In this age when so much is wrong with the world, Frédéric Gros seeks to convince us that by obeying others we disobey ourselves. Also, that our highest calling is to defend the community that we are a part of, our human community. By undertaking a habit of civil disobedience, we resist injustice. When we speak up for ourselves, we speak up for the whole of humanity.

He references people as diverse as Thoreau and Eichmann, Antigone and Kant, Foucault and la Boétie, finishing with Socrates and Plato. Describing the various ways we justify to ourselves the continuation of our docility, this obeisance to authority which we’ve practiced since childhood, he seeks avenues through which we can finally be true to ourselves.

I’d say he succeeds, if only we’ll take his lesson to heart.