Why Dissent Matters

Because Some People See Things the Rest of Us Miss

William Kaplan

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780773550704
• eBook ISBN: 9780773550858
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Frances Kelsey was a quiet Canadian doctor and scientist who stood up to a huge pharmaceutical company wanting to market a new drug - thalidomide - and prevented an American tragedy. The nature writer Rachel Carson identified an emerging environmental disaster and pulled the fire alarm. Public protests, individual dissenters, judges, and juries can change the world - and they do.

A wide-ranging and provocative work on controversial subjects, Why Dissent Matters tells a story of dissent and dissenters - people who have been attacked, bullied, ostracized, jailed, and, sometimes when it is all over, celebrated. William Kaplan shows that dissent is noisy, messy, inconvenient, and almost always time-consuming, but that suppressing it is usually a mistake - it’s bad for the dissenter but worse for the rest of us. Drawing attention to the voices behind international protests such as Occupy Wall Street and Boycott, Divest, and Sanction, he contends that we don’t have to do what dissenters want, but we should listen to what they say.

Our problems are not going away. There will always be abuses of power to confront, wrongs to right, and new opportunities for dissenting voices to say, "Stop, listen to me." Why Dissent Matters may well lead to a different and more just future.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1: The Tenth Man
• Chapter 2: There Really Is Nothing New under the Sun
• Chapter 3: A Woman of Fortitude and Determination: Frances Oldham Kelsey
• Chapter 4: Rachel Was Right: Rachel Louise Carson
• Chapter 5: Dissenting Juries and Judges
• Chapter 6: Sentenced to Death
• Chapter 7: Occupy Wall Street – and This, That, and the Other Place
• Chapter 8: How Not to Make Public Policy
• Chapter 9: The Clock Is Ticking and It’s 1973 All Over Again
• Conclusion: Further Reflections on Our Dissenters
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index