Dissent

Refers to the act of disagreement with official or government policy. Acts of dissent may be physical—for example, marching in protest or resisting arrest—or they may be verbal, as expressed by chanting slogans or giving speeches. Acts of dissent may also include theatrical performances and the production of art. They may be active or passive, and they may involve mass participation or they may be individual. Dissent may involve the active decision to do something, or it may be the refusal to do something. Dissent can be expressed both personally and politically.

In some societies, the consequences of dissent are severe. Different nations during different historical periods have been accused of resorting to arrests, beatings, imprisonment, and even execution in order to stifle disagreement with official policy. The development of media technology has served to pressure governments in how they respond to dissent, and certain televised acts of dissent have become symbolic. The confrontation between a lone Chinese student and a tank in Tiananmen Square has come to represent the bravery of disagreement.

The history of dissent in the United States extends across a variety of social movements and has included war protests, claims for civil rights, and opposition to racial or sexual discrimination. The United States is itself a country founded on the concept of dissent, with origins as a British territory populated by subjects who ultimately chose to resist colonial rule. In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville defined American democracy as having to do with protecting the individual from the “tyranny of the majority,” that is, the right to dissent.

A corollary to dissent is the concept of repressive tolerance, which insists that power structures tolerate certain levels of dissent in order to appear democratic. In this context, dissent is simply a way in which authorities convince subjects of the legitimacy of their own rule. The concept of repressive tolerance was very prevalent at the height of the anti–Vietnam War movement in the United States.

The social and political history of the United States may be described in terms of dissent. The Industrial Revolution entailed corresponding movements for workers' rights, strikes, and the development of labor unions. The question of states' rights versus the role of the federal government ultimately found focus in the slavery issue during the Civil War. The women's suffrage movement for equal rights was a product of the Progressive Era, a time underpinned by the belief that human nature could be fundamentally improved by better living and working conditions. The Progressive [Page 212]Era resulted in important reforms, such as child labor laws and production standards in factories, as well as ultimately failed social experiments such as Prohibition. The ending of Prohibition was in itself a product of dissent, because its unpopularity, exacerbated by the problem of noncompliance, led to its repeal.

The movement to gain equal rights for women was joined in the second half of the 20th century by two other broad movements of dissent in the United States: the civil-rights movement and the antiwar movement. All of these movements shared adherents as well as strategies for presenting their agendas through acts of dissent.

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