In “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau uses the idea of humanity and machines throughout the essay. At one point, he uses them together, asking whether the soldiers marching toward a war they know to be unjust are “men at all,” or instead “small moveable forts and magazines” (77). The defining characteristic of men, for Thoreau, is their conscience. When these soldiers suppressed their conscience, they in turn reduced their humanity. Conscience is the God-given faculty by which people can decide right from wrong. While government pushes people to follow the law, Thoreau claims that people should rather govern themselves through conscience. Altogether, Thoreau develops the idea that conscience preserves humanity, while the law suppresses it.
Thoreau
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spends much of his time in this section contrasting law and conscience. He says “can there be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?” (76). While both are a way through which people make decisions, using one’s conscience is the only valid way to decide right from wrong, according to Thoreau. A large reason is that laws have no inherent goodness, while conscience does. Groups with power determine law, not necessarily groups “most likely to be in the right” (76). Laws, therefore, can be based on any whim that the majority has. In contrast, because Thoreau believes that conscience comes from God, and since God is unchanging and good, the life choices prescribed by conscience will be based on a standard of absolute goodness. Since people already have the moral decision-making ability within them, they do not need law to advise them on these issues. This is why Thoreau says “law never made men a whit more just” (77). The differences between conscience and law are fundamental—law is not based on absolutes, while conscience is, and people do not act justly when making moral decisions based in law, but in conscience. Thoreau lives his life on the principle that he should follow conscience.
He said “the only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right” (76). As Thoreau’s idea of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ come from conscience, when he says ‘what I think right,’ he is referring to the judgment given to him by conscience. In this quote, he says his actions are mandated by his conscience. For example, Thoreau’s spending a night in jail for refusal to pay taxes to show his objection to the Mexican-American war follows this principle. He contrasts his life with those who live according to law. What Thoreau calls “undue” respect for the law, or following law even when it breaks with what is morally right, causes people to organize for causes they do not fully support. In his example of an army marching to an unjust war, Thoreau calls the effects of breaking with conscience figuratively life-jeopardizing as it produces a “palpitation of the heart” (77). The soldiers disagree morally with their actions, and doing so hurts their humanity. An extreme version of this, Thoreau describes a marine who has betrayed his conscience to the point where he has become callous to it. Not living with any conscience removes any resemblance of humanity from the marine, according to Thoreau. Thoreau says that the marine is “such a man that the American government can make.” The government, stressing the necessity to follow the law, in effect creates men with no free will or life …show more content…
(77). Although the soldier is physically alive, he has lost everything that made him human. Thoreau sees the effect that law has on humanity as evidence for calling the United States government unjust.
Being a democratic republic, the citizens of the United States vote for their representatives, and in turn they make laws. Thoreau does not see this process as being unjust; in fact, he thinks that legislators should answer questions to which “the rule of expediency is applicable,” or questions that pertain to expediting processes (76). This does not apply to answering moral questions. Because only conscience can guide a person when judging right from wrong, creating laws to perform this function replaces conscience with something arbitrary. However, the government is not the sole body responsible; the people themselves relinquish some of their conscience to the legislators by following laws against their consciences (76). People too easily allow themselves to be subjects; to this, Thoreau says “I think we should be men first, and subjects afterward” (76). Retaining one’s humanity in the world of tyranny of the majority then requires active avoidance of being a subject. This means that a person should not follow laws that counter the judgment made by his conscience, known as practicing ‘civil
disobedience.’ Thoreau asserts that it is far more desirable for a person to respect what is right than the law (76). People should not only show no respect for laws that interfere with right and wrong, but they need not consider them in any decision making processes. All of these answers com from conscience. Thoreau feels that the pressure the government puts on its citizens to abide by laws is unnecessary and malicious, indicated by his use of the term “black arts” when describing how the US government created the navy-yard marine (77). He desires for people to be free from becoming tools for the government’s use and live according to the humanity that God has given every person.
Thoreau talks about the politics, power and civil disobedience in his works. He believed that when many thought alike, the power was stronger within that minority. I think that Thoreau's intention was to point out that those people who dare to go against what seems to be unjust and go against the majority, and stand erect, are the people who transform society as a whole.
...goals, they both discuss similar topics of morality and justice under a government’s rule. In hopes of informing and motivating people, Thoreau and King explain how and why these people should take non-violent action towards unjust laws. From each author’s vivid examples and brilliant analogies, we learn the importance of fighting for justice and maintaining morality. Most importantly, Thoreau and King argue in favor of civil disobedience not only to inspire a fight for freedom from the government, but also to ensure that the people’s God given rights and rights to individuality are preserved for generations.
