Nonviolence

In Oscar Wilde argues that disobedience is man’s original virtue. Meaning that he believes disobedience is a good thing and through disobedience progress is made. History has proven that Wilde’s assertion holds true. Throughout history civil disobedience has been the catalyst for social progress, reform, and the questioning of the statuesque. Back in the colonial era of America this exact concept of disobedience. Was what sparked the idea of freedom and self-governance, instead of passive…

There are many different events that go on in our great nation that of which we choose to call the United States of America. Many of which help shape us into who we are and some that shape us into who we become, our beliefs, values, and morals. Events vary from one person making a stance, to millions of people uniting to be heard as one. Civil disobedience is the act of opposing a law one considers unjust and peacefully disobeying it while accepting the consequences. Peaceful resistance to laws…

Civil disobedience is widely considered a popular way for the “average citizen” to easily and safely effect social change. Theoretically, it has very few real consequences, and is not hazardous to life or property, and works for the greater good, but in reality, the opposite is true. An essay originally published in Robert A. Goldwin, ed., On Civil Disobedience, stated that civil disobedience is “the resort—always a theoretically and practically weak resort—of the subject of law, exercised…

A successor organization to the Anti-Enlistment League and a section of War Resisters International, the War Resister’s League, created in 1923, is an organization that does not support any kind of war and nonviolently protests for the removal of all causes of war. In relation to works from the likes of Henry David Thoreau, Aimé Césaire, and the power of women like Rigoberta Menchu, Malala Yousafzai, Wangaari Maathai, and Vandana Shiva, the War Resisters League, which is the oldest secular…

No matter what people do, the world will continue to orbit; however, people should be able to affect the world in a way that other people stop and remember the hurdles that have been jumped to get where they are. In those moments of tribute, the world has stopped for a brief second to remind us to continue moving forward. Peaceful protests are a way of doing that which was aforementioned. Martin Luther King Jr. showed many people through his non-violent approach that sometimes the most painful…

As we take a look at the history of the United States, impacting a free society has not been easy. There have been many laws that have not treated everyone fairly. In order to impact a free society, many had to undergo civil disobedience in order to impact the free society that we live in today. Peaceful resistance to laws positively impact a free society. Without civil disobedience, it would have been almost impossible to make change in our society. In 1846, Henry David Thoreau refused to pay…

he campaign for civil rights of African Americans not only started in 1955, but in that decade became a dominant force achieving its objectives centuries ago. These events were made possible thanks to the stimulus-response communication. The mass was persuaded with great success but also has failed in other details, especially the last period when he had lost control of the situation, from a peaceful campaign to violent terms. The characteristics of the audience were generally similar, in this…

Ahimsa, a pillar of the Jain religion, translated to English as non-violence, was one of the key notions of Ghandi teachings. Growing up, I respected Gandhi’s teachings for his work with non-violence and thought this would be a great event to attend as my parents were advocates of non-violence back in India. So I decided to attend the event with my parents at City Hall in Hamilton on October 4th , the event was running the entire day and being crunched for time I was only able to go for a few…

Race. It is a word that is associated with many thoughts, emotions, and arguments. Building upon how people looked at things back then those arguments could have been both bad and/or good. In Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham, he justified the tragedy of how inactive the white moderates, or clergymen, were compared to the white segregationists who wanted to see more people come together while doing what was right. Hand in hand the white segregationists were more stimulating when it…

complied with his integral values, which in turn made our country rightfully desegregated today. The issues presented by Stephen L. Carter, “that we as a nation too often lack integrity, which might be described, in a loose and colloquial way, as the courage of one’s convictions” (180), would be resolved by using a similar mindset to that of King’s. The activist’s adversaries frowned upon any change in the system, making it hard to reach equality. The negotiation attempts left empty promises…