Civil Disobedience and Modernity, 1978–1987 157
evidently was influenced by John Rawls’s definition that civil disobe-
dience consists of “public, peaceful, conscience-determined, illegal
actions which usually seek a change in the laws. ”^91 “Until now,”
the movement protesting the Euromissiles had “expressed in word
and deed” the idea that actions, including calculated breeches of the
law, must maintain a “symbolic” character; that is, they may only be
carried out with the intention of “... appealing to the understand-
ing and legal sensibility of the majority.”^92 By contrast, the student
movement of 1967–9 had been inspired by false notions (Vo rbil de r)
of revolution and “lacked the identification with the constitutional
principles of a democratic republic.”^93 The students’ failure to iden-
tify with the constitution thus “left in suspense” whether their
“political resistance” (Widerstand) was legal protest or revolution-
ary action (Kampfhandlung).^94 Habermas declared, “It is precisely
this lack of clarity which I cannot discern in the peace movement.”
By this logic, he concluded that the peace movement represented a
clear advance over the student movement.
Habermas criticized the jurists for conflating the issues raised
by civil disobedience with the question of resistance against an ille-
gal state.^95 “The fact of German Hobbesianism explains why there
are so many arguments today that psychiatrists would call tangen-
tial responses: answers to questions that were not posed. The issue
confronting us is not resistance against an illegal state, but rather
civil disobedience within the Rechtsstaat.”^96 But, in fact, Habermas
was concerned that the peace movement’s use of the language of
resistance was ambiguous and could lead to dangerous misunder-
standings: “Certainly, the talk is of peaceful resistance [Widerstand],”
but Habermas noticed that a minority of the protestors continued
to invoke their constitutional right of resistance under Article 20,
Section 4, and criticized them for it, insisting that they “... should
abandon all indirect references to this type of constitutionality.”^97
He chided Marburg theologian (and future bishop) Wolfgang
(^91) Habermas, “Testfall,” 34. For his discussion of Rawls, see “Testfall,” 34–8.
See also John Rawls, A Theory of Justice ( 1971 ); first German trans. Eine
Theorie der Gerechtigkeit (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1975).
(^92) Habermas, “Testfall,” 32–3.
(^93) Ibid, 32.
(^94) Ibid, 33.
(^95) Habermas, “Recht und Gewalt,” 110.
(^96) Ibid.
(^97) Habermas, “Testfall,” 33.