Long Island University Civil Disobedience in Society Discussion

This is the assignment for the essay !

Under what conditions are we morally entitled to disobey the law? Discuss with reference to the views of Thoreau, Gandhi, Erich Fromm, Susan B. Anthony, and Dr. Martin Luther King (at least three!) on the question of civil disobedience.

Your answer to this question must involve the successful completion of two distinct tasks.

1) Analyze the theories of three (3) of Thoreau, Gandhi, Erich Fromm, Susan B. Anthony, and Dr. King on civil disobedience.

Make sure that you in your analysis do the following:

– Outline each position clearly

– Identify the arguments used to support each position

– Explain the differences between them

2) Take a position on the question of civil disobedience.

– Explain your position on the issue.

– Provide arguments that support your position.

Note that stating your stance or gut feeling is NOT an argument, rather be sure to include the following elements in your argument:

– Give reasons why your position is more defensible

– State possible objections to your view

– And defend your position by show how one could defeat these objections

Your paper should be 4-5 pages in length

THIS IS WHAT WAS WRITTEN BY A STUDYPOOL TUTOR IT NEEDS TO BE REVISED AND CORRECTED PLEASE

Civil Disobedience Analysis

Civil Disobedience is defined to be an active, professed nonviolent refusal of a citizen to obey a certain law, command, order, or demand of a government. Protests, nonviolent, peaceful protests can express the civil Disobedience of a citizen. Citizens will use this action to exercise their right to freedom of speech and to express out loud against unjust, unfair, and unlawful governments and its laws. Many people feel a moral right attached to civil Disobedience that grants the citizen the right to refuse an unjust and unlawful law. When laws are created, citizens are obligated to obey the laws. You are required to act or behave a certain way for the reason the law gives even if you disagree with the obligation. This essay will examine and analyze the moral arguments of three prominent activists Martin Luther King, Henry David Thoreau, and Mahandas Gandhi.

Henry David Thoreau is the man known for making the “civil disobedience” theory famous. He was an activist, philosopher, and writer known for his aggressiveness towards the social institutions and his love nature, and living a simple life. Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience supports the need to use your conscience over the dictates of laws. His theory criticizes the American governments and policies related to slavery and the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848. He claimed those laws were unjust. Thoreau wrote a letter about Civil Disobedience in 1849 published under the title Resistance to Civil Government. He represented Civil Disobedience in his own life and was forced to be jailed for refusing to pay taxes protesting against the Mexican War. Thoreau also was against slavery, and in the 1840s, slavery had increased, which help Thoreau write his letter about the issues surrounding slavery and the Mexican war. Thoreau strongly felt that citizens should separate themselves from the government away from unjust laws. He felt citizens were not obligated to participate in the evils of unjust laws.

Thoreau disagreed with the United States’ full government, calling the United States an unjust government that granted the support of slavery and aggressive war. Thoreau complained about the constitution. He felt that the constitution was the overall problem in societies and not the solution. Thoreau refused to follow the order of legal channels, and he felt that going through the legal channels to make changes to unjust and unlawful laws would take too long. He felt that civil Disobedience is nonviolent but aggressive and loud. He felt this was how citizens need to use force to negotiate with the public officials to “clog machines” with the politicians who imprison the citizens. He felt the citizens need to protest and force their way into the courts to challenge the constitution’s laws and end the citizen’s personal complicity in this unjust society.

In the 1930’s Indian independence leader named Mohandas Gandhi led a 241 mile march to the sea to protest against the British salt monopoly. This was a civil disobedience action against the British rule in India. The Britains Salt Act prohibited Indians from selling and collecting salt, a staple in the Indian diet. The citizens of India were forced to buy vital minerals from the British. The British were unjust towards India’s citizens, forcing them to buy from them, exercised monopoly over the manufacturers of salt, and sold salt, plus they added a heavy salt tax. The Indians were poor, and they suffered from the salt taxes, but they were required to have salt. Gandhi was against the British Salt Acts, and he thought about a nonviolent action that would break the British laws that confined India.

Gandhi declared resistance to the British salt policies and was forced to unify his new theme called the “Campaign of Satyagraha,” which meant Mass Civil Disobedience. The campaign of Satyagraha was a nonviolent protest march that went for miles and lasted for days. Thousands followed his lead and civil Disobedience broke out all across India; defying British laws, millions participated all over India. Over 60,000 people were arrested, including Gandhi, and they were placed in jail, but the Satyagraha protest continued without him. The nonviolent, peaceful protest turned violent and caused many Indians marching to be beaten viciously by the British-led Indian police officers. India’s independence was granted in August of 1947. Later Gandhi was killed by a Hindu extremist 6 months later.

Martin Luther King Jr is the most renowned advocate of civil Disobedience, and both Thoreau and Gandhi inspired him. Martin Luther King argued that “Any individual who refuse a law and break that law based on its conscience of it being an unjust law and is willing to accept the penalty of imprisonment to bring awareness to the conscience of the society over its injustice, is, in reality, expressing the highest level of respect for the law” – Martin Luther King Jr. The idea of civil Disobedience represents a compelling linkage of morality and efficacy is a happy connection of moral ends to the moral means in pursuit of political and social reform. As a Baptist minister, Martin Luther King consumed most of his philosophy of nonviolent civil Disobedience from the bible and his teachings and belief in Jesus. But he was most heavily influenced by Gandhi and Thoreau’s philosophies. Inspired by the two, he learned that he could fight with love and truth instead of guns, bombs, lies, and propaganda.

