Rights vs. Duties

I've been thinking over the weekend about a question Joel raised on his blog -- in an entirely just society, is civil disobedience a right, or a duty?

Part of me wants to say that in a truly just society, civil disobedience would be unnecessary and leave it at that, but that approach seems a bit simplistic.

The question I would add to Joel's is this: Are rights and duties necessarily exclusive?

In the case of some other rights, I would say no. For instance, I believe that voting is both a right and a duty for any citizen who cares about the state of their country. On the other hand, there are rights for which this is not true -- I certainly would not say that we have a duty to bear arms, or to remain silent while being arrested.

In short, my response to Joel is that, in a just society -- or even a society that strives to be just -- citizens have both the right and the responsibility to civilly disobey if the society ever leans towards injustice.

Gandhi on How To Live

Although I didn't actually manage to get all the way through it, I found Gandhi's autobiography inspiring. In the past year I've done a great deal of pondering about minimalism and self-sufficiency. And then along comes Gandhi, who not only already thought of most of the ideas that came to me (or ideas very much like them) but did his best to live them out.

Avoiding the "hero worship" phenomenon could potentially be tricky, but then again, I've hardly given the book any thought in the context of civil disobedience, so I imagine my outlook will probably change.

Introduction

I'm JonDavid. I'm in my second year here.

I have a rudimentary knowledge of piano-tuning. My friends and family tell me I'm really good at making pancakes. I am an avid fan of Absurdist theatre, and my bangs are currently eight inches long.

That may sound mostly like arbitrary things I made up to fill space, but I can assure you that all of it is entirely true.