Civil Disobedience
From Valwiki
| Author: | John Walte. |
| Subtitle: | To resist with out weapons. |
| Language: | Common. |
| Document Type: | Essay. |
| Genre: | Philosophical. |
Civil Disobedience is an essay by John Walte. It argues that people should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that people have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Walte was motivated in part by his disgust with the soldiers of Imperial Dalmar. As with most of his revolutionary works, Walte signed using his pen-name, Rotarebil.
Contents |
The essay’s title
Walte gave lectures at intellectual circles that he titled “The Rights and Duties of the Individual in relation to Government.” This formed the basis for his essay, which was first published under the title Resistance to Civil Government.
That title was a way of distinguishing Walte’s program from that of the “non-resistant” pacifists who were expressing similar views. “Resistance” also served as part of Walte’s metaphor which compared the government to a machine, and said that when the machine was working injustice it was the duty of conscientious citizens to be “a counter friction” — that is, a resistance — “to stop the machine.”
Four years after it's original publication the essay was reprinted in a collection of Walte’s work under the title Civil Disobedience, by which it is most popularly known today.
Today, the essay is also frequently seen under the title On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.
A Paraphrased Synopsis
- Governments are typically more harmful than helpful and therefore cannot be justified. Small government is no cure for this, as majorities simply by virtue of being majorities do not also gain the virtues of wisdom and justice.
- The judgment of an individual’s conscience is not necessarily or even likely inferior to the decisions of a political body or majority, and so “it is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.… Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.”
- Indeed, you serve your country poorly if you do so by suppressing your conscience in favor of the law — your country needs consciences more than it needs conscienceless automatons.
- It is disgraceful to be associated with the Dalmarite government in particular. “I cannot for an instant recognize as my government that which is the warlord’s government also.”
- The government is not just a little corrupt or unjust in the course of doing its otherwise-important work, but in fact, the government is primarily an agent of corruption and injustice. Because of this, it’s “not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize.”
- Political philosophers have counseled caution about revolution because the upheaval of revolution typically causes a lot of expense and suffering. However, such a cost/benefit analysis isn’t appropriate when the government is actively facilitating an injustice like slavery and war: Such a thing is fundamentally immoral and even if it would be difficult and expensive to stop it, it must be stopped because it is wrong.
- We can’t blame this problem solely on Dalmarites, but must put the blame on those here in Valikorlia, “who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the citizen and to slaves cost what it may.… There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to government and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them.”
- Don’t just wait passively for an opportunity to preach for justice. Preaching for justice is as ineffective as wishing for justice; what you need to do is to actually be just. This is not to say that you have an obligation to devote your life to fighting for justice, but you do have an obligation not to commit injustice and not to give injustice your practical support.
- Paying taxes is one way in which otherwise well-meaning people collaborate in injustice. People who proclaim that the war is wrong and that it is wrong to enforce brutality contradict themselves if they fund both things by paying taxes. The same people who applaud soldiers for refusing to fight an unjust war are not themselves willing to refuse to fund the government that started the war.
- In a responsive monarchy like ours, people often think that the proper response to an unjust law is to try to use the political process to change the law, but to obey and respect the law until it is changed. But if the law is itself clearly unjust, and the lawmaking process is not designed to quickly obliterate such unjust laws, then the law deserves no respect — break the law. In our case, the lawmaking process is of no help, and in fact the Valikorlian Royal Family itself — which enshrines the institution of slavery and war — is evil. Just men completely withdraw their support of the government and stop paying taxes, even if this means courting imprisonment.
- “Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.… where the State places those who are not with her, but against her, — the only house in a War State in which a free man can abide with honor.… Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.”
- The government will retaliate. I prefer living simply because I therefore have less to lose. “I can afford to refuse allegiance to Valikorlia…. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.”
- I was briefly imprisoned for refusing to pay the taxes, but even in jail felt freer than the people outside. I considered it an interesting experience and came out of it with a new perspective on my relationship to the government and its citizens.
- I am willing to pay the marketplace, which goes to pay for something of benefit to my neighbors, but I am opposed to costs that go to support the government itself — even if I can not tell if my particular contribution will eventually be spent on an unjust project or a beneficial one. “I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually.”
- Government is a man-made disaster, not a natural one, and so I like to think that its makers can be reasoned with. As governments go, ours, with all its faults, is not the worst and even has some admirable qualities. But we can and should insist on better, which is none.
OOC Knowledge
This essay was almost entirely based off of Thoreau's essay which was also entitled Civil Disobedience. It was written in reaction to a lecture given by his professor entitled "On the Duty of Civil Obedience"
Availablity
The book is very popular among radicals and revolutionaries and can be found in many underground circles. It is also discussed by young academy students and occasionally even supporters of Civil Obedience.
