I view conscience as an internal sense of right and wrong. Some people are more likely to respect a person who protests because they have strong beliefs about justice and morality. In paragraph 15 Thoreau says,
Action from principle, the perception and performance or right changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary and does not consist with anything which was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolic in him from the divine.I think the situation can become confusing when a person is protesting because of their “opinions.” An opinion is a personal view of an issue, but it does not have the same effects as what Thoreau describes as “action from principle,” or conscience. Conscience might lead someone to refuse to pay taxes because they are morally opposed to what the tax supports; an opinion allow someone to say they won’t pay taxes because they don’t like their money being taken away. There’s a difference.
This can also go back to something we discussed in class--whether it is a good thing for people to follow their consciences. After all, it seems that some people’s consciences might tell them to perform unjust actions. It also could be that the unjust action results from their opinion, not their conscience. I think that if a person’s conscience tells them to “bad things,” he or she probably will not protest in the form of civil disobedience. They would be more likely to retaliate with another unjust action, than in a peaceful way. To Thoreau, civil disobedience may have been an inherently good thing. Also, in order for the action to truly be “civil disobedience,” it should also be somehow increasing public awareness of an issue. Saying, “I think drugs should be legal, so I’m going to smoke weed in my basement!” This is an example of acting from an opinion, because you are not showing how a law is unjust or immoral or trying to change it.
The problem is that it could very difficult to determine the true motivations of protests. You might not be able to if people are acting from their conscience or not. It would be even harder to tell if you are watching a news segment about a protest. The media could have distorted the actual intention of the civil disobedience. But that’s another issue entirely!
2 comments:
Eraly you say "when a protest seems unacceptable, it may be because it appears as opinion." Could you clarify what you mean there?
I think the legalization example s starting to clarify a bit, highlighting a distinction (specifically raising awareness) but if a black person during the 60's drank at white water fountain but no one saw, would that be civil disobedience? What if she called the media and they watched her, but did not write the story?
In response to the first question… I was probably thinking of how some protests seem unacceptable because they are “radical” or “extreme.” To many people, the radical protesters might seem a little crazy. Maybe it’s because we wouldn’t protest in that way and can’t imagine that kind of action coming from someone’s conscience. Instead, we see those people as who have a particular view on an issue, but just like to exaggerate and cause trouble. I’m not sure if that makes any sense…
When I mentioned “raising awareness,” I was thinking of that as a key element of a determining whether something is a protest, and civil disobedience can be a form of protest. I suppose that civil disobedience is still civil disobedience regardless of whether it is raising awareness of an issue. Thoreau gives the example of him spending the night in jail because he didn’t pay his taxes. This is civil disobedience, but he wasn’t trying to increase awareness. I guess I assumed that civil disobedience is something you would want others to see. That’s what would be mostly likely to provoke change. I guess civil disobedience is like breaking any other law. If you steal something and don’t get caught, you still broke the law. It just doesn’t have the same consequences as it would if someone had seen you do it.
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