Synthesis of uploaded articles

¶ … Obedience to authority" asserts that by nature, humans are prone to obey rather than disobey. In fact, Fromm states that it difficult for humans to engage in acts of disobedience even when the consequences of doing so are great for the individual, society, and the larger, human moral order. Such was the case in World War II, when ordinary Germans engaged in mass slaughter. Obedience, says Fromm, allies the vulnerable individual with a larger, stronger power and makes him or her feel more powerful as a result. To be disobedient, the individual must not fear freedom. Freedom is necessary for disobedience to occur -- the individual must have a choice but also a sense of personal moral autonomy. The individual's sense of freedom must be internal as well as external.

Obedience is powerfully aligned with the Super Ego: cultural myths reinforce the idea that obedience is 'good' while disobedience is seen as a sin. The most powerful types of obedience are not coerced but instead make use of internal pressures and the transformation of the internal structures of a subject's psyche so he or she wants to obey and considers disobeying 'wrong' as well as a fearful act. Even a small child cannot be compelled to obey in all facets of life. Socially instilled guilt results in self-monitoring and a kind of constant 'watchfulness' over the self.

In the guise of the captured Nazi Eichmann, says Fromm, we see ourselves -- the man who insisted he was following orders as justification for his actions is simply a larger human tendency taken to the extreme. While he does not excuse Eichmann, Fromm's work is ultimately pessimistic about the ability to thwart future genocides in the future, or even for humans to simply question the negative moral constraints that govern our society.

Article 2: Uncivil disobedience

The images of civil rights protestors being blasted by police fire hoses, simply for exercising their right to sit at a lunch counter without regard to their race, creed, or color is emblazoned upon the American psyche, and is still often used as a defense of civil disobedience in the modern era. Yet n the article "Uncivil disobedience," authors James J. Lopach and Jean A. Luckowski attempt to contrast contemporary acts of civil disobedience by modern activists such as the Deep Ecology movement and Act Up! with the civil disobedience of Mahatma Gandhi and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. The authors state that Gandhi and King accepted the consequences of their actions, while modern protests are angry at receiving jail sentences. King was willing to "openly and lovingly" accept his penalty, in contrast to activists who merely break the law out of personal conscience.

Earth First and other pro-environmental groups earn the censure of the authors because they are 'ill tempered.' However, ill-tempered is a somewhat subjective judgment, given that the protestors of the civil rights era were likely to be judged as similarly 'ill tempered' by those who opposed African-American legal parity with whites. King's claim of lovingly breaking the law did not mean that he joyously accepted his punishment of jail time for exercising his rights in the segregated south: King may have embraced his punishment because of his hopes for change, not out of some sort of self-abnegating humility. The civil rights movement was about self-assertion of one's rights. The love in his heart came from his hope for the possibility of change. This did not mean, just like contemporary groups, that he was not outraged by his jailing and the violent actions of the police against civil rights demonstrators.

But James J. Lopach and Jean A. Luckowski seem to have another agenda: their distaste for the causes of Earth First and Act Up! are evident. It is easy to defend the disruption of the civil rights movement when it has been consigned to history. Moreover, there is the issue of comparing applies to oranges: invalidating an entire movement like Deep Ecology because it is not as collectively eloquent as a single, moral speaker also seems unfair: the authors are able to criticize environmentalism by selecting the most radical voices of the movement and selecting the most eloquent voice of the civil rights movement. Earth First and the Deep Ecology movement are also reproached because of the price their demonstrations have incurred on the part of law enforcement: but allowing political protests in a free society often has a price. The civil rights demonstrators were called 'troublemakers' for 'forcing' the police to keep the peace and the eviction of the British from India came at a tremendous financial cost.