The Pious Offenders

On January8,2014, Yulia Timoshen, former prime minister of Ukraine, declareda “personal civil-disobedience” to protect herself from being taken away by theauthorities. On March18,2014, a massive protest called the “Sunflower StudentMovement” was fueled in Taiwan, caused by the proposed Cross-Strait Service TradeAgreement, in which students from various Taiwan colleges took sensationaldemonstration in the cities and later battled their way into the “Legislative Yuan” and,later, also the “Executive Yuan of the Republic of China”(Taiwan). Student leaders likeLin Feifan argued that they will fight to defend the democracy and freedom in Taiwanvia principles of civil disobedience and non-violent resistance. Upon its creation in1848, civil disobedience had always been a key opponent in the social reforms of thewestern world, being the fuse as well as the guide of such reassessing of socialstructure, which reached the summit in post-war America in the1960s to1970s.Theorists in the west held different opinions regarding the characters and socialimpacts of civil disobedience, as well as the nature of the disobedient and how thestate or the society should response to such disobedience. From a personal perspective,the disobedient shall be consistent with his conscience in defending his course, and besupported by a morally justified motivation to participate in the protest. Moreover, adisobedient shall choose reasonably in his action to protest. Given the public,socialized and “rebellious” nature of civil disobedience, however, more attention aredrawn in aspects that how the disobedient, as members of the society, act to effect thesociety and the scale as well as the consequence of such effect, which comparing topersonal understanding and choice of the disobedient, matters more to whether or notcivil disobedience can be justified or publically accepted.Besides civil disobedience there are various alternatives for people to deliver their frustration on the current social structure and politic regime. However thesepatterns are either too broad and general, or limited to an inadequate extent (eitherlimited by ability to participate, or by not being able to break the conventional rules),or simply chasing for result instead of communication with others (e.g. radicalprotests). Although these protest patterns have their respective advantages (realizingpersonal expectations to the fullest extent, or reach a satisfying result most promptly),they lack the enforceability and the profound impact of civil disobedience, let alonethey are not able to reach a balance as civil disobedience does between publicinterests and personal desire.This article will proceed with several ethic problems, which are the justifiabilityof civil disobedience and the right to participate in it, after an analysis on civildisobedience itself and some comparison to other forms of protests. The topic willalso be discussed from both internal and external views: whether civil disobedience isonly allowed in extreme situations instead of all social circumstances; whether thedisobedient shall be supported by justified motivation and be willing to be punished;and to what extent that the action of the disobedient can be allowed in certain civildisobedience. These issues also constitute the key matters in argues.Civil disobedience as certainly a violation of law, authorities in different erastook distinctive ways to deal with the disobedient, some took on brutal suppress, someallowed it quietly pass, and more has no clear attitude towards this matter. In the endof this article some popular punishment theories will be brought out to discuss howthe society and the law should respond to civil disobedience, and what punishmentshould be applied.Since the1980s the contradictions in western societies seemed to ease, and civildisobedience served more specific aspects like environment protection, pacifism, oreven been employed by certain political groups aiming to win elections or affectinglegislations (which to some extent have diminished the ethic value of civil disobedience). However, as technology rapidly changing the way of life andcommunication, the society will move on and new contradictions will take the placeof the past ones. As a pattern of protest which costs much less than its proposedimpacts, civil disobedience can still be important in the perfection of civic awarenessand the coming restructure of the society.