# Who came up with this political/philosophical idea? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 27, 2008, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-came-up-with-this-political-philosophical-idea/450738 "2008-05-27T08:26:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-came-up-with-this-political-philosophical-idea/450738/1 "2008-05-27T08:26:04Z")
I don’t lay claim to it myself of course, I’m sure I read about it before but I’m stumped if I try to remember who said it. I’ve half an idea it was Ghandi, someone on another board suggested it was reminiscent of Voltaire. The gist of it is that if you disagree with something, some law that a government lays down for example, then to show up how bad it is you should be willing to accept any punishment that they give for disobeying it. Something along the lines of having to go through with the whole thing to appreciate it and be able to criticise it fully. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-came-up-with-this-political-philosophical-idea/450738/2 "2008-05-27T13:33:35Z")
One source or influence on this idea might be [Henry David Thoreau](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau#Civil_disobedience_and_the_Walden_years:_1845.E2.80.931849): “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.” ETA: I can’t find a cite, but I seem to remember that he argued with Emerson over this vis-a-vis opposition to the Mexican War–something like Ralph asks Henry, “what are you doing in there?”, and Henry retorts “what are _you_ doing _out there_?!” ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-came-up-with-this-political-philosophical-idea/450738/3 "2008-05-27T13:39:25Z")
I thought it was Socrates, who proved to be the extreme opposite of a kool-aide drinker. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-came-up-with-this-political-philosophical-idea/450738/4 "2008-05-27T23:43:46Z")
I once heard someone on TV speak of three principles of non-violent protest. 1. Protest a specific law. 2. Do so non-violently. 3. Submit to punishment to show you still believe in the system, i.e, accept working through the system. No cite, but I am certain this is how the speaker stated these principles. What I’m not certain of is the identity of the speaker and his source. Oddly, my memory says the speaker was Roger Ebert, possibly in a review of the movie “Gandhi”, and the principles were second- or third-hand from Martin Luther King, Jr. And the speaker may have said King got it indirectly from Gandhi. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-came-up-with-this-political-philosophical-idea/450738/5 "2008-05-27T23:53:24Z")
My statement of number 3 is the exact way I heard it stated. In other words, you were still willing to work within the system as opposed defying the whole system which would be a higher level of threat. ---
**Author:** ![WoodenTaco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/45deac/32.png) [@WoodenTaco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WoodenTaco)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2008, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-came-up-with-this-political-philosophical-idea/450738/6 "2008-05-27T23:56:05Z")
It’s called [civil disobedience](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience), and Henry David Thoreau was perhaps the first to articulate it clearly in his essay “[Resistance to Civil Government](http://sniggle.net/Experiment/index.php?entry=rtcg).” The famous line (cited above) is that _“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”_ The idea has been refined continuously since then, from Thoreau to Tolstoy to Gandhi to King.