Insubordination

“ Every instance we gave of insubordination or disobedience delighted them, while our own blundering attempts to manage the people, the absurd mistakes we fell into, and the endless misconceptions of their character and habits, actually convulsed them with laughter. ”

“ It is the duty of those in command to repress, by the most decided and summary measures, any tendency to insubordination, to check every species of immorality and vice, and to discountenance to the utmost of their power whatever may disturb the comfort of others, or interrupt the harmony and good understanding which should subsist on board. ”

“ This latter vice is the most important to point out, the others being more or less rare; but insubordination is an evil most frequent in our armies, and a most dangerous evil. Military operations have become so complicated and difficult in these days, that nothing is possible without the strictest obedience on the part of soldiers. In times when individual valor was almost everything, insubordination might have presented fewer inconveniences ”

“ Insubordination is becoming a prominent feature in some of our principal cities. Obedience in families, respect to magistrates, and love of country, should therefore be inculcated with increased energy, by those who have earliest access to the mind. ”

“ No longer is any one power supreme (crimes committed in one camp being generally condoned in the other) , and a mania of insubordination drives ordinarily well-disposed persons to throw off the old restraints to which they instinctively submit in times of peace. ”

“ They are, or should be, subordinates; and though over a long period their insubordination may be a necessary condition of human progress, yet during all such time they are at war with each other and with the central Will; the man is torn and tormented, and is not happy. ”

“ Our condition is such, that the slightest movement of insubordination, once started, is apt to grow with uncontrollable rapidity; we have, therefore, to guard against everything that may start it; we cannot allow a free discussion of the subject; we have to remove from our midst every incendiary element; we cannot be expected to tolerate opinions of persons among us that are opposed to the ruling order of things. ”

“ The state of discipline appeared to be excellent. The chief offences to be coped with, are want of perseverance, recurrence to their own listless habits, and an intense love of chattering together on all occasions. Insubordination rarely shows itself, and is very easily put down by firmness without recourse to force. ”

“ Insubordination, wherever you find it, is the most dangerous condition of affairs that can be figgered out. When a man puts himself under a leader, whether to fight or to till the land, an' then sets up his opinions against those of the one who is supposed to know best, else he wouldn't be in command, matters have come to a mighty dangerous pass. Instead of helpin' the men inside the fort, this regiment is likely to bring them to grief, unless things are changed, an' that right soon. ”

“ His adjutants could form chains of influence of which he was unconscious. [468] "Insubordination" is the most glaring of military offenses, next to timidity under fire. It cannot be openly practised; but within the bounds of any closed society the effects of insubordination can be gained. To trace responsibility in time of action is laborious through channels where officers familiar with the craft of "passing the buck" may spin red tape endlessly, though on other occasions they cut it with facility. ”

“ The impression, however, that the people have acted prematurely, and without regard to consequences, is evidently erroneous. And, to judge of the future from the past, I have no hesitancy in asserting that the fears entertained respecting the disposition of the people here to insubordination, are totally groundless. ”

“ When the common soldiers are too strong and their officers too weak, the result is insubordination. When the officers are too strong and the common soldiers too weak, the result is collapse. ”

“ Mentally they are in many cases men ignoring the common restraints of society, profoundly impressed with insubordination, which displays equality, which has to learn all the wholesome duty of obedience, and which begins with as much respect for discipline as for the campaigns of Frederick the Great. ”

“ The Master said, 'The people may be made to follow a path of action, but they may not be made to understand it.' CHAP. X. The Master said, 'The man who is fond of daring and is dissatisfied with poverty, will proceed to insubordination. ”

“ How Not to Give Orders.—On the other hand you will yourself stimulate his disobedience if by tone or words you insult his manliness, question his loyalty and obedience, or by threats dare him to disobey. We see this often illustrated in the affairs of daily life, where men untrained in authority are required to exercise it, and generally give orders in such a manner as to stir up trouble rather than to get cheerful obedience. ”

“ Indeed, 'tis not thou who owest submission to them; but on the contrary they owe it to thee, and it is their duty to carry out thine orders. How cometh it then, that thou art so mightily affrighted at them? It is said, 'Unless thy heart be like iron, thou art not fit to be a Sovran.' But thy mildness hath deluded these men, so that they presume upon thee and cast off their allegiance, although it behoveth that they be constrained unto thy obedience and enforced to thy submission. ”

“ Shall we see our authority brought into contempt, and the craft by which we get our living ruined, and not bestir ourselves? What have we been doing all this while? And what are we now thinking of? Shall we be always talking, and bring nothing to pass? ”

“ It is frequently observed, that the complete discharge of the obligations pressing upon us as moral agents is attended with conflict and difficulty. Frequently, therefore, we address ourselves to the discharge of these obligations with some measure of resistance, perhaps with obstinacy, and I may add, indeed, with unwillingness. ”

“ Yet is not the power which injustice exercises of such a nature that wherever she takes up her abode, whether in a city, in an army, in a family, or in any other body, that body is, to begin with, rendered incapable of united action by reason of sedition and distraction? ”

“ Habituated from childhood to the forms of subordination at present existing—regarding these as parts of a natural and permanent order—finding satisfaction in supremacy, and conveniences in the possession of authority; the regulators of all kinds remain unconscious that this system, made necessary as it is by the defects of existing human nature, brings round penalties on themselves as well as on those subordinate to them, and that its pervading theory of life is as mistaken as it is ignoble. ”

“ Such a leader you have shown us that you are not. You have done worse. You have been insubordinate when you should not only have been orderly, but have enforced orderliness in others. And for that, by my lights, you should be hanged. ”

