It is very easy, with the benefit of hindsight, to admire a man like John Brown who was willing to put his life in real danger to free slaves, even when this involved killing slaveholders from time to time. However, I feel like John Brown presents a "simpler" example because as a society we all agree, especially now, that slavery is wrong. The reason I brought up Law and Order (episode name = "Dignity") is because I am unsure about how to apply John Brown's principles in the present - when a moral issue is not as settled as slavery is now. How should we act when we feel, as individuals, that a moral wrong is being perpetrated, but the government and perhaps even the majority of society do not agree with us? How far can, or should, we take our "civil disobedience"?

The internet quickly revealed that the Law and Order episode I mentioned is based on Scott Roeder's murder of Dr. Tiller. Roeder explained his actions at trial as an attempt to save unborn children (my source is Wikipedia, hope that's academic enough). John Brown was driven, at least in part, by his pity of the "poor in bondage that have none to help them" (p. 4 of the interview). Roeder was driven by his belief that unborn children deserved help as well.

I think it is a safe assumption that the vast majority, if not all, of the people reading this right now (including myself) would say that Roeder, regardless of the sincerity of his faith, took his belief too far and went "over the line". However, the second result from a google search of "Scott Roeder" reveals a website whose "purpose is to be a blessing to our dear brother Scott and biblically defend his actions". It seems to me that if you ask some people in this country, Roeder to them might seem like a modern-day John Brown.

My question then is, what would emulating John Brown actually entail for each of us? When Eben coaxes us to find the John Brown inside of us, what does that mean in practical terms? To be willing to bend and even break the law for the sake of what we feel is "right"? To put lives, especially of others, in danger for the sake of our belief? What gives us the right to decide that our belief is "right" to the exclusion of the belief of others, and to sacrifice the lives of others under this assumption?

And what if we're wrong?

-- JosephItkis - 28 Feb 2012

Joe,

Thanks for taking the time to articulate your point again on the TWiki.

I also struggle to find a satisfactory answer to this question. In fact, it was why I raised the pacifist objection to John Brown's form of violent resistance in class. Eben's response was Thoreau's argument that violence condoned by peaceable citizens - female quakers no less! - should not be condemned alongside "unjust" violence. Simply because a line is hard to draw does not mean it should not be drawn. (He also suggested there could be room for the pacifist and the non-pacifist to work together). From this perspective, the real moral question "is not about the weapon, but the spirit in which [it is used]." However, this appears to me to beg the question. Who is to say any particular group within society, even the female members of the admirably peaceful Religious Society of Friends, is in a position to decide between the legitimate and illegitimate killing of other human beings? Who is to say that any line can be drawn?

I feel that Brown should have been more weary of his own judgment and taken greater responsibility for his role in shaping the conditions that led to his use of necessary violence. The most disturbing part about reading his testimony was the zealous conviction he appeared to have in the righteousness of his actions. Perhaps his military tactics were truly the least violent way of saving real human lives. Perhaps real emancipation did inspire greater change than would have been achieved by a Ghandian display of self-sacrifice. However, at that point, he had no way of knowing those things with such certainty to justify having no regrets or even doubts about the righteousness of his actions, which included numerous acts of violence against others.

I agree that there is a clear distinction between those who embrace the killing of oppressors as a necessary condition of freedom, and those who reluctantly accept its necessity in order to achieve outcomes they believe to be just. I also, of course, believe that (as Eben so eloquently put it) "slavery is wrong." However, without venturing into the realm of the hypothetical, it is possible to point to numerous examples of "freedom fighters" (Palestinians, IRA, PKK, MNLF, Greenpeace) pursuing causes that they and many others believe to be as noble and just as the anti-slavery movement. These organizations commit numerous acts of violence that could be viewed as instrumentally necessary or gratuitous, depending on one's perspective. Such acts then provoke official retaliation, often consisting of even higher levels of questionably necessary violence. The result is an endless cycle of wrongs being committed in response to other wrongs.

