Is civil disobedience the same as uncivil obedience?
R.J.D.
On the chance that you’re not trying to be a smartass:
Civil disobedience* would be, roughly, not doing something but being polite about it.
Uncivil obedience would be, roughly, doing something but being rude about it.
*Civil disobedience n. the refusla to obey certain governmental laws or demands in order to influence legislation or policy, characterized by such nonviolent methods as nonpayment of taxes or boycotting. (Webster’s)
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Thunder’s just a noise, boys; lightning does the work. --C. Brock
Civil, in this case, refers to the operation of the government (think of Civics class), not to the manners of the person involved. You are disobedient to the civil government, not disobedient and being civil about it.
So, although Kat is correct that civil disobedience is characterized by good manners, the words civil and uncivil in the OP are not really antonyms. Uncivil is a reference to manners while civil, as noted above, refers to the subject of the disobedience.
That said, Thoreau was certainly aware of the dual meaning of the word civil and his use of the term is hardly accidental.
FWIW, civil disobedience, as described by Thoreau and practiced by Ghandi, requires submitting yourself to the law following your disobedience. The point is to call attention to the injustice of the law by requiring its enforcement. Many (not all) protests that hide behind the moniker of civil disobedience are nothing of the sort.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
During the summer of 1979, It was my pleasure to climb the fences of two nuclear power plants.
We were told not to.
We said we would anyway.
They said they’d have us aressted.
We said fine.
So we climbed the fences.
And they arrested us.
At the first one they arrested 510 people.
It went like this:
They said: “you’re under arrest.”
We said, “Okay.”
They said, “Come with us.”
We said , no carry us. And we were nice about it, we weren’t obnoxious, sure some of the cops were pissed, but they carried us.
We were Civil and we were Disobiedient
That’s basically it.
If it jams, force it; if it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.