From resistance to revolution: the limits of nonviolence in Arendt’s ‘Civil Disobedience’

Abstract

Arendt's work on civil disobedience sets out an optimistic portrayal of the possibilities of such forms of action in re-energizing the spirit of American politics in the late twentieth century. Civil disobedience should not simply be tolerated, she argued, but incorporated into the legal structure of the American political system. Her work is usually seen to promote an idea of civil disobedience that is thus bound to existing constitutional principles and essentially nonviolent. However, by looking at Arendt's discussion and critique of various practices of civil disobedience in 1960s and 1970s America, specifically in relation to the nonviolence movement influenced by Martin Luther King, and on the other side, the more militant Black Power movement, a different idea of civil disobedience emerges. This paper argues that whilst, for Arendt, civil disobedience within America certainly possesses the constitutionally restorative potential she assigns to it, in a broader sensetheoretically, globally, and even in terms of alternative ideologies within Americaher conception of civil disobedience is in itself neither necessarily constitutional, nor nonviolent. It is, instead, a form of revolutionary action, whose limits are set only by politics itself, and specifically, Arendt's criterion of publicity.

Metode Penelitian Kebijakan Bidang Agama

“…Sehingga ketidaktaatan masyarakat tidak hanya perlu ditoleransi tetapi juga perlu menjadi bagian dari struktur hukum. Namun, meskipun sejauh ini ketidaktaatan masyarakat masih berada di luar jalur konstitusional tetapi keberadaan potensi restoratifnya dapat diterima secara politis (Ashcroft, 2018). Tampaknya kajian-kajian tentang ketidaktaatan masyarakat tersebut masih sedikit yang membahasnya terkait dengan persoalan fatwa dalam agama.…”

Habermas, Rawls E Arendt

“…Vale o registro de que, para ela, a desobediência civil seria mesmo uma novidade primariamente americana, na origem e na substância, tanto que, "no other country, and no other language, has even a word for it". 51 Nesse quesito, ela retoma o problema da obediência à lei formulado por Rousseau e por Kant e desabona a solução que eles deram em termos de consciência. 52 Em contraponto, argumenta ela, a solução americana para a obediência à lei não teria sido em termos de consciência, mas de participação, "in the sense of active support and continuing participation in all matters of public interest."…”