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CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, NONVIOLENCE, AND DEMOCRACY: NINE FALLACIES
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CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, NONVIOLENCE, AND DEMOCRACY: NINE FALLACIESZinn writes extensively, in nearly all of his books, about the role of social protest and civil disobedience within democratic societies, particularly the United States. One of his lesser known books, however, is focused specifically on this topic. The book is organized into nine sections, each of which refutes one of the primary arguments made by opponents of civil disobedience, particularly former Supreme Court Associate Justice Abe Fortas. Some of these fallacies are specific to the role of the court system in ensuring justice, but I will focus on those concerning the role of the social protester. YOU MUST ACCEPT PUNISHMENT IF YOU COMMIT CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE This fallacy derives from the glorification of Socrates’ decision to accept his unjust death sentence. However, Zinn argues that if one is punished for breaking an unjust law, then the punishment itself is unjust, and “when unjust decisions are accepted, injustice is sanctioned and perpetuated.”96 In fact, Zinn writes, it treats protest like a game to argue that protesters should accept the penalty for losing instead of continuing their protest to the end. This argument, by Zinn, is useful in answering quotations from Martin Luther King Jr., in his essay “Letter From A Birmingham Jail,” which Zinn argues are taken out of context when they are characterized as arguing that protesters must accept the punishment for their acts of civil disobedience. CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MUST BE LIMITED TO LAWS WHICH ARE THEMSELVES WRONG Statists argue that violating laws other than those which are directly unfair is unjustified. This would include violating curfews, blocking streets, etc. in the course of a protest. Zinn outlines several situations which demonstrate the inanity of this principle. Perhaps the most obvious example were the “sit ins” in the segregated South which violated laws against trespassing, when the segregation was not a public law but a decision by a private business owner. In a theoretical sense, the reason this principle is invalid is that it fails to distinguish between important and trivial laws in the context of preventing massive injustice. This principle would also proscribe any solution to injustice resulting not from unjust laws, but the failure of the government to enforce just laws (e.g., desegregation). CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MUST BE ABSOLUTELY NONVIOLENT There are a plethora of excellent theorists—including Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Thoreau—who argue for the benefits of nonviolence. Unfortunately, most of the people who respond to this argument are people—such as Malcom X and Ward Churchill—who explicitly espouse levels of violence that may be difficult to defend. One virtue of Zinn’s writing is that he does not explicitly encourage violence, but instead finds a middle ground between violence and nonviolence. On the one hand, Zinn argues that all things being equal, nonviolence is better than violence. Moreover, he sees the ultimate end of civil disobedience, and progress generally, as being a nonviolent world. On the other hand, Zinn points out, even thinkers like Gandhi and Thoreau at times defended the use of violence when no other option was available. Furthermore, Zinn distinguishes between different levels of violence. In any humanist philosophy, for example, a distinction must be drawn between violence against people and violence against property. Generally, he points out that the severity of the protest must be weighed against the severity of the injustice: “Would not any reasonable code have to weigh the degree of violence used in any case against the importance of the issue at stake? Thus, a massive amount of violence for a small or dubious reason would be harder to justify than a small amount of violence for an important and a clear reason.”97 The litmus test for determining the legitimacy of violence in civil disobedience has to do with the degree to which it is discriminating: Violence might be justifiable as it approaches the focusing and control of surgery. Self-defense is by its nature focused, because it is counterviolence directed only at a perpetrator of violence…. Planned acts of violence in an enormously important cause (the resistance against Hitler may be an example) could be justifiable. Revolutionary warfare, the more it is aimed carefully at either a foreign controlling power, or a local tyrannical elite, may be morally defensible.98 In essence, Zinn’s argument is that limited violence is justified when the oppression being fought is extreme, when there are no other viable means of successful protest, and when the target of the violence is directly responsible for the oppression. RULE OF LAW HAS INTRINSIC VALUE / DEMOCRACY MAKES PROTEST UNNECESSARY There are two primary justifications for the argument that the law has intrinsic value and that, therefore, even civil disobedience that has good intentions is unjust. The first of these arguments is that regardless of whether the laws are just or unjust, they maintain peace and stability, and must therefore be followed. The problem with this view is that it places stability at a premium while ignoring the price of that stability: “Surely, peace, stability, and order are desirable. Chaos and violence are not. But stability and order are not the only desirable conditions social life. There is also justice…. Absolute obedience to law may bring order temporarily, but it may not bring justice.”99 The most important question then becomes: when the law does not serve the cause of justice, do citizens have a greater obligation to ensure lawfulness or justice? Zinn writes: The answer is given in democratic theory at its best, in the words of Jefferson and his colleagues in the Declaration of Independence. Law is only a means. Government is only a means. “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”—these are the ends. And “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.”100 Thus, when an individual sees injustice in the world around her, and she sees no other effective method, she is justified in violating laws—even if that lawlessness leads to social instability—to fight to stop the injustice. The second justification for the argument that the law (at least in a democracy) has intrinsic value, thus making civil disobedience unjustified, is that law is created by the people, thus represents the common sentiment of what is just. This is certainly true at times, and in these cases it is irrefutable that the law ought be followed. Nevertheless, as Zinn writes: “The law may serve justice, as when it forbids rape and murder or requires a school to admit all students regardless of race or nationality. But when it sends young men to war, when it protects the rich and punishes the poor, then law and justice are opposed to one another.”101 It is in these instances that civil disobedience is justified. It is too simplistic to argue that because democracy is majoritarian, it will protect whatever the majority sees as just, and will therefore be just. Often, as we have seen throughout history, the majority denies basic principles of justice to the minority for the sake of the majority’s benefit, be it material, social, or anything else. In these situations, the minority is structurally precluded from using the law to advance their rights. Thus, civil disobedience may be the only possible method for fighting for justice. There is no better example of such a case than in the civil rights movement in the United States. 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