concept takes priority over specific laws set out by the government. Accordingly, the individual has a right to decide whether a particular law either upholds or goes against justice. Should the individual judge that law as unjust, he is duty-bound to disobey the law and accept whatever consequences are meted out for that disobedience in a nonviolent manner.

As an example of putting his money where his metaphorical mouth was, Thoreau judged that the laws which kept slavery legal and supported the Mexican War (1846 to 1848) were absolutely unjust. Rather than submitting to the laws he believed to be unjust, he willingly spent a night in jail in protest.

Gandhi

No discussion of civil disobedience would be complete without discussing Mahatma Gandhi (1869 to 1948), whose idea of civil disobedience not only broadened its scope, but also put its practice on the international stage. His brand of civil disobedience arose in 1906 South Africa as part of his plan to further the civil rights of disenfranchised Indian immigrants. He further developed and honed his methods of civil disobedience upon his 1915 return to India, making it the driving force behind his guidance of the Indian nationalist movement.

Gandhi drew upon a vast well of intellectual sources for his theories behind civil disobedience. Plato's "Apology of Socrates" was one such source, and he published a paraphrase of Plato's work called "The Story of a Soldier of Truth." He also took inspiration from the biblical "Sermon on the Mount," especially as Leo Tolstoy interpreted that sermon in his "The Kingdom of God Is Within You." Both Patanjali's Yogasutra and the Bhagavad Gita also greatly influenced Gandhi and his concepts of nonviolence pertaining to civil disobedience in particular.

Gandhi believed that it was vital to seek to improve civil society in addition to engaging in civil disobedience. He wrote "Constructive Programe" to help Indians add voluntary social work to their actions of civil disobedience. This work identified several major social ills Indians faced in their society, including religious intolerance, caste violence, and discrimination perpetrated against minorities, women, and those known as the untouchables. Doing away with this societal ills through volunteer work was every bit as important as removing unjust laws through civil disobedience. He taught that "civil disobedience without the constructive program will be like a paralyzed hand attempting to lift a spoon."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Another major figure known for further developing the concept of civil disobedience was Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 to 1968). Civil disobedience became a defining feature of the civil rights movement in the United States thanks to King. Influenced in no small part by Gandhi, he also drew inspiration from Christian humanism, as evidenced in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail." The letter is widely heralded as one of the best-read and most-discussed manifesto on civil disobedience since Thoreau's essay. It impressed upon African-American clergymen--who it was addressed to--the importance of immediate, direct, but most importantly nonviolent action, stating that every American opposed to segregationist laws had a duty to engage in civil disobedience.

King contended that individuals have the right to judge each law on its own merit, drawing from Christian humanism. St. Augustine of Hippo (354 to 430) held that unjust laws are no laws at all. Since segregationist laws were unjust and dehumanizing, King believed they had to be disobeyed. He greatly contributed to making civil disobedience an accepted and respected tradition of American politics.

In the latter twentieth century and early twenty-first, many protest movements have adopted civil disobedience as a strategy for furthering their goals. Among these are the green movement, the anti-globalization movement, and the anti-nuclear weapons movement. Of course, some organizations adopt this practice with varying degrees of enthusiasm--and success.

Other Examples of Civil Disobedience

There are, of course, many other examples of civil disobedience through the ages. The Boston Tea Party, wherein Boston citizens trespassed on a British ship and tossed its contents overboard in protest of being taxed without representation, was one of several acts of civil disobedience leading up to the War for Independence. The American Woman's Suffrage Movement, lasting from 1848 until 1920, saw thousands of women and some men marching in the street, engaging in hunger strikes, and submitting to arrest and imprisonment while fighting for the right to vote. Many courageous individuals engaged in civil disobedience in their efforts to abolish slavery in the U.S., from Harriet Tubman's work in the Underground Railroad to others granting runaway slaves sanctuary as they fled for freedom.

At the core, all acts of civil disobedience have one major concept in common--deep, moral conviction along with the determination to see societal wrongs righted. And the desire to accomplish those goals in a nonviolent manner.

References

• Merriam Webster Dictionary
• History of Civil Disobedience
• Civil Liberties

Resources

• History of Civil Disobedience