Morally motivated protest in the face of orthodoxy – environmental crisis and dissent in Australian democracy

The circumstances in which civil disobedience is appropriate are, in most theories of justice, circumscribed and subject to preconditions. In his justification of the role of ‘ambivalent dissidents’, Habermas emphasizes the role of civil disobedience as a corrective to inadequacies in deliberative democracies. Other commentators have bolstered his commentary by exploring the conditions of social power that would justify civil disobedience in a deliberative democracy. This article continues such reflection on the conditions under which civil disobedience are justifiable in complex modern societies, building in particular, on the mass protests of Extinction Rebellion, and exploring the role of communicative freedom as a necessary precondition to the validity of civil disobedience. Manifestations of modern protest appear to inhibit speech: both progressive and conservative interests utilize strategies with potentially censoring effects. ‘No-platforming’, social media pile-ons and online shaming are deployed to effectuate ‘moral education’ in the face of orthodoxy, and defamation suits and other forms of strategic litigation are deployed to leverage existing forms of power. This article will reconsider Habermas' discursive will formation and the place of ‘no-saying’ and mass protest in an established democracy. Building upon the idea of ambivalent dissidents, the article will use the Australian experience to critique mass protest as dissent, and in particular to consider the conditions of environmental crisis justifying a suspension of discursive mediation of norms.