Martin Luther King’s first civil disobedience protest was in 1955 during The Montgomery Bus Boycott, where all the blacks of Montgomery, Alabama would protest and boycott the city buses to get the opportunity to be allowed to sit anywhere on the city buses and not pushed to the back of the buses. The white could sit anywhere they choose. During this time, King marched and spoke in many places about the injustice and civil Disobedience in society. King also led a large protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that alarmed the whole world, causing a conscience coalition. This march was called the Freedom March that was held in Washington, D.C, in 1963. There were 250,000 protesters. This march was described as the largest demonstration seen in the whole nation and the first to get television coverage. Martin Luther King led the march to protest against racial unrest and civil rights demonstrations. They caused nationwide turmoil and outrage and caused violent attacks by dogs, and fire hoses to be turned to attack the protestors. Many teens and young adults were involved and hurt in the protest. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and placed in jail during the march, which led him to write “Letter From the Birmingham City Jail.” In this letter, King expressed his advocacy of civil disobedience against unjust laws. King had years of protests, marches, conferences, and speeches. He was later killed standing on a motel’s balcony during his last protest he led in Memphis, Tennessee, where he pursued a peaceful march to support the sanitation workers.

Each activist agreed with the peaceful, nonviolent protests to get the social institutions and the government’s attention. Gandhi and King were both strong leaders inspired by Thoreau and his take on civil Disobedience. They each fought for what they believed in while focusing solely on nonviolent force. They all agreed that the strategies used would cause laws to be turned around, and big change would come in the world by stopping segregation. They each loved the philosophies of fighting the unjust laws and not fighting men. Each man fought for different purposes, reasons and lived at different times, but they all believed they were fighting for the citizens’ rights against laws they felt were unjust and degrading of the people in their society.

I completely understand the late activists’ intentions, but I stand against civil Disobedience and the agreement to be a leader and deliberately break laws. I understand the issues in those previous years that caused much pain and hurt the citizens affected by those issues they faced. Civil Disobedience is a format telling the society that citizens can use their moral conscience as a moral decision on a law to refuse by nonviolent protests and break other laws in the process. I’m afraid I have to disagree with slavery, segregation, oppression, racism, discrimination, and suppression of the people, but I believe in change and that it will come. I can’t entirely agree, and I am disappointed with what I have witnessed with civil Disobedience, nonviolent protests in the previous years, and the current time we live in today.

Civil Disobedience is disrespectful and violent. There are legal channels that are unlimited to the requests of the citizens to express their feelings. I have observed through history learning how things changed with time. I feel that civil disobedience force and rush a process that will still take time. The civil Disobedience I have witnessed has caused deaths, burnings of jails, people turning over citizens’ cars and authority, breaking windows out of big and small businesses, and setting businesses on fire. I have witnessed citizens luding stores, stealing, and calling it protests. I can go on and on, but there is no excuse for those types of actions. I feel that civil Disobedience costs the citizen leading money for the type of outrage that is caused in a society when action is taken to destroy properties and bodies to change unjust laws. All people in society will not have the same views, and there people that will ethically and morally address the issues of the unjust laws and gradually make those changes. You can’t represent obedience by giving it a new name when it still means the same thing. I feel there is a channel and a chain of command that should be followed to be obedient without causing any havoc in the city to make changes. I admire Thoreau, Gandhi, and King’s strength to risk and lose their life because they cared too much for others’ souls more than themselves.

Civil Disobedience is a form of breaking and violating laws. In the act of civil Disobedience, you are, in turn, breaking other rules creating segregation, trespassing, and traffic violations. Thoreau claimed that the harmful consequences caused by civil Disobedience were the fault of the government. King blamed white segregationists. Critics must be careful not to be inconsistent when predicting objectives because it is dangerous, and the results won’t be the same for everyone. King and Gandhi both made their missions hard to duplicate. They both pressed for negotiation before focusing on Disobedience. They accepted blows from the police without retaliation from them, but they could not control the people’s decisions. Civil Disobedience cannot be justified through a democracy. These unjust laws can be changed through the legislature through lawful channels, which makes civil Disobedience unlawful.

Works Cited

Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can’t Wait. (New York: Harper & Row, 1963)

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and “Civil Disobedience”. New York: Signet Classics, 1980.

Wagenknecht, Edward. Henry David Thoreau, What Manner of Man?. Amherst: University of

Massachusetts Press, 1981.

Lewis, David L. and Clayborne Carson. “Martin Luther King, Jr.: American Religious Leader

and Civil-Rights Activist.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 3 May 2019,

www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther-King-Jr

Malhotra, S. L. From Civil Disobedience to Quit India : Gandhi and the Freedom

Movement in Punjab and Haryana, 1932-1942. Chandigarh :Publication Bureau, Panjab University, 1979.