Agreeing to Disobey
Blindly obeying authority often results in disobedience to one's personal morality. Since rules were established and exist for the common interests of the general population, some would say adhering to the rules is obedient. However, when rules conflict with people's morals, one has the right, and furthermore the responsibility to disobey. Contrary to popular belief, disobedience does not center around ignorant rebellion. In fact, disobedience is the manner in which people shed enlightenment on the well-traveled path of benightedness, by offering another point of view. By the dictionary's definition, disobedience is a violation or disregard of a rule or prohibition. Nevertheless, if people do not challenge their very surroundings, then they will never discover the many paradises that exist behind the garden gate of control and oppression. Through choosing to disagree, a person is exclaiming the fact that he/she will not negotiate the most personal aspects of his/her lives, such as his/her morals. Prime examples of two very different points of view are: the government drafting young men into the army, and the men being reluctant to go. Indeed, a pacifist is not going to be as patriotic as a navel-officer, however; the paci
By obeying society's powerful authority, people sign over their freedom, and accept their loss of agency with a smile. Perhaps citizens are waiving their freedom because they are unaware of its suppression. An example of this would be Stanley Milgram's experiment in trying to determine why the Holocaust occurred. In the book Reading across the Curriculum, Behrens and Rosen explained Milgram's study, "... under a special set of circumstances the obedience we naturally show authority figures can transform us into agents of terror" (Milgram 115). The procedure entailed observing the people, ('the teachers') and the extent to which they would obey authority by inflicting severe electrical shock upon other humans when instructed to do so. The results of Milgram's research was appalling. Although the test subjects were able to leave the experiment at any time, few challenged the authority. The few that did question the "teacher's" motives were dismissed from the testing (Milgram 117). Milgram conducted this experiment to learn how people could become so inhumane upon request, (the Holocaust), even though his ethically challenged experiment remains a roaring debate of morals today. the Curriculum. Behrens/Rosen. Logman Publishers USA. 1999. (149-153). Thoreau highlights the fact that society will never see morals as more important than the written law and civilization as a whole, therefore, will never progress. With the endless variation of mainstream religions and fluctuating trends, morals remain a rare constant. For this reason, citizens should value and obey their personal morals over the ideals of authority figures, so that those in power will be more conscientious of their societal surroundings. fist should not have to entertain the idea of killing a man, simply because he is expected to obey. This opinion is not just an act of rebellion to a higher authority; it is a commitment to one's p
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Approximate Word count = 1296
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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