“ I want real order to be evolved out of this chaos which is misrepresented to me as order. If it is order established by a tyrant in order to get hold of the tyrannical reins of Government I say that it is no order for me but it is disorder. ”

“ Complaint is often made, in these times, of what we call the disorganised condition of society: how ill many arranged forces of society fulfil their work; how many powerful forces are seen working in a wasteful, chaotic, altogether unarranged manner. It is too just a complaint, as we all know. But perhaps if we look at this of Books and the Writers of Books, we shall find here, as it were, the summary of all other disorganisation;—a sort of heart, from which, and to which, all other confusion circulates in the world! ”

“ That clear voice, prompted by a magnificent love, by a burning zeal, sometimes makes us forget that the zeal was often misguided, and that disobedience to authority is not always the best way of effecting reform. ”

“ This contravention of the natural order has produced, as such contravention always must produce, a certain confusion and false movement, of which we are now beginning to feel, in almost every direction, the inconvenience. In all directions our habitual causes of action seem to be losing efficaciousness, credit, and control, both with others and even with ourselves. Everywhere we see the beginnings of confusion, and we want a clue to some sound order and authority. ”

“ I think it chiefly arises from a sort of distorted notion that there is something degrading and undignified in obeying an order. Why, man, obedience and discipline are the very life-blood of every institution worthy of the name. ”

“ All of us does it insult, for thereby is an insult paid to all who, in life, are bearing still their 'cross and burden.' You too will, one day, be insulted by the system, even as shall I. Do you understand? I repeat, 'their cross and burden'—the sense of the words being that, life being hard and difficult, we ought to honour none but those who STILL are bearing their trials, or bearing trials for you and me. ”

“ The same disregard of consequences that hazarded all for all, in battle or for duty, broke through the barriers within which prudence, reputation, decency, or even weakness and cowardice, confine the actions of lesser men. ”

“ They lack order, subordination; neither their intelligence nor their will is disciplined and subjected to law; and their appetites and passions, unrestrained and untamed, introduce disorder into every department of life, and compel intelligence and will, reason itself, to enter their ignoble service, and as abject slaves to do their bidding. ”

“ Hear them, and judge whether I have not cause for the inextinguishable hate that rankles at my heart. Every trifling disobedience of orders--every partial neglect of duty that could be raked up--was tortured into a specific charge ”

“ The principle is also subversive of the very root of military subordination and discipline, where an inferior should in all cases obey a superior, who alone should be responsible for the effect arising from the execution of his orders. ”

“ We read of no power, no authority, neither the power and influence of intercession, nor the authority or right of command being ever, even by implication, committed to her; and we dare not of our own minds venture to take for granted a statement of so vast magnitude, involving associations so awful. ”

“ No human soul can with certainty say, "I would not do this or that, under any circumstances whatever!" Circumstance and impulse are the only two forces that create cowards or heroes. Principles, will-power, virtue, are really subservient to those two. ”

“ The sphere of individual will is such only as is allowed by the will of the superior. Breaches of subordination are, according to their gravity, dealt with by deprivation of leave, extra drill, imprisonment, flogging, and, in the last resort, shooting. ”

“ While the unmanageable or ungovernable defies control, the rebellious or seditious may be forced to submission; as, the man has an ungovernable temper; the horses became unmanageable; he tamed his rebellious spirit. Insubordinate applies to the disposition to resist and resent control as such; mutinous, to open defiance of authority, especially in the army, navy, or merchant marine. A contumacious act or spirit is contemptuous as well as defiant. ”

“ I feel and have always felt that order rebels against and struggles against disorder, that order has an up-hill job, in gardens, experiments, suburbs, everything alike; from the very beginnings of my experience I discovered hostility to order, a constant escaping from control. ”

“ The moment when, instead of considering what they would really like best to do under the actual circumstances confronting them, people in their ignorance turned their will to work out the dictates of a rule, that moment they ceased to be free; and the fact that they adopted the rule of their own accord, could no more alter the nature of their condition, than the fact of a man having voluntarily chained himself up could prevent the resulting fact of his physical bondage. ”

“ In both lie dangers, difficulties, and troubles, which no human foresight can foreshadow or perceive; but they are not equal in magnitude. One is beset with humiliation, dishonor, emeutes, rebellion,—with submission in the beginning to all, and at all times, and confiscation and slavery in the end. ”

“ To our mind, the destiny of the Sovereign, the awful responsibility, the utter loneliness of station, the general want of sympathy, the proneness to be condemned for faults or omissions of which they are, individually, as innocent as their contemners, present a subject for consideration and sympathy, and ought to check the unkind thoughts and hasty condemnation, excited merely because they are placed in rank and circumstances above us. ”

“ Anarchy means no domination or authority of one man over another, yet you call that "disorder." A system which advocates no such "order" as shall require the services of rogues and thieves to defend it you call "disorder." ”

“ Don't you think there's enough disorder as it is?
Hoche. When order is injustice, disorder is the beginning of justice.
Hulin. Justice! Justice consists in not demanding of things what they cannot give. You can't make over the world; you must accept it as it is. Why demand the impossible? ”

“ It is required and expected that exact discipline be observed, and due subordination prevail through the whole army, as a failure in these most essential points must necessarily produce extreme hazard, disorder, and confusion, and end in shameful disappointment and disgrace. ”

“ Can you control your character? We have already seen that you cannot. Can you control the conduct of others,—others perhaps whom you have never seen, but who may ruin you at a word; a despot, for instance, or a warrior? ”