Essay On Disobedience To Authority

Disobedience To Authority Disobedience has alway been thought as a sin. Is this always the case? Sin has always been associated with disobedience, but try to think of it from a different perspective. Disobeying authority allows for a change in freedoms, and these changes cause a change in the populous, as well as a change in the authority that we are disobeying. If it can do all of these things, then is it really a bad form of communication to authority? In my opinion it is not because sometimes it is the only way to show that change is required. Some may disagree and try to argue that by obeying authority we are bettering society. This statement is false and I am not the only one who knows it. In an article written by two Law professors
Erich Fromm wrote an article that shows how disobedience is affected by morals as well as how our brains are hardwired. This article is titled “Disobedience as a psychological and moral Problem”. His article is focused around the conclusion that Society was started by disobedience and would end from an act of obedience. Fromm was one of the 20th Century’s most distinguished writers as well as a psychoanalyst, philosopher, historian, and sociologist. Fromm stated, “by cutting the umbilical cord, man emerged from a prehuman harmony and was able to take the first step into independence and freedom” (Fromm 622). This quote explains that without this first act of disobedience to man’s original authority we would not be living with the same freedom and independence that we are today. This idea is further supported by the article that was mentioned earlier, “Uncivil Obedience”. In the text they define civil disobedience, in an agreement among theorists, as “‘a conscientious and communicative breach of law designed to demonstrate condemnation of a law or policy and to contribute to a change in that law or policy’” (Pozen 4). This is a statement that directly states that disobedience is a way to change regulations that an authority has put in place to control a populous. And I believe this is very important in all societies. This
This can be connected to Fromm’s idea of submission. He mentions in his text that people are more likely to disobey if they are forced to do things that they that break their morals or the principles that they live by (Fromm 624). I think that the conclusion to the Stanford Prison experiment is the perfect way to show this change. At the beginning of the experiment they were all relatively average college students and they changed drastically based off the role they played in the experiment. From the prisoners standpoint they became more submissive to the guards as the experiment moved forward. Like I mentioned earlier when people think that they are being submissive they realize that they do not like being controlled, and when they realize this they start to disobey the authority to change the way that they are treated. In David Brook’s text titled “The Follower Problem” he talks about how followers are the main cause for the leaders in society to fail. Despite his ideas he says “To have good leaders you have to have good good followers” (Brooks 651). This statement has some truth behind it. I disagree to the extent that to be able to have good followers they must of someone good to lead them. They reason the flow I mentioned makes more sense based of the fact that Brooks also mentions that leaders are “superior” to the followers in society