Disobedience By Oscar Wilde

Irish author, Oscar Wilde, once said, “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” Disobedience is the failure or refusal to obey rules. Wilde claims that disobedience is a trait that is vital to social progress. In the play, “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare follows the life of a prosperous Roman politician who surround himself around deceitful people. Caesar’s was stabbed to death by his associate, Brutus, who was motivated by Cassius, Caesar’s other associate.Caesar’s largest support system came from Antony. The characters in Julius Caesar proves that disobedience is a trait that is critical to human progression.

Disobedience is a valuable human traits because through disobedience it have bring great change in the society which have impact all people around the world. For example people who disobedience the law to bring change in their society are such as Martin Luther king, Malala yousafzai, and Mahatma gandhi. These three people had a great impact on people's lives and change the society forever by disobedience.

Human beings possess several virtues that differentiate them from other creatures and can use them in ways that represent their perceptions of social order. Surprisingly, Oscar Wilde believes that disobedience is an original virtue of every human and that it is responsible for progress and development. While Wilde’s claim is not entirely accurate, it is largely valid as evidenced by the recent events across the world, including the US, that have led to positive outcomes in spite of being termed and perceived as acts of disobedience.

Oscar Wilde believed rebellion was necessary for social progress and confided in disobedience being an essential human trait. In order to experience modification, you rebel against the discriminating laws that bring problems to you and your people. Furthermore, when awareness is given to an issue, there is extensive social progress being taken place.

Disobedience is an important force in our society and helps bring about necessary social progress because it will lead to superior lives for its citizens. Oscar Wilde believed that through disobedience there is man’s original virtue. He asserts that civil disobedience promotes social progress. I agree with Wilde's belief because looking throughout centuries, society has shown a variety of situations with the act of practicing disobedience,and have achieved their goal.

Anthem, the futuristic novel pinned by Ayn Rand in 1937 gives light to a very scary place and time. This writing expressed her views and beliefs that the United States would be repeating a dark place of its history. Setting the preface where slavery and dictatorship was once more the social norm. As with most forward thinkers their thoughts and ideas are concerned extreme and not given the validity they deserve until future generation look back into the past. History and human behavior always repeats itself.

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” Henry David Thoreau, a well known essayist, wrote: Walden. Thoreau supports Wilde’s claim of disobedience promoting social progress. He mentions that people who live in obedience are not living at all. Progress is defined as a forward or onward movement toward a destination. The only way society can progress is through evolution, as people grow from a simple neanderthal to complex modern humans like us. And in order to evolve, there must be a break in pattern: disobedience-failure or refusal to obey rules in authority. There is no development if everyone is a collective mind. Examples are seen in Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 with the protagonist, Montag,

The author exemplifies the ways that disobedience helps the society and its contribution to furthering the human race but notes on the fact that blind obedience may eventually account for the end of civilization.

Psychologists take the effort to contrast the influences of people in regard to thinking, awareness, feelings, actions, attitudes, and behavior. Society tends to form responses from how one person’s actions ultimately causes various stereotypes and prejudices to be generated. Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram, discusses various subjects such as impression, stereotypes and prejudices, attribution, attitudes, social influence, attraction, obedience and authority, groups, and helping behavior. Milgram explains, “A person does not get to see the whole situation but only a small part of it, and is thus unable to act without some kind of over-all direction. He yields to authority but in doing so are alienated from his own actions.” (Milgram 11). In this passage, the author shows how in a workplace, people are given small and narrow jobs which is arguably taking away human qualities. Due to the fact that, workers cannot see the full overview of the job that is being done and can only see the specific job that was designated, forces the workers to comply with authority, with the concept in mind that the workers are inferior. This works in many cases, if someone is told a small portion of a project is designated to them, instead of the full project; the worker will feel more inferior to the superior workers, which is an astute way to run an operation. Milgram also discusses, “Within the experimental setting, we find the three elements: position, status and action. Position

“Anthem” by Ayn Rand, is a story about the meaning behind self development of a person’s own thoughts. Ayn Rand was born February 2, 1905 in Saint petersburg, Russia. She is a novelist,philosopher, and screenwriter.