The unique complexity of each conflict belies a simplistic answer to the question of how one distinguishes between acts of "violence as resolution" and "violence for resolution." Yet for Thoreau, this distinction is crucial if we are to distinguish Brown from Roeder. For this reason, and without any intent to compare the righteousness of the abolitionists to other religious or other principally motivated resistance movements (I repeat: slavery is wrong), I agree with Joe over Thoreau here. The real issue is whether we think our inner Browns can wield this weapon without inevitably morphing into Roeder. I don't know the answer to that. If the answer is no, you're left with the traditional issues with pacifism, of which enough discussion exists online to not require expansion here. If the answer is yes, it becomes difficult, as Daniel suggested in class, to continue viewing the state as a monopolist over violence. Whatever stability this system (illusion?) currently provides vanishes quickly when every citizen unleashes their inner John Brown. Perhaps this is politically a good thing. Perhaps, alternatively, the pacifist position truly is the most viable from a long-term perspective, but is outweighed by the immediate concern for living individuals. I'm not sure.

-- RohanGrey - 29 Feb 2012

Joseph,

I see where your question is coming from in light of this dichotomy of personality that John Brown represents to you. Are we as advocates of justice supposed to be like Brown, the crusader of freedom, or Brown, the terrorist? We may have to agree to disagree, but I feel like this question really doesn’t capture what we’re supposed to get out of today’s message. Simply put, Eben said, slavery is wrong, and someone had balls to take down a despicable institution that the law could not and would not address. As law students, this aspect of Brown is worthy of emulation because he questions a legal system when few others did. During our time at Columbia, we have to be ready when challenges like this – the ones that go to the heart of our country’s ideals -- arise. Of course, there are probably a good number of us who are questioning facets our system already and have been doing it even before coming here. But there may be times during this three year journey when some of us stop raising those questions. These are the times when we are no longer aware of the legal magic. Brown, by contrast, is a man who led his life by working outside of the lines, and this is the message I take away.

To get into a discussion about what the “right” view of Brown is, just doesn’t get me anywhere. I don’t know if there is a right answer. The guy’s not a polarizing figure for nothing. Of course, I don’t believe in an “eye for an eye” action to redress every injustice. But when I think about Brown, I can’t divorce what he did from the context of the times. Others can and have, and this is probably where the conflict about what he represents comes from.

-- LizzieGomez - 29 Feb 2012

I agree with Lizzie when it comes to the take-away from yesterday's lecture specifically, and John Brown generally. The question we should be asking in our own lives is whether we would idly sit by and let four million people remain in bondage simply to maintain the status quo (and possibly our pocketbooks). Although I was initially and similarly struck by the difficulty in analogizing Brown's actions to contemporary society in an attempt to justify terrorism, I think that perhaps it's a futile mental exercise - it will always be easier to justify actions with the benefit of a hindsight perspective. But again, "slavery is wrong," and trivializing Brown's actions simply because they aligned with subsequent government approval misses the point. Just as it seems easier to celebrate Brown as a hero today because ultimately those four million slaves were freed, it is too easy to attribute that celebration to our ex post view of history. To do so would be using future uncertainty as a crutch not to act for fear of making the "wrong" choice.

-- AlexandraRex - 29 Feb 2012

Alexandra, The distinction between the treatment of other humans beings as a means to an end, on one hand, and as valuable ends in and of themselves is relevant to this conversation. It is in some ways analogous Rohan's distinction between "violence as resolution" and "violence for resolution.". According to Brown's accounting of his acts and intentions, he sought to free individuals from the perpetual state of violence that is slavery. Naturally, he understood this objective in the political context we discussed in class. But it was not his inent to somehow precipitate large scale social change. Nor did he understand his violent acts as justice in and of themselves. Roeder, on the other hand, probably conceived of his actions as some combination of revenge and vengeance and galvanization. He was not acting on behalf of the future abortion "victims" of the doctors.

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Joseph, I'd like to respond to the questions you posted towards the end of your post, "When Eben coaxes us to find the John Brown inside of us, what does that mean in practical terms? To be willing to bend and even break the law for the sake of what we feel is "right"? To put lives, especially of others, in danger for the sake of our belief? What gives us the right to decide that our belief is "right" to the exclusion of the belief of others, and to sacrifice the lives of others under this assumption?"

