Civil Disobedience Controversy

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Humanity's history is replete with illustrations of resistance, from historic uprisings against despotic rulers to contemporary civil rights movements opposing institutionalized discrimination. This demonstrates the natural human spirit of perseverance and the desire for a more just and equitable society. Disobedience has served as both a catalyst for productive change, but also a flashpoint for controversy. These points of controversy concerning both intelligent and civil disobedience raise the questions of the productivity of disobedience. Ultimately, disobedience may promote great, positive change, as seen throughout history, despite some instances where disobedience is simply violence and does not directly correlate to any positive change. …show more content…
Do we still uphold the eagerness to rebel against social norms and to promote change in our modern world? Looking forward to today’s world, we do indeed see events of disobedience today. The most notable example, stemming from 2020’s hit of COVID-19 all over the world, was mask disobedience. “During COVID-19, different age, racial, and local groups in America presented a different mask habit. By age, American teenagers presented a much worse mask strategy than people of other ages. “Zhang” American teenagers were seen as not taking care of the growing health crisis, as they continued to go out and party without masks or social distancing. Whether one agrees that masks and social distancing were actually effective in the prevention of the spread of COVID-19, all can find some sort of agreement in the tragedy the disease caused. Many opposed to these mask customs revolted, throwing mass protests in open areas and arguing against the newly presented social norms. This raises questions of whether disobedience is truly effective or creates positive change. Throughout history, we have noted changing the social norms, as seen in the French revolution and Martin Luther’s revolt against the overarching Catholic church, as a usually positive occurrence, but now we see it as grossly ineffective. Many look down upon these individuals, who are protesting the mask laws, as immature, and maybe even idiotic. There has been a growing number of protests we still see today, even after the effects of COVID-19, stemming from presidential elections to abortion rights to involvement in the Israel-Palestine war. Whether we see this as a positive change to our society is up to individual discretion, but one thing is for certain- things are, and will, change, due to the movements of both civil and intelligent disobedience, for better or for
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