How Civil Disobedience Safeguards Freedom and Prevents Tyranny

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“Monsters exist, but they are far too few in  number to be truly dangerous; the most dangerous   monsters are ordinary [men and women] ready to  believe and obey without asking questions.”   Is a peaceful and prosperous society dependent  on strict obedience to the laws and dictates   of the state? Is voting the only proper means to  show displeasure with the commands of politicians   and bureaucrats? While school systems and the  mainstream media try to indoctrinate us with an   obedient mindset and while politicians desire  an almost blind obedience from the populace,   history tells a different story about the  value of always doing what we are told.   In this video we are going to discuss why  obedience, not disobedience, is the greatest   threat to mankind, while also examining how  civil disobedience keeps a society free.   “The problem is not disobedience,  it is obedience.”   “The real question is not to know why  people rebel, but why they don’t rebel.”   While the Grimke sisters, famous for  their work with the abolitionist and   woman’s suffrage movements of the  19th century, put it this way:   “The doctrine of blind obedience and  unqualified submission to any human power,   whether civil or ecclesiastical,  is the doctrine of despotism.”   In the 20th century as millions  upon millions of bodies pilled up in   socialist and fascist countries it became  evident to all those who cared to look   that obedience can kill. In the Soviet Union,  Nazi Germany, Cambodia, China and North Korea,   it was not rebellion or a disregard for law that  sent hundreds of millions to an early death but   the fact that in such countries people obeyed  too much. They obeyed laws that were immoral   and they accepted commands from politicians  and bureaucrats that were socially destructive.   The horrific experiences in these countries  taught us a very important lesson,   but one that has quickly been forgotten:  sometimes it is obedience, not disobedience   that is the true crime, or as Peter Ustinov  wrote in a 1967 article in the New Yorker:   “For centuries, men were punished for having  disobeyed. At [the Nazi trials of] Nuremberg,   for the first time, men were punished for having  obeyed. The repercussions of this precedent are   only now beginning to make themselves felt.” But even if laws that lead to the suffering of   innocent people and to the destruction  of a society should be disobeyed,   this proves very difficult after a country has  descended into full-blown totalitarianism. For   with totalitarianism comes an enslavement of the  population. First an enslavement of the minds of   the masses through incessant propaganda and then  a physical enslavement through mass surveillance,   police forces and a judicial system whose main  job is to keep people in a state of submission.   Under these oppressive conditions of the  all-powerful centralized state, disobedience   takes a heroic act of the will as stepping out  of line can easily be paid for with one’s life.   What makes disobedience even more  challenging under totalitarianism   is that when the state controls all, economic  activity grinds to a halt. This leads to shortages   in life’s necessities, and when one is hungry,  finding food, not resisting tyranny, is front   of mind, or as Theodore Dalrymple explains: “In [totalitarianism] shortages of material goods,   even of necessities, were not a drawback but a  great advantage for the rulers. These shortages   were not accidental to the terror, but one of its  most powerful instruments. Not only did shortages   keep people’s minds strictly on bread and sausage,  and divert their energies to procuring them so   that there was no time or inclination left  over for subversion, but the shortages meant   that people could be brought to inform, spy  and betray each other very cheaply. . .”   Disobedience, therefore, is not an antidote  to full-blown tyranny. Disobedience rather   is a preventative measure to tyranny. But to be  effective at returning freedom to a society at   risk of losing it, disobedience must endure  widespread support, it must in other words take   the form of civil disobedience. When an individual  practices disobedience in a solitary manner   this is referred to as dissidence or conscientious  objection. Civil disobedience, on the other hand,   occurs when a group of people disobey and in a  public manner. This act of mass non-compliance   sends a message that no politician wants  to hear: the people no longer fear them, no   longer respect them and will no longer obey them.  The current form of governance has been deemed   no longer acceptable and in contrast to a protest  whereby a populace asks for its freedom back, with   civil disobedience a populace begins to take its  freedom back, or as Murray Rothbard explains:   “…mass non-violent resistance as a method for the  overthrow of tyranny, stems directly from…the fact   that all rule rests on the consent of the subject  masses… For if tyranny…rests on mass consent,   then the obvious means for its overthrow is simply  by mass withdrawal of that consent. The weight of   tyranny would quickly and suddenly collapse  under such a non-violent revolution.”   But how can enough people be awakened to the  necessity of disobeying laws that are socially   destructive? What, in other words, leads  to a movement of civil disobedience that   can defeat tyranny? One possible tactic is  to use reason, logic and argumentation to   make the masses aware of the deceptions, lies and  manipulations which are being used to herd them   into totalitarianism. This approach is based  on the notion that if the truth were presented   and the propaganda deconstructed most people would  rise up in defiance and cast off their chains.   But an appeal to reason and evidence only  works on minds that are open and receptive   and when tyranny is rising ever fewer minds  exist in this state. Rather fear, confusion,   anger and uncertainty run rampant and these  emotions can easily trump the power of reason.   “The mass crushes out the insight and  reflection that are still possible within   the individual. . .Rational argument can  be conducted with some prospect of success   only so long as the emotionality of a given  situation does not exceed a certain critical   degree. If the affective temperature rises above  this level, the possibility of reason’s having any   effect ceases and its place is taken by slogans  and chimerical wish-fantasies. That is to say,   a sort of collective possession results which  rapidly develops into a psychic epidemic.”   This observation that a people can  become immune to logic and reason   was shared by the writer Elie Wiesel who  upon visiting the Soviet Union wrote:   “Logic will not help you here. You have your  logic, they have theirs, and the distance   between you two cannot be bridged by words.” What is needed more than words and arguments are   individual dissidents who act as the motivating  examples for the larger movements of civil   disobedience. For the power of example always  reigns supreme in its ability to influence   others. When people see that someone is willing  to take risks in defence of their beliefs,   and that their words are congruent with their  actions, this lends more credence to their   position. And while the example of a dissident  may not awaken those most blind to the chains of   control that are being placed around them, it can  exert a strong influence on the many who are on   the fence as to what to think and how to act. But  without an intrepid few willing to be the example   for others a sort of prisoner’s dilemma exists:  no one is willing to be the first to disobey,   and so everyone sits idly by hoping that  others will save society for them:   “So many others are better qualified, more  competent and effective than me. A throng of   good-willed souls is projected onto the horizon,  ready to rise, so that I can retreat more easily:   another will act instead of  me, and so much better.”   But the question that a potential first-mover  faces is when is it right to disobey? For while   it is relatively easy to disobey when a movement  of civil disobedience has gained momentum, the   initial dissenters face a challenging predicament.  Is disobedience worth the risk? Has the act of   obedience reached such immoral proportions that to  be compliant is to be complicit in the destruction   of society and in the harming of innocent life?  Each person must answer these questions for   them self but an answer usually comes from  within, as a command from conscience:   “The etymology of the word “conscience” tells us  that it is a special form of “knowledge” . . .The   peculiarity of “conscience” is that it  is a knowledge of, or certainty about,   the emotional value of the ideas we have  concerning the motives of our actions.”   Conscience is a felt state, it is an  intuitive form of knowledge about the   rightness or wrongness of an action.  One of history’s most famous examples   of an individual who relied on his conscience to  direct him in acts of disobedience is Socrates.   Socrates was commanded by the Thirty  Tyrants to arrest an innocent man   and to bring him to his death. Socrates,  however, did not practice blind obedience   even if the commands came from tyrants who  held the power of life and death over him.   Socrates instead listened to his conscience: “. . .the Thirty sent for me” says   Socrates “. . .and ordered [me] to bring Leon  the Salaminian to be put to death. . .I, however,   showed again, by action, not in word only,  that I did not care a whit for death. . .but   that I did care with all my might not to do  anything unjust or unholy… For that government,   with all its power, did not frighten me into  doing anything unjust…I simply went home.”   In going about our day-to-day life our conscience  tends to speak quietly and often the messages it   sends are ambiguous. But this can be used to  one’s advantage when making the decision as to   whether disobedience has now become the right  choice. For as Jung points out while many of   life’s moral dilemmas only elicit a whisper from  our conscience there are times when our conscience   speaks so loudly and clearly that it almost  seems to be the voice of a god or as Jung   writes in Civilization in Transition: “Since olden times conscience has been   understood by many people less as a psychic  function than as a divine intervention;   indeed, its dictates were regarded as…the voice of  God. This view shows what value and significance   were, and still are, attached to the phenomenon  of conscience. . .Conscience. . .commands   the individual to obey his inner voice  even at the risk of going astray.”   If our conscience commands us to stop obeying  unjust laws and if each time we do obey we   experience feelings of loathing and guilt,  then we face a difficult choice: we either   obey our conscience and become a dissident or  we continue to obey the commands of tyrants   and we become a traitor to our self. The men and  women whose inner voice speaks loudest in the   face of a rising tyranny are those most likely  to step forward as dissidents and it is when a   common vibration of conscience rings out through a  society that civil disobedience becomes possible.   First the call of conscience is answered by  a relative few, but these few serve as the   example for others. Whether enough people will  follow to create a movement of civil disobedience   is contingent on how much a populace still  desires freedom compared to what degree the   populace has been psychologically subdued by  the fear, hate and confusion that is sown by   the propaganda of tyrants. If, however, tyranny  comes knocking in the society in which we live   and if our conscience then issues the command that  we stop being complicit in the crime of obedience   we should keep in mind the following  comment by Henry David Thoreau:   “Disobedience is the true foundation of  liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
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Channel: Academy of Ideas
Views: 261,577
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Length: 13min 10sec (790 seconds)
Published: Mon Dec 14 2020
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