We admire and revere Socrates, Thoreau, and Ghandi. We love the concept of civil disobedience that these men represent (especially after they're dead). More recently, many cheered Tim DeChristopher when he submitted fake bids at an auction to prevent oil companies from drilling on public land. We sometimes criticize those who sheepishly follow whatever rules they impose (or allow to be imposed) upon themselves. We often mock those brainwashed by religion or other mind-numbing dogmas.
As Thoreau describes it:
A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart.... Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.
While I don't agree with Thoreau's description of our soldiers "as horses and dogs," he raises the question: where would society be without its followers? Someone has to clean the toilets, pick up the garbage, and wash the sheets. If we don't have somebody to carry the explosives, how will we kill the enemy who refuses to follow our rules? Could we have a society full of Socrates, Thoreaus, or Ghandis? Are social bonds and full individual realization compatible at all? While the unexamined life may not be worth living, what would happen if everybody sat under a tree waiting for the apple to fall on their heads?
On the other extreme, we have the Holocaust. Obedience run amok led to the death of millions of people. We teach King's classic Letter From Birmingham Jail in our schools, and then expect, or at least hope, our students can figure out when to, and not to, follow the rules. Soldiers are referred to in the law as "reasoning agents." They are required to disobey illegal orders. But only after presuming that every order is lawful. We marvel at the subjects of the Milgram experiment, who intended to shock others, while simultaneously stating that they wanted to stop. It is not surprising that those conducting the experiments concluded that "[p]erhaps our society does not provide adequate models for disobedience." And why should it? Didn't we all agree to put up with a few laws so that we could attain some degree of self-fulfillment?
We revere our gadflies (when they are dead) for figuring out these models of disobedience on their own, and yet we kill and imprison them. We punish them because they refuse to follow our laws and our social mores, yet we revere them for making us better and for "stir[ing us] into life." And while we revere Socrates as being the flag-bearer for civil disobedience, his civil obedience led, in small part, to his death. He realized that civil disobedience would have no worth if not accompanied by a cost. We punish our disobedient to give meaning to their purposes. How can one be a martyr without pain?
Crito had a plan to set Socrates free. He could have gotten away. But his conscience chided the very thought:
"But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least of all to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen then to us, and not to Crito."
"This dear Crito, is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice, I say is humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other. And I know that anything more which you may say will be in vain. Yet speak, if you have anything to say."
Crito's Response: "I have nothing to say Socrates."
"Leave me then, Crito, to fulfill the will of God, and to follow whither he leads."
Those called upon to disobey our unjust laws have a high price to pay. It is only when that price is paid, that we realize the value of their purpose. We don't remember Socrates only because he furthered a just cause, but we remember him, in some small part, because he died for it.
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