Uncivil Disobedience

One evening when I was an undergraduate some friends teased me when I chose not to take a shortcut by driving in the exit to a dorm driveway. After all I was willing and publicly disobeying the law in protest of the war in Viet Nam. Why would I go out of my by choosing not to disobey the Do Not Enter sign? The reason was obvious, at least to me. That minor act of disobedience would not have been at all civil, but simply selfish, showing disrespect for a law that inconvenienced me.

 

I thought of that night today as I watched a man jaywalking with his young son. We live in a town with many downtown crosswalks paved with bricks, so jaywalking seems to me to be a fairly insignificant act performed for one's own convenience. When I see an adult doing it with his or her children I wonder what lesson is being learned by the children. Are rules meant to be obeyed only when it is convenient? I once mailed to a man a piece of litter he had thrown from his car. After calling mu office a few times when I wasn't there he left a simple message: he would refrain from littering when I was around.

 

When I was struggling with my commitment to pacifism I recall someone observing that we learn nonviolence not by refusing to kill someone but by refusing to respond violently to the small aggressions we experience on an almost daily basis. As Jesus said faithfulness in small things prepares us to be faithful in greater matters. (Luke 16:10)

 

It seems that uncivil disobedience is becoming more common in this country. When I ignore posed speed limits or fail to stop at stop signs, I am participating in uncivil disobedience. Unlike the civil disobedience in which I have participated, these actions are not done in obedience to a higher law or in protest of injustice, but simply for my convenience. Unlike the acts for which I was arrested more than forty years ago, these acts are preformed with the hope that I won't be arrested.

 

I'm not sure that these fairly minor crimes are eroding a commitment to the laws that keep order in our country. There have always been those who disobey laws that they find inconvenient and there are those, as in the case of Cliven Bundy, who are seen as heroes for their acts of disobedience. I might have been more amenable to seeing Bundy's actions as civil disobedience if he hadn't been protected from the consequences by armed supporters. When I refused an improper order from my draft board I was protected from the consequences only by a determined attorney and a wide circle of friends.