Antigone presents a way to examine this question in an environment that is not as charged as the modern day. Looking at this issue through Antigone gives perspective, because it is not one’s own city or life that is at risk. In Antigone one is able to see the issue from both the perspective of the authority and also of the defying the authority.
Creon is looking out for the city. He holds up the unburied body of Polynices as an example of what happens to those who betray their city[1]. This is a safeguard against anarchy, and a very good incentive for the people to never betray their city. To allow someone to disobey this command and live is to invite anarchy. For the good of the city, that decree had to be enforced.
Antigone knew that she had a duty to her kin. She knew that the gods and common decency demanded that she not allow the body of her brother to rot, unburied. She had to bury him, decree or no decree. Better to die than to betray this familial duty.
I think that Antigone was right to bury her brother, but she was wrong to try to destroy Creon’s authority. There is line between obeying a higher authority and promoting anarchy. If a higher authority conflicts with the governmental authority it seems appropriate to obey the higher authority. If one disobeys a lower authority for the sake of a higher authority, one ought to be willing to accept the consequences of having disobeyed the lower authority. For the good of the city, disobedience, no matter how well meant, must be punished, or anarchy reigns. Creon was right to punish Antigone for her crime. He, however, might have been wrong to make her deed a crime. This is why it is so important that leasers be just, and that they not make rash laws. Stupid laws are an invitation to anarchy just as much as unenforced laws.
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