April’s Reviews > On Civil Disobedience > Status Update

Whereas Thoreau and the tradition of conscientious civil disobedience believe that punishment for breaking the law is a sign of the civil disobedient's willingness to suffer for their moral action, Arendt believes that civil disobedients are political actors and should not be treated as criminals.

“Loss of power and authority by all the great powers is clearly visible, even though it is accompanied by an immense accumulation of the means of violence in the hands of the governments.” Hannah Arendt

So much of the anger and dissatisfaction with government today is traceable to what Arendt calls the disempowerment of self-government by citizens and the elevation of bureaucratic elites and experts to positions of power insulated from democratic control. It is this cordoning off of power from the citizens that, Arendt argues, makes the collective power mobilized by civil disobedience so necessary and important.

“I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’” — MLKJ, Letters from Birmingham Jail