Sunday, August 20, 2006

Howard Zinn: The Problem of Civil Obedience

“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves…(and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”

Howard Zinn quoted in Will we use the power we have on September 24?

1 comment:

Susannity said...

I have really been struggling with this concept of late with my neighbors. When at my bookclub or social gatherings, they espouse beliefs, but when I question the rationale behind a belief, they can not define them. Ugh, it's too complicated to write about right now, but I feel they are sheep following the ideology of the primarily liberal Northwest without any real understanding of how their ACTIONS don't support what they say, without understanding why they believe a certain way, and without understanding how they and their wealth are not the norm. They are liberal to assuage guilt for amassing wealth, rather than for understanding empathy, democracy, and redistribution of wealth for the betterment of society. Their main goal is to fit in with the rest of the neighbors, not be real or improve ones' mind, but be of the same cloth. Their ethics are really no different than corrupt executives who will trash a company and its employees for their own wealth, but they don't see it. It actually makes me feel ill sometimes and I have a hard time discussing things with them. These are educated people with no real drive to use intellect. Ok I'm rambling, hope some of that made sense heh. I'm still trying to work it out in my own mind hence the rambling. =)