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Backgrounds of disobedience essay
Backgrounds of disobedience essay
The Negative Impact of Disobedience in Society
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“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves,” said Henry David Thoreau. Disobedience is said to either promote social progress, the foundation of liberty and how citizens live, or it is said to create chaos. It is strongly believed disobedience is used to change how society works, and it can turn people who are against a cause to supporting the same cause. From disobedience, social freedom can be created or improved. Although disobedience can lead to trouble, it can also be used to increase social standings, get people on your side, or to prove a point. Using disobedience to gain social standing, how individuals are able to live their lives without worrying about their freedom being taken, is superior to any other method of doing so. …show more content…
People who want their voices heard that can’t speak it normally will disobey in order to have their voices heard. In “Harrison Bergeron,” Harrison is an “abnormal” person, and he is crossing the Rubicon by “plotting to overthrow the government” (Vonnegut 5). He went to an area with live broadcasting and he “tore off his straps of his handicap harness...handicaps crashed to the floor...thrusts his thumbs under the padlock that secured his head harness...smashed his headphones and spectacles against the wall.”(Vonnegut 6). He then starts controlling people by making them do as he says. This quote from “Harrison Bergeron” describes how he disobeyed what the norm and law was. He was doing what most would never have done, and through disobedience, he achieved a following like with Martin Luther King Junior. did in the Civil Rights movement. No one wants to follow laws that restrict them from freedom, but once someone disobeys that rule or law, the people start following that person. People start following that person, not because of the person, but to disobey what they desperately
Harrison Bergeron is a short story that has a deep meaning to it. To begin with, the short story Harrison Bergeron was made in 1961 and is written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. The whole short story is set in the far future of 2081. 2081 is a time where everybody is finally equal and when the government finally has full control over everyone. If you aren't equal you would have to wear handicaps to limit your extraordinary strength and smarts. As the story progresses, Harrison Bergeron is trying to send a message about society.
Harrison Bergeron is a hero to society. He is a hero because he was the only person willing to take off his handicap. Bergeron was a brave person. No one else was brave enough to try to be unique. Everyone was following what they were told to never questioning it, but Bergeron wasn't. He wants to discover new things. Yes he might have been scaring people, but they had no reason to be scared. They could have been helping and joining instead of being scared and rebelling from him.
In 1848, David Thoreau addressed and lectured civil disobedience to the Concord Lyceum in response to his jail time related to his protest of slavery and the Mexican War. In his lecture, Thoreau expresses in the beginning “That government is best which governs least,” which sets the topic for the rest of the lecture, and is arguably the overall theme of his speech. He chastises American institutions and policies, attempting to expand his views to others. In addition, he advances his views to his audience by way of urgency, analyzing the misdeeds of the government while stressing the time-critical importance of civil disobedience. Thoreau addresses civil disobedience to apprise the people of the need for a civil protest to the unjust laws created against the slaves and the Mexican-American war.
Civil Disobedience, as stated in the prompt, is the act of opposing a law one considers unjust and peacefully disobeying it while accepting the consequences. Many people believe this has a negative impact on the free society because they believe civil disobedience can be dangerous or harmful. Civil disobedience does not negatively affect the free society in a dangerous manner because it is peaceful and once it becomes harmful to the free society then it is not civil disobedience. Thoreau believed civil disobedience is an effective way of changing laws that are unjust or changing things that as a society and to the people does not seem correct. This peaceful act of resistance positively impacts a free society. Some examples are Muhammad Ali peacefully denying the draft and getting arrested. These men believed that what they saw was wrong and they did something about it but they did it peacefully.
Standing up for what you believe in takes a lot of courage. It means being singled out and insulted. In the case of Harrison Bergeron it also meant the loss of his life. While this is fictional, a situation like this has happened in history where people weren't allowed to stand up for what they believed in, freedom. Slavery, for many, was a widely accepted part of agriculture. People fought against it, stood up for their beliefs, and sometimes died. colored people's rights were taken away. In Harrison Bergeron's case it was individuality being taken as well as the right
Thoreau, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and now Parkland Florida students as well as students around the world; is it true that civil disobedience is the best way for people of all ages to get their voices heard, especially for students who are fighting for gun control?(hook rhetorical) Civil disobedience has been used for centuries to protest unjust laws and legislation, as well as other government decisions that many of the public do not agree with. Thoreau was one of the first to use the term “Resistance to Civil Government” know known as civil disobedience, in which he detailed that not only was the best government the one that did the least, but that laws passed by the government were no better than the people they governed(Thoreau).
