« SCOTUS to review Texas holding that defendant silence can be taken as ‘substantive evidence of guilt’ | Home | Recent Comments | Categories | Now that you killed him… »
JSTOR liberator
[Quote]:
The Aaron Swartz JSTOR liberator is a tiny bit of civil disobedience, presented to you in clicktivism form. By running this bookmarklet (which you should not do if you are not comfortable potentially violating terms of service), you will visit JSTOR, a keeper of academic articles, be presented with a random paper, and will download a single paper from the site. You will have to click a terms of service agreement agreeing to not share the document you are reading, yet you will then download it and uploaded to another server. It will also ask for a message of memorial about Aaron. We will be gathering your messages of memorial and rememberance of Aaron to put up soon.
|
One of the tenets of civil disobedience is to accept the consequences. Swartz wasn’t willing to do that. I’m guessing most of the “clicktivists” are, though.
Um…Rob? Have you been paying attention, here? Or am I missing the irony thingy?
I didn’t take that site or the post as irony, Sue, so maybe it was me who missed it. Swartz committed suicide rather than face up to the consequences of his activities, however harsh/unjust/whatever those consequences were. The linked site is asking people to engage in civil obedience. Civil disobedience is a pretty accurate description of Swartz’s activities. Are they willing to face the consequences or will they all commit suicide, too?
You might think suicide is running away (or the most sincere form of self-criticism). I don’t know Mr. Swartz’s exact motives, but this one of the most effective forms of protest against injustice; cf the Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi, and Buddist monks from Vietnam to Tibet/China.
It is a lot harder to lock up or intimidate scores, or hundreds of others who follow this idea, especially as it is a form of free expression and political protest.
Small correction: The instance of obedience in my previous comment should have been disobedience. Looks like you got me anyway.
You may very well be right, though, Sue. I don’t know his exact motives, either. And you’re probably right about intimidation. I don’t think the government has any designs on locking up hundreds/thousands of others. They just got a big fish and decided to slam him so hard that the little fish would be scared.
Still, Swartz poked a hornet’s nest with a stick. I wish he’d have stayed around to see it through.
i think the biggest issue i have with this argument is the notion that whoever this Rob guy is gets to decide what the “rules” or “tenets” of civil disobedience are. this situation eludes your boilerplate style reasoning faculties.
I didn’t decide on anything, florian. If you’re not sure what civil disobedience is, there are a number of places you can look it up. Or did you think that maybe someone just threw those two words together and not know that civil disobedience was a thing?
You can start at Stanford University if you like:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civil-disobedience/#FeaCivDis
Webster has thoughts on the matter, too:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civil%20disobedience
“The civil disobedient, finding legitimate avenues of change blocked or nonexistent, sees himself as obligated by a higher, extralegal principle to break some specific law. By submitting to punishment, the civil disobedient hopes to set a moral example that will provoke the majority or the government into effecting meaningful political, social, or economic change.”
Swartz didn’t hold up his end. Still saddened he chose death over the good fight.
I think Sue is arguing that by committing suicide, Swartz may have doubled down on the civil disobedience. In some sense, the (perceived) injustness of the prosecution of his first act gave him a second cause to protest and (you could claim) he did so by shaming the prosecution.
If that’s the case, he certainly hid it well, as no evidence has come from those close to him that this was the case.
That’s a romantic notion, Desiato. I’d like to think that, too. At this moment, I tend to believe he committed suicide for the same reason most do; depression about what may lie ahead.
@Rob: if you think that “most” suicide is from what you call depression, what does that mean? Suicide can, in my experience, equally be to punish, expose a perceived injustice, save another from hurt, express anger, frustration…true, all these can also be part of “depression”.
I don’t think suicide is actually cowardly, which is what I understand you to mean. Regrettable, depending on circumstances. I really, really, regret Mr. Swartz’s death.
@Sue – Didn’t say cowardly. Other than that, I’m not sure I’m saying anything all that much different from what you’re saying. I regret his Swartz’s, too. I espcially like where you ask me a question and then proceed to answer it better than I would have. Thanks.
I regret Swartz’ death is what I meant to say. Sorry.