Civil disobedience is the refusal to obey civil laws in an effort to induce change in governmental policy or legislation. Thoreau 's infamous ideas on "Civil Disobedience," written in 1849, have been monumental in the fight for change. It has helped influence change anywhere from the 1940s fight against Danish resistance, to the 1950s and McCarthyism. Thoreau 's words have helped lead the way to freedom. It has made the people of the world think about how they are being governed and how they are being treated. Thoreau 's message of freedom in “Civil Disobedience”, transcend his own time to be so influential to those throughout history for three main reasons which are that he is read around the world, it had to do with helping yourself, and he connected it to real life.

Through the course of history, many things were needed to be reformed in order for the world to be in the state it is today. As early civilizations attempted various ways to govern, change was necessary in an attempt to maximize the efficiency of their systems. Although some members of society may be blind to necessary progressive reforms, others will always attempt to make changes for the better. Irish author, Oscar Wilde, claims that it is due to man’s virtue of disobedience that social progression was able to be achieved. Many would argue against Wilde’s claim of disobedience as a virtue due to the violence and disruptions that come as a result; however, it is through civil acts of disobedience that social progress can be made.

Disobedience is seen as disobedience from the eyes of the oppressor. Disobedience is a method used by the gifted human minds to progress in life. You and I are both here right now because of every form of disobedience. Without it, racial groups would never advance nor experience equality. Disobedience is in fact a man’s original virtue and with such actions come results- social progress.

Disobedience has been a man’s virtue ever since laws have been constructed. As a progression that has developed in our society , it is safely to indicate that disobedience is morally acceptable by the common people. In order for change, people have demonstrated  disobedience successfully to promote social progress, change is impossible without disobedience.Our society has failed to realize that there is no such thing a “perfect society”. There are people in our society who agree with change and would sacrifice themselves for it through violence and multiple times of rejection. Many individuals known as the majority simply do not like change. This majority is the group that construct these laws that we must follow.  Thoreau states ,” A majority is permitted , and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are mostly likely right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority,  but because they are physically the strongest.” Although we do perceive the system as the strongest, citizens still use disobedience to challenge the system’s authority. Disobedience is a man’s virtue when our natural rights are being violated by the majority . In order for change to occur the common people must use disobedience to fight the injustice in their society to promote social progress.

Justice is the process result of using law to fairly judge and punish a crime or a criminal. Injustice is the lack of fairness and justice. Martin Luther King Jr. led the civil rights movement. This movement was a mass popular movement to secure equal access and opportunities for the basic privileges and rights of U.S. citizenship to all the people living in America. The act was active between 1955 and 1968. King was famous for using nonviolent resistance to overcome injustice, and he never got tired of trying to end segregation laws. In 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and sent to jail because he and others were protesting the treatment of blacks in Birmingham, Alabama. A court had ordered that King could not hold protests in Birmingham. While King was in jail, he wrote a letter, “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, to the newspaper explaining why he had broken the law. In the book, “Antigone” by Sophocles, similar events had happened to the main character, Antigone. Creon, the king of Thebes, had ordered for no one to mourn over the death of Polynices, son of Oedipus (the former king of Thebes who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother), there was to be no type of burial or prayers for him. If anyone was to try and touch the body of Polynices there was to be sentenced to death. Antigone played a bigger role than Creon in that she defied the law and started the whole play’s chain of events, eventually leading to nearly everyone’s death. Regardless Ismene’s, her sister, warning to listen to the king’s edict, Antigone gave her brother a burial, prayers and poured ritual wine on the corpse. Martin Luther King Jr. and Antigone both had fought for something they believed in, something that went against the law and both were punished for their ‘crime’.