On Snowden and the Enduring Need for Civil Disobedience

http://bobwaycott.com/blog/snowden-civil-disobedience/

by bobwaycott • 13 years ago

103 62 13 years ago

jessriedel16• 13 years ago

Waycott says

However, Slate fails to even take on the challenge of disabusing people of their expectations that one must submit to egregiously harsh punishment to be validly considered a civil disobedient.

and spends much of the rest of the article arguing that Snowden's actions pass the other requirements that thinkers have claimed is necessary for justifying civil disobedience. So I'm pretty sure the Waycott is trying to claim Snowden's actions are justified even if he doesn't submit to punishment.

But I can't find anywhere that the Waycott distinguishes between Snowden and the historical cases of civil disobedience where thinkers have agreed that submission to punishment was necessary for justification. Surely those past examples didn't submit to punishment for no reason. So what's different here?

The Slate article, for what it's worth, makes a distinction: the magnitude of the punishment.

d0mine• 13 years ago

Technically you might be correct about the term i.e., until Snowden tortured and then executed the punishment might not be enough by historical standards.

jessriedel16• 13 years ago

No, I am not getting bogged down in semantics. I am talking about whether Snowden's actions are justified, not about the definition of civil disobedience.

PavlovsCat2• 13 years ago

I found this from wikipedia about civil disobedience interesting:

ACT-UP's Civil Disobedience Training handbook states that a civil disobedient who pleads guilty is essentially stating, "Yes, I committed the act of which you accuse me. I don't deny it; in fact, I am proud of it. I feel I did the right thing by violating this particular law; I am guilty as charged," but that pleading not guilty sends a message of, "Guilt implies wrong-doing. I feel I have done no wrong. I may have violated some specific laws, but I am guilty of doing no wrong. I therefore plead not guilty." A plea of no contest is sometimes regarded as a compromise between the two.

And then there is always Sophie Scholl. But exactly because of that I think sometimes that can be a waste of perfectly good life... so in the end, I don't know what to think exactly.

jessriedel16• 13 years ago

Interesting. For what it's worth, Alford pleas exist in the US that explicitly accept punishment while still actively asserting innocence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea

bobwaycott6• 13 years ago

Hey, thanks for pointing that out. I may not have been clear about the position I was taking--that is, that submitting to punishment is not a necessary requirement for justifying civil disobedience, but is instead a feature found common among some civil disobedients. The core problem with the Slate article, in my opinion, is that it flaunts punishment as a requirement, thereby playing into the oversimplification of the now current treatment of Snowden as not a civil disobedient because he hasn't submitted to punishment.

Because my comments grew so long, I regrettably needed to sleep without digging into even further theories of and on punishment, which are central in treating not the justification of civil disobedience, but the just response to civil disobedience. Justification centers on the mode of action and motivations for action, not the results of action and punishment of action.

Furthermore, Slate's article offers examples of civil disobedients who submit to punishment in such a way that leaves readers continuing to expect that civil disobedience == breaking law + submission to punishment. This problem has plenty of historical counterexamples to distinguish disobedients from one another, and confuses submission to punishment as a requirement, instead of a feature. This is why I wrote, because Slate "fails to take on the challenge of disabusing people of their expectations that one must submit to egregiously harsh punishment to be validly considered a civil disobedient."

A primary example is that of revolutionaries, who often feature in discussion of civil disobedience. The American colonists who participated in the Boston Tea Party and other defiant actions were civil disobedients. Those who participated in the Arab Spring were, as well. Yet none of them submitted to punishment for their crimes, instead turning to work with other political participants to initiate a rebellion against what they perceived as a government that had departed from the principles of justice.

As far as the theorists go, Rawls certainly was of the opinion that willingness to accept punishment is a sign of fidelity to the legal system in which civil disobedience is engaged. However, that is not the same as saying it is a requirement or a distinguishing factor that makes some civil disobedients better than others. Submitting to punishment can be injurious and undesirable when it weakens or derails further attempts to effect change. It may also be detrimental when a disobedient has yet to complete disobedient acts that will call full public attention to the cause.

jessriedel16• 13 years ago

Ok, but you still need to distinguish between Snowden and the historical cases of civil disobedience where thinkers have agreed that submission to punishment was necessary for justification. Simply pointing to some revolutionaries which are commonly accepted by the public as justified is not enough. You need to engage the argument of MLK, Rawls, Gandhi, or whoever.

