Civil Disobedience (Thoreau)

While I disagree with Thoreau mostly from his structural beliefs, I do think that he does possess some virtuous qualities. To be fair, however, the context and time period when Thoreau was writing was different than it is today. What I found most enjoyable about his essay, was his notion that if we thought that a law was unjust instead of using the political process and accepting the law until it was changed we must show the law no respect and intentionally break it. To an extent I can agree with this idea. Because why if we thought a law was unjust follow it; to do so sounds absurd. However, he leaves some questions unanswered like: what is just and unjust? But that’s a different topic which could be discussed for days on ends and has been discussed by different theorists throughout history. Thoreau goes too far though in saying if people think a law is unjust to withdraw their support for the government in question. I agree with him the essence that if you think a law is unjust you should not follow it, you can break that law, but to say withdrawal from a government is too outlandish for me. If that was the norm, I believe that it would lead to anarchy.

My perspective of the world comes from both Thomas Hobbes in his essay the Leviathan and John Locke and his view of human nature in his essay The Two Treaties of Government; essentially I believe that anarchy – or the state of nature – will only lead to a perpetual state of war. Because of this perspective, Thoreau and I are obligated to be on opposite sides. For Thoreau is promoting the dissolution of government, the taking back of liberties and sovereignty, and a state of anarchy. For Thoreau, governments are agents of injustice and oppression; and that even majority rule is inferior to his belief in a just world. On these issues I vehemently disagree. For simplicity, I will just say that I see governments as a first step towards a perpetual peace and that without governments (and more specifically democracies) this world would be more unjust than the world we have right now. The lack of democratic governments will only breed distrust and violence.

Voluntary Servitude (Boetie)

While Boetie presents an interesting argument, I believe that his argument is lacking one aspect. In regards to a nation which is under tyrannical rule and wants to rid themselves of his rule I do believe that withdrawing your obedience will in fact undercut the tyrants. However, territory that has been conquered I think will require much more than just the withdrawing of obedience. Boetie seems to have been fond of Greek classics, meaning he probably knew the story about the Athenians and the Melians. The story ends with the Athenians conquering Melian and committing grave crimes against the Melian people and finally basically colonizing Melian. To the Melians they probably considered the Athenians as tyrants. They never gave their obedience to this new government, how could they possible topple the tyrant rule by withdrawing the obedience they never gave to this oppressive government?

As such, Boetie’s argument needs to be expanded to include not just literal tyrant governments, but any type of government in which any portion of the population believes that they are being ruled by a tyrant(s). Specifically vast empires, such as the British Empire, that colonizes other land and people. The basically flaw in Boetie’s argument is that it does not include this scenario. It can easily be fixed, be expanding on the notion of civil disobedience by saying that to successfully topple a ‘tyrant’ government it requires not just the disobedience of the victims, but that it requires a majority of the population as well as a significant portion of the citizens of the oppressors for this idea to work.

Resistance to War

Carl von Clausewitz states it best in his book On War, “War is a mere continuation of policy by other means…War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument,…a carrying out of the same by other means…wars are only the expressions of manifestations of policy itself.” Basically war is just a tool used by governments to implement their foreign policy. A brutal way, yes; but the only way humanity has seen fit. Resisters of war find that unacceptable for various reasons; ergo countless literature from conscientious objectors and pacifists on the horrific consequences of war. However, for the most part it seems that these kinds of people just complain about how atrocious war is, but they never have an alternative or solution. If pacifists want to rid the world of war, they must create a new tool for which governments can use to continue foreign policy. William James brings us an alternative to war – what he calls a moral equivalent to war.

William James moral equivalent to war is constructed from his belief in what human nature is. For James, human nature is in harmony with violence; he believes that instilled in every human being is this desire for violence/excitement, what he calls our warlike trait. James solution stems primarily from his notion on what humans instincts are. Thus his idea is for a nonviolent army, a social army. This social draft would include everyone and no one would be exempt. The purpose of this coalition would be to educate the youth about the world – a real and true experience of the world through practical means. This would be a way to connect people from different cultures to people of other cultures at a truly personal level; such that our desire to kill them or create violence would disappear because of our knowledge that they are like us – they are humans.

To reiterate, resisters of war are those who cannot accept war for various reasons at a personal level. While I neither endorse nor oppose the concept of war, I do believe that unless there is an alternative to war, war must go on and will continue to go on. Ergo, alternatives like William James should be thoroughly considered as practical solutions to preventing war by resisters of war.

Coe and Page

Coe poses an interesting question: "what is violence?" According to him the accepted definition (in 1932) of what is violent and non-violent is flawed because a country refusing to do business with another country and a country blockading another country is one and the same (Action vs inaction) - and is placed under the umbrella of violence. Coe then tries to justify "violent" behaviors and states that violence is acceptable as long as it follows these conditions: it provides opportunity for life, growth, and happiness. Basically Coe states that violence is justified when it is for the greater good. While I agree with that sentiment, Coe expands and states that "men of good will" should use violence against those with special privileges for the greater good - when the opportunities of man to advance is nonexistent. This is where Coe may have gone too far over to the side of Socialism. Coe does, however, acknowledge the fact that this doctrine is dangerous because of how fuzzy it can be as well as how forgetful people can be with regards to why you can use force. As an avid supporter of Capitalism I find it difficult to agree with allowing the poor to use violence to take from the rich. In those sentences lies an underlying problem: the definition of what the greater good is. One person may find the poor as having limited liberties and another person may disagree with that; identifying when it is for the greater good and when to use coercion will be subjective to each and every individual.

Page has a similar conclusion to that of Coe: that the policy we undertake must involve a minimum of suffering and offer the greatest opportunity for redemption - the greater good. For Page possess some Realist values and accepts that in our world we are imperfect: suffering is inevitable. Page comes to this conclusion by answering his own question - is coercion ever justifiable? - by saying it is. Denying coercion, Page says, is allowing yourself to reduce society to anarchy and chaos; and by allowing that to happen you allow violence to be the answer. Page states that there are three options society can undertake: these are resistance by violence, inaction or failure to exert effective restraint, or non-violent coercion. The consequences of each option should be evident already. Going back to Page's conclusion: minimum suffering/greatest opportunity for redemption; Page argues that non-violent coercion is the only option that fits this profile (which makes sense). For resistance by violence leads only to more violence; and inaction or ineffective restraint just perpetuates the injustice on the victims. This leads us with only one option: non-violent coercion.