Bernard Boxill. Self-Respect and Protest
1976, Philosophy and Public Affairs 6(1): 58-69.
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, Contributed by: Henry KrahnAbstract:
Must a person protest his wrongs? Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois debated this question at the turn of the century. They did not disagree over whether protesting injustice was an effective way to right it, but over whether protesting injustice, when one could do nothing to right it oneself, was self-respecting. Washington felt that it was not. Thus, he did not deny that protest could help ameliorate conditions or that it was sometimes justified; what he did deny was that a person should keep protesting wrongs committed against him when he could not take decisive steps to end them. By insisting on "advertising his wrongs" in such cases, he argued, a person betrayed a weakness for relying, not on his "own efforts" but on the "sympathy" of others. Washington's position was that if a person felt wronged, he should do something about it; if he could do nothing he should hold his tongue and wait his opportunity; protest in such cases is only a servile appeal for sympathy; stoicism, by implication, is better. Dubois strongly contested these views. Not only did he deny that protest is an appeal for sympathy, he maintained that if a person failed to express openly his outrage at injustice, however assiduously he worked against it, he would in the long run lose his self-respect. Thus, he asserted that Washington faced a "paradox" by insisting both on "self-respect" and on "a silent submission to civic inferiority," and he declared that "only in a . . . persistent demand for essential equality . . . can any people show . . . a decent self-respect." Like Frederick Douglass, he concluded that people should protest their wrongs. In this essay I shall expand upon and defend Dubois' side of the debate. I shall argue that persons have reason to protest their wrongs not only to stop injustice but also to show self-respect and to know themselves as self-respecting.Comment: Boxill characterizes the debate between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Dubois over protest and offers an original intervention: the self-respecting person has reason to protest in order to know that they have self-respect. This paper could be valuable as part of an advanced political philosophy syllabus on protest or as part of a syllabus on Africana philosophy.
Butler, Judith, Athena Athanasiou. The Political Promise of the Performative
2013, In: Dispossession: The Performative in the Political. London: Polity. 140-148.
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Added by: Rossen VentzislavovSummary: In this conversation Butler and Athanasiou explore the parameters of the public performance of political dissent. They discuss instances of political protest that link up to Butler and Athanasiou's shared sense of performativity. For the two of them, performativity is the aspect of our social life that manifests surprise, challenge and urgency through the human body. This makes the performative an especially effective instrument against the disparity, dispossession and desperation the better part of humanity is forced to endure.Comment: This text is best used as a further or specialised reading in classes on political dissent and subversion of social norms. It can inspire interesting discussions on ways to express dissent and protest, and can be very useful in discussions of politically involved art.
Pasternak, Avia. Political Rioting: A Moral Assessment
2018, Philosophy and Public Affairs
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, Contributed by: Henry KrahnAbstract:
Avia Pasternak offers a moral assessment of political rioting, focusing on cases like the riots over the police killing of Freddie Gray in Baltimore in 2015 and the 2005 French Banlieu riots. As she notes, there are two common responses to such cases: that rioters are just the same as common criminals, or that rioters are morally worse than common criminals. In response, Pasternak develops an analysis of political rioting as a form of "spontaneous, disorganized, public collective violence in order to protest against and to defy [the] political order" (2). In her view, political rioting ought to be understood as a form of defensive harm--harm inflicted in order to avert an attack, as in justified cases of self-defence or just wars. Those who engage in political rioting, Pasternak argues, "do so in order to bring an end, or at least to ameliorate their on-going unjust treatment at the hands of their state. It follows then that in determining the appropriate moral response to rioters, we ought to examine their actions in light of the various constraints offered by just war theorists" (3). Pasternak focuses on three such constraints: necessity, success, and proportionality. And she argues that, objections to the contrary notwithstanding, "under circumstances that are not far from those we find in some real-world democracies, the resort to political rioting can comply with the criteria of permissible defensive harm" (4).Comment: This paper offers a thorough and careful discussion of political rioting that is deeply informed by real-life cases, which it discusses in detail. This paper would be a great starting place for a class discussion over what people are entitled to do in situations of entrenched injustice, or over the limits of morally acceptable protest. The paper's analysis builds on the just war literature, so the paper could also be used in a class on the ethics of war to discuss how principles from that literature apply to domestic politics.
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