Would they have agreed that the revolutionaries were justified? Is Snowden closer to the revolutionaries, or to repressed blacks in 1963 Alambama?

oleganza4• 13 years ago

99% of the time we all successfully exercise disobedience in our personal life. We meet with people we like and then do not meet when we don't like them. It includes relatives, friends, coworkers, small shops, big shops etc. 99% of the time you voluntarily decide when to devote your time, money and attention to someone and when to stop doing it. 99% of your life is a wonderful peaceful anarchy.

Now there is state. You cannot decide not to provide funds to the state when it behaves the way you dislike. Even if you hide your taxes, the state controls all your currency and prints it for itself without asking you. You cannot simply choose another currency. You can move out — to another state just like yours or worse. You are only allowed to make a humble limited input every 4 years in a form of choosing who will tax you.

There is nothing strange or bad in disobedience. You do it everyday in your life. It's only state propaganda which starts from the early age at school that keeps people terrified at the idea that they are simply bullied to give money for wars, police, spying and terrorising people around them. Under the premise of "social good", of course.

mpyne3• 13 years ago

99% of your life is a wonderful peaceful anarchy.

Even the time I spend in traffic has already exceeded your timeframe of "wonderful anarchy". Not to mention all the other personal matters that I could theoretically choose to do, if I were a douchebag.

What if I choose not to spend time with my children? Or to say 'Hello' to my wife? Am I sticking it to The Man with my rugged individualism?

You cannot simply choose another currency

Sure you can. Just make sure to convert enough of it to legal tender when it comes time to pay the taxes that paid for your schooling (and the schooling of those idiots you interact with everyday), the environmental inspectors and regulators, medical researchers, Peace Corps works, USAID, etc.

oleganza4• 13 years ago

Do you want to say that you say "hello" to your wife because of some law enforcement? I think, no amount of enforcement will make your children or wife happy if you decide to leave them. Voluntarism and peace does not mean everyone must be happy. It means everyone has ability to seek happiness without violent barricades.

And there is a difference between "we take your money, then educate you" vs. "you pay voluntarily and then we educate you". If my parents were forced to pay for my school, I'm not obliged to be thankful for my education. Otherwise, how can I then be really thankful when I learned voluntarily with people I chose?

adaml_623• 13 years ago

"You can move out — to another state just like yours or worse."

That's a bit pessimistic. You can move to a state is like yours, or worse, or better.

Let's keep aiming for better

PavlovsCat2• 13 years ago

There is nothing strange or bad in disobedience. You do it everyday in your life.

Consider birds, dogs, cats, whatever! It seems that just about any "advanced" (for lack of a better word, don't mean a value judgement) animal is rather picky about whom with and how they interact. When they become quiet and passive, they are either sick, poisoned or dying, or domesticated and broken.... or domesticated and with friends they know they can trust.

Voluntary co-operation is awesome, accepting legitimate authority in a given circumstance is smart and necessary (like trusting parents one shouldn't run into the streets just because they say so), but blind submission, unless it's roleplay or whatever, what is that good for?

Honest question, because from what I can tell, not even any "owners" win anything. A leash, any violence or trickery always transforms the people on both ends into slaves. So, what gives?

(oh, and if someone were to say that not driving over other people with your car is a leash, I think that would say more about them, than about leashes)

andrewla6• 13 years ago

Why do we have to abuse terminology so much? Snowden's actions and sacrifices stand on their own without having to apply the label of "Civil Disobedience". It does not diminish or tarnish his actions to omit that label; but it does diminish them to apply it incorrectly.

Fundamentally, he did not protest an unjust law by publicly and openly defying it, thus showing to the world the injustice of enforcing it. Rather, he brought unjust actions to light by violating a law, namely that of government secrecy, that is not really central to the issues raised.

If he were protesting government secrecy in an of itself, then without standing up to face the punishment of the offence his protest would be ineffectual. But violating that secrecy is not what he is protesting, so staying to confront the legal consequences buys him nothing.

jessriedel16• 13 years ago

You don't need to get bogged down in semantics if you just address the core issue: were Snowden's actions justified? Previous practitioners of civil disobedience clearly thought that submission to punishment was necessary for their actions to be justified.

You seem to be arguing that submission to punishment is not necessary if the disobedience is indirect rather than direct (i.e. if the injustice which is to be exposed is not the actual law broken). But I don't see why that's important. If MLK decided to break a traffic law in order to speak out against segregation, he surely would accepted the punishment for this violation of the law. If anything, submition to the punishment is even more important for indirect civil disobedience, since the punishment itself is just.

calibraxis2• 13 years ago

The masochistic "disobedience = submission to punishment from those you're disobeying" idea is not only bizarre, it's a blatant distraction. The point of punishment is to scare people from further disobedience, and project an image of overwhelming dominance.