The short story “Harrison Bergeron” starts out in the year 2081, where everyone is finally equal. It starts with a couple whose child, Harrison, gets taken by the Handicapper Generals. Hazel and George, the parents of the child who gets taken are just like many other people in the world. The government is putting devices on everyone called handicappers to force them to be equal. Harrison is a very big, very smart, and very brave person.
The civil and eventually violent disobedience of the thirteen colonies against England resulted in the birth of now one of the most powerful nations in the world. The civil disobedience of those willing to go against the norm allowed for Americans to be able to marry who they chose. It is because of Nelson Mandela getting arrested for what he believed in to allow for south Africa to be free from segregation. Civil disobedience has paved the way for society to become better because at some points society was not based on fairness. It was based on cruel ideologies and those ideologies put laws into affect that were meant to lower certain groups of people. So by breaking those laws it awakens those groups and allows them the motivation to go up against these unfair laws and in doing this allows for these unfair laws to be
Why partake in civil disobedience? Oscar Wilde, an influential author, has an opinion on utilization of civil disobedience. “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. Meaning, if a person wants to change society and its actions, they must rebel against the governing body in order to create effective alterations. Many situations exist where civil disobedience advocates change. In those situations, people have rights for disobedience, but must realize consequences may result from their disobedient actions.
Justice is often misconceived as injustice, and thus some essential matters that require more legal attentions than the others are neglected; ergo, some individuals aim to change that. The principles of civil disobedience, which are advocated in both “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. to the society, is present up to this time in the U.S. for that purpose.
According to Oscar Wilde, disobedience is a valuable human trait that promotes social progress. Civil disobedience allows for the unification of various groups to fight towards a common goal, often resulting in change. Historically, there has been much evidence supporting Wilde’s claim. Significant examples of disobedience that led to social progress include the Boston Tea Party, the Salt March, and the Civil Rights Movement.
People from different backgrounds and societal norms react differently to similar situations. What is considered acceptable and unacceptable can be defined by culture, government laws, and the accepted truth to the majority. This is very well depicted in the short stories under the science fiction genre, ‘Harrison Bergeron’ by Kurt Vonnegut and ‘The Different Ones’ by Rod Serling. The protagonists in both stories were considered outcasts in their respective society because they do not fit with what is considered as normal in their communities. However, how they were dealt with by the government were totally different due to the existence of different policies and interventions for members of the population who are considered abnormal.
... lived during times where the government and church held much power in society, but Thoreau’s On the Duty of Civil Disobedience appealed to me the most with his methods of civil disobedience. The government today holds power over the people in the United States. Even though the United States is a democratic government there is still corruption within it. Such as there being corrupt police officers who may lie to save himself knowing that he was wrong. Enabling the persecution of another person who is innocent. Also the rich in this government still hold the most power in this country. A rich person may buy their way out of jail, while a non rich person is not able to. I believe civil disobedience is a great way to combat the government because it prevents bloodshed and allows a message to get across if down with enough people to gain attention.
Although the comparisons are well hidden, both today’s society and the story ‘Harrison Bergeron’ share similar qualities. They both deal with equality, which leads to problems and consequences. A second similarity is the struggle of competition and trying to prevent it from occurring, which also leads to problems. Lastly, both struggle with normality, and the fact that it’s hard to accept that different is okay now.
Actions that Harrison Bergeron contributed can be argued if rather he is a hero or a villain. He lives in 2081, where everybody in society is equal physically and mentally. Harrison exposed society laws of being equal to everybody is unrealistic. Everybody is made differently and can never be equal. He also displays a sense of bravery when he knows what kind of consequences for that actions that he performed. It can be portrayed that he was trying to get people in society to open their eyes. However, Harrison also shows villain tendencies by his domainating and aggressive persinatlity. Harrison Bergerion bravery to standing up to the government and challenging the people of society shows his heroism.