The Dissent of the Governed : A Meditation on Law, Religion, and Loyalty

The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in American Studies

by Stephen L. Carter

Between loyalty and disobedience; between recognition of the law's authority and realization that the law is not always In America, this conflict is historic, with results as glorious as the mass protests of the civil rights movement and as inglorious as the armed violence of the militia movement. In an impassioned defense of dissent, Stephen L. Carter argues for the dialogue that negotiates this conflict and keeps democracy alive. His book portrays an America dying from a refusal to engage in such a dialogue, a polity where everybody speaks, but nobody listens. The Dissent of the Governed is an eloquent diagnosis of what ails the American body politic--the unwillingness of people in power to hear disagreement unless forced to--and a prescription for a new process of response. Carter examines the divided American political character on dissent, with special reference to religion, identifying it in unexpected places, with an eye toward amending it before it destroys our democracy. At the heart of this work is a rereading of the Declaration of Independence that puts dissent, not consent, at the center of the question of the legitimacy of democratic government. Carter warns that our liberal constitutional ethos--the tendency to assume that the nation must everywhere be morally the same--pressures citizens to be other than themselves when being themselves would lead to disobedience. This tendency, he argues, is particularly hard on religious citizens, whose notion of community may be quite different from that of the sovereign majority of citizens. His book makes a powerful case for the autonomy of communities--especially but not exclusively religious--into which democratic citizens organize themselves as a condition for dissent, dialogue, and independence. With reference to a number of cases, Carter shows how disobedience is sometimes necessary to the heartbeat of our democracy--and how the distinction between challenging accepted norms and challenging the sovereign itself, a distinction crucial to the Declaration of Independence, must be kept alive if Americans are to progress and prosper as a nation.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

167 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Stephen L. Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale where he has taught since 1982. He has published seven critically acclaimed nonfiction books on topics ranging from affirmative action to religion and politics. His first novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), was an immediate national best seller. His latest novel is New England White (Knopf, 2007). A recipient of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature-Fiction, he lives near New Haven, Connecticut."

Also writes under the pen name A.L Shields.

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really at all what I was thinking this was going to be (or be about). I thought this was going to be more about disobedience in the sense of Thoreau or maybe Ali with his conscientious objector, but this is more or less just why the government is encroaching on religions and how those religions should use the wording of the Declaration in the opposite way that it's been used for quite some time.

I cannot quite foresee any of that happening, and he even kind of walks-back his statements on things like that, saying "this is just a scenario" or "a possibility" "I'm not advocating for this, but it could be done this way", and it all just sounds -wishy-washy- then because of that. He wants to give a 'legal idea' but then backs away from it.

The entire treatise is very heavily biased towards Christianity, and in a Black Protestant kind of way. And this just kind of muddles the points, and clearly takes away from how I viewed what this was going to be about given the title. Obviously religion was going to factor into it, but didn't think it'd be the complete deciding factor to all things related to disobedience in the meditations/lectures/treatise. I'm a bit disappointed that the main emphasis was treating the sovereign of religion over the sovereign of the government, and therefore the disobedience comes from placing God (Christian God more or less due to his biased) above that of Government, and obeying God over that of Government. He discusses peyote, polygamy, etc as examples of things that is disobedient to Government but not to God; but doesn't quite see the slippery slope of allowing religion to trump laws of the state. Namely, if I have a religion X that says X is good, that I should do X even though X could be harmful to myself, others, to my mentality, to others mentality, or even to the state/environment itself. Where do you draw the line then on that?

I think there is some valid points and some well thought out thoughts... but the biased nature of the piece and the overall lacking problems of thought really hurts this.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The legitimacy of a government is measured by its ability to accommodate dissent.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a long time now, at least since my wife and I visited the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, I've been thinking about the circumstances that precipitate civil disobedience.

In order for civil disobedience to be justified (assuming, of course, that it needs to be), it must appeal to a morality higher than the law of the state. As a Christian that's not a stretch for me, and the civil rights movement (at least as articulated by MLK) found its justification in transcendent Christian principles. In the state's view, however, there sometimes is no law higher than its own. This book squarely addresses that point of conflict, and I find the author's arguments very persuasive.

One of Carter's best observations is that many progressives who once championed civil disobedience in response the Vietnam War and segregation now seek to suppress and qualify it as it relates to issues like opposition to current abortion laws. This dynamic can be observed anywhere a self-defined group opposes a mandate of the state, regardless of which component is liberal and which is conservative.

The petition of a small but vocal minority is usually considered a nuisance, but the author insists that we must be very careful about how we contend with it if we are to maintain a broad allegiance to our common purpose.

[Jean Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting thoughts by the author about how important dissent is and his belief that dialogue is what the Declaration of Independence is all about. I found myself strongly agreeing with his assessment (even though he wrote it in the 1990's) that in America now everyone is speaking but no one is listening.

[Daniel Weir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although written twenty years ago, Carter's meditation on the importance of dissent in the United States is still relevant. The heart of his argument is that stifling dissent can lead to disallegiance, as it did when the repeated petitions of the American colonies led to the Declaration of Independence.