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The statement builds upon the long-held binary of individual versus collective, which evokes the seminal work of Jean Jacque Rousseau who discusses an individual’s part in a society in the form of social contract. As democracy developed as a way of collective decision from the late 15th century to the 20th century worldwide, individual’s responsibility in a society has become a more disputed subject than ever. In this context, the statement takes on the position that individuals have a responsibility to obey or disobey laws based on the degree of justice they perceive. While this argument may appear reasonable on the surface, this essay will argue that the superficial soundness of the statement belies underlying assumptions that are unwarranted and may even lead to dangerous consequences for a larger society.
What the statement essentially assumes is that individuals have the duties and permission to judge the level of justice of any laws in a given society. Underlying the assumption is a triple set of binaries upon which the statement builds its argument: individuals and a society; justice and injustice; and obeyance and resistance. In this world of clear-cut dichotomy that the statement offers, it glimpses at a liberating possibility where individual thinking of justice is respected and promoted. While it is admittedly a universally heralded right for any individual in a democratic society to form and express freely opinions regarding social agreements, acting upon subjective judgements of social agreements is a separate matter.
It is precisely this part of allowing individuals to act that the statement implies dangerous consequences for a society. Allowing individuals to obey or resist laws is beyond what is agreed upon socially for an individual. The statement implies that Individuals do indeed have the right to override social agreements and act based on their subjective interpretation of legal arrangements. As the interpretation of any matter differs by person, so is that of laws. Naturally, the subjective interpretation of justice must differ by the positions, backgrounds, and interests of the individual. It is especially the case of justice: What is fair to an individual is judged based on individual interpretation of benefits that the law can offer. Imagine a society where individuals decide the level of justice and act upon their judgement. Corporations that lose their profits because of the environmental law would stop abiding by the law because in their eyes, the law would not be “just." Individuals would cease to think of collective benefits but what would be narrow definition of justice for them. The collective consideration of justice stops when the door for action based on subjective interpretation opens.
The problem would be further complicated when certain individuals or groups with better access to resources and information act out their own interpretation of justice. Let us consider the recent case of governmental surveillance that Edward Snowden brought to the world by revealing the inside workings of federal surveillance of individual communications in the United States and beyond. What may be just under the name of national security may bring about contentions to those who think otherwise and value privacy and individual rights over the vague, elusive mission of anti-terrorism. Even his own action based on personal conviction of justice is a point of contention as he, in the eyes of federal government, is considered a criminal to leak such confidential information.
Individual versus society is a long-held battlefield in which individual rights and collective system collide and challenge each other for the benefits of collective living as a society. Sometimes this collective mission has been executed at the cost of individuals, which the prompt has attempted to defend. The statement’s attempt at reconciling the individuals, however, overrode and nullified the collective agreement. By allowing the subjective interpretation of social agreements that are compiled into a collective entity of laws, the statement may have allowed individuals certain rights reserved for the society as a whole because collective agreement allows the society to exist as a collective to begin with. Rather than promoting elusive ideas and impossible mission of subjective interpretation of justice, we as a society should strive to devise a better system through which individuals can freely express ideas on justice and improve our social workings as a collective. |