Civil Disobedience Henry David Thoreau

Civil Disobedience As you read this over the weekend, and especially having been out in nature for a good cause for Work for St. Joe (very Transcendental), this piece from Thoreau might have been a little surprising. Sure, it fits the writer of Walden in that Thoreau emphasizes the power and importance of the individual over groups, especially government, but this is not all about peaceful reflection, it is almost a call to action and resistance:

Civil Disobedience Calls to action: “If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders.” If a law "is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law."

Civil Disobedience There are also fairly radical political ideas proposed … Remember the very beginning, where he says, “I heartily accept the motto…” what motto comes afterward? “The government is best which governs…..”

Civil Disobedience Governments are typically more harmful than helpful. In fact, government does not just have a little corruption in it, it is primarily an agent of corruption and injustice! Isn’t democracy supposed to be a remedy for corrupt government? No, Thoreau says. Majority rules in a democracy, but there is no guarantee that the majority will have virtues such as wisdom and justice. And no injustice should ever be carried out in the name of public convenience.

Civil Disobedience Let’s backtrack and set the scene…what inspired Thoreau to write this? Personally, Thoreau had been jailed in 1846 for refusing to pay a poll-tax that he thought was unjust. He refused to pay the tax partly because he was opposed to the current war in the U.S.: The Mexican-American War. He was also opposed to slavery in the U.S., and he saw the war as an effort on the government’s part to acquire more territory…and to make slavery a part of that new territory!

Civil Disobedience There’s another dimension to the essay too, that is not so much about what’s wrong with government, but about the people who blindly follow government and its policies: Thoreau starts talking about his favorite hypothetical group of people, “the mass of men.”

Civil Disobedience Remember the famous quote from Walden : “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Their lives are maybe so desperate from what he explains in Civil Disobedience : “The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies.” They are machines, or “horses and dogs,” because they do not exercise their moral judgment!

Civil Disobedience Solution: Men must “disobey” unjust policies of the government, to be a “counter friction to the machine.” An aspect of this: Thoreau would refuse to pay taxes that aid unjust policies (but he does say he would pay taxes that he thinks are going to be used for beneficial purposes).

Civil Disobedience Gandhi and Martin Luther, King, Jr. were influenced by this essay. “During my student days I read Henry David Thoreau's essay On Civil Disobedience for the first time. Here, in this courageous New Englander's refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery's territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times.” -MLK

Civil Disobedience Is this a cop-out? But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it. It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him ; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.

Civil Disobedience Something to begin to think about…are the two mutually exclusive? Thoreau: “If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go… perchance it will wear smooth - certainly the machine will wear out…. If it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.” Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”