Aug 20, 2006

Passive obedience

It occurs to me that the old concept of 'passive obedience' is becoming relevant in a new form today. It was laid down by the Church of England during its split from Rome, and then became a principle of the (radical wing?) of the post 1688 Tory party up until about 1740 at least. Basically it legislated that when the sovereign issued commands against the law of god, a subject was to disobey them and suffer the consequences passively, Job like. Rebellion and revolution were forbidden.
How might this work today? My sense is that, although 'we' (educated secular intellectuals) believe neither in the divine right of kings nor in God's law, we are in a situation where the regime of capitalist democracy is legitimated through all the power of nature and history. Alternatives are unimaginable, so too is revolution. But capitalist democracy is not consistently just (by various standards of justice: Kantian, natural law, utilitarian even...). So that the split between god/absolute monarchy and sovereign is now a split between history/capitalist democracy and justice, and those who opt for justice are in a situation, necessarily, like that which the doctrine of passive obedience enjoined on subjects voluntarily.