I think that there is a clear difference between abortion and slavery. In comparing the two, you assume that John Brown's actions were based on what he felt was "right", but I would argue that his action were based on more than just a simple feeling of what one thinks is right. Rather, the actions of John Brown were based on a fundamental value that society lacked back then (and now). This value is simply one of valuing human life. Not the life that can be defined in current debates on abortion, but rather the life that you can touch. The life that you can see with your eyes. The life that if you were to speak to it, it would speak back. The life that if you were to hurt it, it would respond to the pain you chose to inflict.

There are certain truths that we as a society should agree upon if mankind is to be able to move forward and make significant changes to prevent crimes against humanity that happen throughout the world. Unfortunately, I doubt we will ever come to agreement upon these truths (which Moglen mentioned numerous times). The truth that I believe that was ultimately at issue in the class discussion was that no innocent man should be kidnapped, kept against his will to work and live like an animal, and killed because of his race, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality.

I cannot comment on abortion. It is an issue that deeply divides our nation and it is an issue that is promulgated by scientific and religious findings on what constitutes a human being. I can comment on slavery, I can comment on people that I know were human beings. As uneloquent as it sounds, slaves were born and forced to weather their circumstances, as opposed to fetuses which are unborn "beings".

When I read about the actions of John Brown, it wasn't with the opinion of whether or not I thought the abolitionist movement was the "right" feeling, rather I read the actions of John Brown as promoting my universal truth that innocent human beings should not to be kept in bondage, degraded, and stripped of every element that makes them human.

What struck a chord with me most was not your Law and Order comment, but the comments raised by my other classmates that questioned whether the timing was right for the anti-slave movement, and championed the political process as a proper way to end slavery. In my opinion these comments touched upon the problem with which too many view slavery- as something that was part of our history, was unfortunate, but was not a massive human rights violation on the part of slave owners. With what other systematic killing and forced labor of men do we apply this rational?

I do not view Moglen's comments in class as a cause to take up arms, rather, in my opinion the take away from the discussion was about becoming the type of lawyers that the world needs. When I hear about holocausts (both past and present), human trafficking, or any other atrocities against man, I don’t try to rationalize why it would be wrong to try and save human beings that are helpless in their situation. Has history not taught us a better lesson? Can we not all think of times when by waiting for a government to act, thousands, if not millions, were killed? Should we have waited for Hitler to respond to peaceful protests? Or perhaps the Tutsi should've waited for the political process to kick in, while hundreds of thousands were murdered?

At the close of class I couldn't help but think of the French singer Zazie's song J'étais là, in which she describes the world shaking from violence and turmoil. Returning from Somalia, Bangladesh and Rwanda, she remembers being in those countries and being able to count the dead, but when the time came for action she did nothing. She was there, and she did nothing.

We will all soon become attorneys, we will all soon be future surveyors of justice- and the most important question that we can asks ourselves is what we will do when the time comes for action.

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Abiola: First of all, my response was not intended to expand on the differences between Brown and Roeder in the light of greater social change. I made a similar point in class in regard to the distinction between “violence as a resolution” and “violence for resolution,” and agree with that distinction.

Secondly, the inability to “comment on abortion,” seems to me to be the main point of our discussion of Brown. Slavery was also an issue that “deeply divide[d] our nation” and there were undoubtedly just as many excuses for “abolitionists” to refrain from commenting on the similarly controversial topic of slavery in an effort to remain neutral. Your value of human life as an argument against slavery is obvious, but what about the life of a young woman forced into treating her body in whatever way the federal government (Supreme Court) decides is appropriate in contemporary society? What about the pain, physical and emotional, that she feels from continuing with an unwanted pregnancy? Or even electing to have an abortion and then being treated as a social outcast?

In Texas, teenage girls are required to obtain written permission from their parents before having an abortion. In the unfortunate situation where their home lives are contributing factors or their parents are unsupportive of their condition, underage girls are forced to go before a judge to petition for permission to choose their future course of life. Obviously the elected judges sitting in conservative districts cannot be associated with such immoral behavior and refer the girls to courts far away, often hundreds of miles away, to the nearest “liberal” court. I wonder how a 14-year-old girl, ostracized by her parents and unable to drive a car, finally receives the requisite permission to have a “legal” abortion? I for one would not want to argue with her that the pain she feels is not real enough to warrant consideration.

-- AlexandraRex - 1 Mar 2012