So You Want to Be a Dissident? | the New Yorker

The retreat, rather, is best attributed to a combination of fear and uncertainty among those who enforce and interpret the laws—especially departments of government and federal judges.

Starting in the 1960s, the social and legal institutions of America were remade to try to eliminate unfair choices by people in positions of responsibility. The new legal structures reflected a deep distrust of human authority in even its more benign forms—a teacher’s authority in the classroom, or a manager’s judgments about who’s doing the job, o

The most effective protests create an environment whereby changing the racist policy becomes in power’s self-interest, like desegregating businesses because the sit-ins are driving away customers, like increasing wages to restart production, like giving teachers raises to resume schooling, like passing a law to attract a well-organized force of don

“Civil Disobedience without the constructive programme,” he wrote, “will be like a paralysed hand attempting to lift a spoon.”