It's an interesting case study on how terms like "civil disobedience" get coopted by those in power, to convince people that disobeying them should be hilariously self-defeating. (Imagine the US government submitting to punishment and reparations when it breaks international law.)

As with all things, you choose actions based on their predictable consequences. ("Let myself get destroyed? Hmm, what could go wrong..?")

andrewla6• 13 years ago

I'm not sure what you mean by "necessary" in "... submission to punishment is not necessary ...". Do you mean "necessary to be considered civil disobedience"? In that case, yes, I agree with you.

To state that baldly, my whole point is that what Snowden is doing is _not_ Civil Disobedience, and that calling it that cheapens his actions. Talking about "previous practitioners of civil disobedience" seems to imply that he is practicing civil disobedience, which I clearly (at least, I thought clearly) stated that he was _not_ doing.

A significant part of civil disobedience is that by standing up and violating an unjust law (or the unjust enforcement of a just law), and being subjected to punishment for it, makes people (who are fundamentally good and decent) see that it does not make sense to punish people for doing something that shouldn't be illegal. This is an attempt to compensate for people's natural instinct to meekly obey unjust laws, and to bring out societal and eventually legal change.

Snowden is not saying that government secrecy laws are unjust. If he were to do so, he might find that he has very little support (from those good and decent people). Many people feel that the government has an obligation to keep some things secret. What he appears to be protesting is the specific government program that he leaked, not secrecy laws.

ejfox• 13 years ago

"Previous practitioners of civil disobedience clearly thought that submission to punishment was necessary for their actions to be justified."

I never got this sense, let alone thought of it as clear. Can you explain?

"If MLK decided to break a traffic law in order to speak out against segregation, he surely would accepted the punishment for this violation of the law."

Would he? And even so, would he do it because he thought otherwise his actions would be unjustified?

bobwaycott6• 13 years ago

Previous practitioners of civil disobedience clearly thought that submission to punishment was necessary for their actions to be justified.

No, a subset of prior civil disobedients willingly submitted to punishment to allow their disobedience to remain justified in the public view so they could continue their civil disobedience after punishment. This has not been a rule among civil disobedients, but a feature common to some.

However, submission to punishment is often especially helpful in cases of indirect civil disobedience, not only because the punishment is just, but because it absolves the disobedient of accusations of infidelity to the legal system in which s/he acts. Still not a requirement, though, as it can be detrimental to continued disobedience and successful initiation of change.

grimtrigger3• 13 years ago

I disagree. The US government says "these programs should be secret". Snowden says "these programs should not be secret. I am going to break the law and make them public".

How is that not protesting an unjust law by publicly and openly defying it?

bobwaycott6• 13 years ago

Abuse terminology? Apply the label of civil disobedience incorrectly?

I'm unsure if you read the post or not, but I specifically address this. There is a long-standing recognition of indirect civil disobedience--e.g., violating law A to bring attention to the unjust nature of law B because you cannot, or choose not to, directly violate law B. You're thinking inside the box of only direct civil disobedience--e.g., refusing to give up your seat on the bus to a white man even though the law requires you to do so.

It is still civil disobedience, and I think far more civil disobedience than whistleblowing, yet another label that has been used to label Snowden.

andrewla6• 13 years ago

Fair enough -- I did miss that comment about indirect civil disobedience. I don't really have a perspective on that, because I can't think of any examples of it, but it seems like a stretch to apply that specific label; thereby diluting (in my mind) the meaning of the term Civil Disobedience. If we add the qualifier of "indirect", then it seems that the scope becomes unnecessarily large. But I think I would need more examples of this to that aren't similar to whistleblowing to understand why we need to introduce the term "direct civil disobedience" where "civil disobedience" seems to suit fine. You give a concrete example for "direct" civil disobedience, but not one for "indirect".

Why don't we like "whistleblowing"? It seems that this exactly describes what he did. Is there a connotation associated with whistleblowing that I'm not aware of? I thought whistleblowing was considered an admirable thing in and of itself. I mean, you have to acknowledge that what he did was _at least_ whistleblowing, even if it was more than "just" whistleblowing.

On Snowden and the Enduring Need for Civil Disobedience

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