Dissent
-
What is dissent in political theory?
In political theory, dissent is an unwillingness to cooperate with an established source of authority, be it social, cultural, or governmental. Critical thinking is often associated with dissent, as thinking for oneself and questioning accepted notions can lead to contrasting positions.
Dissent plays a role in a functioning political association by promoting the capacity of individuals to examine their lives and promoting public reasoning. Some political thinkers see dissent as a vital component of a healthy democracy because it can foster more-reflexive understandings of identity and a more-inclusive political culture.
2 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
Why do people express dissent in a political system?
People express dissent in a political system due to an unwillingness to cooperate with established authority. Dissent is connected to critical thinking, questioning accepted notions, and toleration, especially regarding minority groups. Political alienation, or a loss of faith in the political community, can also predispose individuals to challenge the system. Whether rooted in ideals of public reasoning, recognition of different identities, or disagreement, dissent plays a vital role in political discourse. Civil disobedience, a form of dissent, involves refusing to obey government demands without violence, aiming to force concessions and change.
4 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
What are some common ways that people show political dissent?
People show political dissent in many ways, from expressing critical thinking to active resistance. Dissent can involve noncooperation through boycotts, strikes, and civil disobedience, like openly defying unjust laws. Other methods include peaceful marches, rallies, and hunger strikes to highlight injustice and inspire moral conscience. When dissent escalates, it can manifest as rebellions or revolutions that seek to overthrow the existing political order. However, the most successful political systems are often those that allow dissent to influence the exercise of power and provide legal procedures for rivals to replace the government.
4 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
How can dissent influence laws or government decisions?
Dissent, or disagreement with established authority, plays a crucial role in influencing laws and government decisions. It encourages critical thinking and questions accepted norms, fostering public reasoning needed to assess the legitimacy of a state's actions.
Dissenting opinions and actions, such as civil disobedience, can force governments to make concessions. The toleration of dissenting practices expands inclusion and can increase the legitimacy of a government's policies. However, dissent can also destabilize a state if it undermines basic norms.
3 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
What challenges or risks might people face when dissenting in different countries?
Dissent can present various challenges and risks depending on the country and its political system. In many countries, dissent is seen as critical thinking that questions established authority. However, those who express dissenting opinions may face significant obstacles.
In countries with authoritarian regimes, such as Putin's Russia, expressing dissent can lead to severe consequences, including political persecution, imprisonment, or even assassination. Similarly, in Communist China, intellectuals and activists who voiced dissenting opinions have historically faced repression, re-education, and censorship. Even in countries with democratic systems, dissenters may encounter social stigma, economic repercussions, or legal challenges, although the severity is generally less extreme. The Tiananmen Square incident exemplifies the risks associated with dissent in certain political contexts.
4 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
How have historical acts of dissent impacted political systems or social change?
Dissent, or the refusal to cooperate with established authority, is linked to critical thinking and challenges political legitimacy. Civil disobedience, a form of dissent, involves symbolic law violations to force government concessions, setting a moral example to provoke political, social, and economic change.
Dissent can foster public reasoning and is vital for healthy democratic politics, promoting inclusive pluralism. However, authoritarian regimes often suppress dissent through strict control, limiting freedoms, civil society, and the press, and co-opting institutions to maintain power. Historical acts of dissent have modified regimes by challenging dogmatic claims through counterpropaganda.
5 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Dissent, an unwillingness to cooperate with an established source of authority, which can be social, cultural, or governmental. In political theory, dissent has been studied mainly in relation to governmental power, inquiring into how and to what extent dissent should be promoted, tolerated, and controlled by a state. Dissent is often related to two other concepts, critical thinking and toleration. Both play into the problem of political legitimacy.
Dissent has primarily been associated with the activity of critical thinking, or thinking for oneself and questioning accepted notions of authority, truth, and meaning. Critical thinking itself has frequently been seen as activity that, in some sense, must necessarily involve dissent. To think for oneself, to be what the 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant would call mature, or to pursue an āexamined lifeā often involves developing positions that contrast with the conventions of a thinkerās age and society. This puts critical thinking individuals at odds with other members of their society and frequently with the state itself. Dissent, then, is a powerful source for developing effective public reasoning, itself necessary for determining the legitimacy of the actions and institutions of a given state as well as the customs and practices of a given society.
The question that arises is of what role dissent that flows from critical thinking should play in a functioning political association. For Plato and Kant, dissent was important for promoting either the capacity of individuals to examine their lives in relation to others or a collective capacity for public reasoning. However, dissent can go only so far. People can practice the examined life as much as they want and promote enlightened public reasoning as much as possible, but, ultimately, critical thinkers must obey the laws or sovereign power within their polity.
" height="20" alt="HEW Logo">
More recent thinkersābe they 19th-century liberals like John Stuart Mill or 20th-century critics of liberalism like Michel Foucault or the members of the Frankfurt Schoolāconsidered dissent as a vital good, one whose relative absence in 19th- and 20th-century democracies went to the heart of the malaise that affected those states. Modern democracies are seen as fostering forms of self-censorship, pernicious ideals of normality, or intellectually asphyxiating forms of culture. Each of these inhibits critical thinking, thus minimizing dissent and limiting the development of effective forms of public deliberation.
Dissentās relationship to toleration involves the role of minority groups in larger collectivities, whose practices are often seen by other members of the larger collective as dissenting from the norms of that collective. Frequently, the issue of dissent and toleration has involved religious minorities. In his famous piece A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), John Locke argued that tolerance is indeed a Christian virtue and that the state as a civic association should be concerned only with civic interests, not spiritual ones. Lockeās separation of church and state stood at the beginning of a debate about the limits of religious dissent from civic authority in the name of not unduly hampering an individualās or a groupās spiritual practices.
The toleration of dissenting religious practices can often be a vital force for expanding the scope of inclusion and consent within a state, thereby increasing the legitimacy of the laws and policies of a given state. Yet, it can also be a destabilizing force that undermines the legitimacy of the state by compelling the state to sanction practices that contravene what others see as basic and universal norms. Through simply tolerating but not critically scrutinizing such dissenting practices, the state might be involved in implicitly sanctioning, without directly legitimating, one set of metaphysical or theistic biases while marginalizing, and in some sense implicitly discrediting, the beliefs of those it seeks to accommodate.
Beginning in the late 20th century, numerous scholars have focused on the dissent of ethnic or cultural minorities. Here the claims often involve appeals for recognition of different identities. Individuals who belong to minority ethnic or cultural collectives, which often engage in dissenting practices, ask to have their differences accommodated so that they have an equal opportunity, vis-Ć -vis members of a majority group, to pursue their ideals of the good life. Many see the struggles for recognition of dissenting identities as integral to healthy democratic politics, as they promote more-reflexive understandings of identity and, with that, a more-inclusive pluralist political culture. Others worry about the spectre of fragmentation.
The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.
SUBSCRIBE
