Civil Disobedience

Civil obedience is a philosophy essay written by Henry David Thoreau. This essay published posthumously as Civil Disobedience, popularized the term in the US. Civil disobedience also called passive resistance, the refusal to obey the demands or the commands of a government or occupying power, without resorting to violence or the active measures of opposition; its usual purpose is to force concessions from the government or occupying power.

Civil disobedience has been a major tactic and philosophy of nationalist movements in Africa and India, in the American civil rights movement, and of labor, anti-war, and other social movements in many countries. Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws.

Civil disobedience is a symbolic or a ritualistic violation of the law rather than a rejection of the system as a whole. The civil disobedient, finding legitimate avenues of change blocked or nonexistent, feels obligated by a higher, extralegal principle to break some specific law. It is because acts associated with civil disobedience are considered crimes, however, and known by actor and public alike to be punishable, that such acts serve as a protest. By submitting to punishment, the civil disobedient hopes to set a moral example that will provoke the majority or the government into effecting meaningful political, social, or economic change.