In 1848, David Thoreau addressed and lectured civil disobedience to the Concord Lyceum in response to his jail time related to his protest of slavery and the Mexican War. In his lecture, Thoreau expresses in the beginning “That government is best which governs least,” which sets the topic for the rest of the lecture, and is arguably the overall theme of his speech. He chastises American institutions and policies, attempting to expand his views to others. In addition, he advances his views to his audience by way of urgency, analyzing the misdeeds of the government while stressing the time-critical importance of civil disobedience. Thoreau addresses civil disobedience to apprise the people the need for a civil protest to the unjust laws created
To begin with, Thoreau expresses that civil disobedience should be more implemented when the just resistance of the minority is seen legally unjust to the structure conformed by the majority. Supporting his position, Thoreau utilizes the role of the national tax in his time; its use which demoralizes the foreign relationship
In “Civil Disobedience” Thoreau claims that men should act from their conscience. Thoreau believed it was the duty of a person to disobey the law if his conscience says that the law is unjust. He believed this even if the law was made by a democratic process. Thoreau wrote that a law is not just, only because the majority votes for it. He wrote, “Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?” (Thoreau, P. 4). Thoreau wanted a government in the United States that would make the just laws based on conscience, because the people of the country would not let the elected representatives be unfair. Thoreau did not think people can disobey any law when they want to. He believed that people should obey just laws; however, Thoreau thought that not all laws were right, and he wrote that a man must obey what is right, not what is the law: “It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right” (Thoreau, P. 4).
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American philosopher, author, poet, abolitionist, and naturalist. He was famous for his essay, “Civil Disobedience”, and his book, Walden. He believed in individual conscience and nonviolent acts of political resistance to protest unfair laws. Moreover, he valued the importance of observing nature, being individual, and living in a simple life by his own values. His writings later influenced the thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. In “Civil Disobedience” and Walden, he advocated individual nonviolent resistance to the unjust state and reflected his simple living in the nature.
In Thoreau’s view, he felt that the government was insufficient. He didn’t need the laws to be just, he used his conscious and morality. He was compelled to do what morally was right, rather than it being based on government issued laws such as the complacent society there is today. People seem to care about justice, yet are immoral. This was the message Thoreau was trying to get across.
Persuasion Throughout history there have been many struggles for freedom and equality. There was the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. There was the fight against government censorship in Argentina, spoken against by Luisa Valenzuela. And there was the struggle for women's equality in politics, aided by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
From these three men, we can learn the significance of detaching ourselves from the social norm and instead, fight for our values in a non-violent way, in order to make a change in our government’s corrupt and unjust laws. In “Resistance to Civil Government,” Thoreau articulates the importance he places on resistance against a powerful, controlling government. He opens his essay with a reference to the quote, “‘That government is best which governs not at all,’” and shares the motto, “‘That government is best which governs least’” (Civil).... ...
Rather, he should always protest for his autonomy. Thoreau expands on this subject in Civil Disobedience. After expressing his desires for a small government, he questions the idea of government itself: “Must the citizen ever for a moment...resign his conscience to the legislator?...[W]e should be men first, and subjects afterwards” (Civil Disobedience 171). Placing the individual over the government, Thoreau shows his passion for the self. That person’s actions may go awry, but, at least, the person still has the right to learn from his or her wrongs. Thoreau likens a meaningful existence with unyielding trust in a person’s inner voice. Without nurturing this voice, an individual loses his or her personhood. Such unwavering loyalty to the self best characterizes the transcendental ideal life, where one only needs to follow intuition to be
Even though it passed more that a hundred of years after Thoreau posted his essay, his ideas are still germane today. I can relate Thoreau’s concept not only to American government, but also to authorities all over the world. It doesn’t seem that the people rule the country anymore; the authorities are led by few individuals who have the most influence. Even though this is very visible, people don’t do anything about that, they are just some marionettes in the hands of the ones who rule the system. Many parliaments from the world lost the notion about making the laws to protect the people, but not themselves as the higher class of the country.
“Civil Disobedience,” written by Henry David Thoreau – originally published as “Resistance to Civil Government” in Aesthetic Papers (1849) and motivated by slavery and the Mexican-American War – discusses the hold government has on individuals in a society and the potential risks, as well as solutions, to overcoming the majority consciousness. Thoreau opens his essay with words he believes every government should live by: “That government is best which governs least.” Thoreau expresses that traditional government is often an inhibitor to the fluidity of justice and the desires of the majority, as well as the minority. As detailed, the American people have established a desire for some complicated concept to derive their government in order
In Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” he cites conscience as a guide to obeying just laws and disobeying unjust laws. In the same way, Henry David Thoreau wrote in his famous essay, “Civil Disobedience,” that people should do what their conscience tells them and refuse to follow unjust laws. The positions of the two writers are very close; they both use a common theme of conscience, and they use a similar rhetorical appeal to ethos.
Our modern day political obligations are part of countless examples in which our priority should be to what our government thinks is right, not what we think is right. Noone is ever excited about Jury duty, opening their mailbox one day and finding that their presence in court is mandatory is not exhilarating. Although for some its against their own wishes the obligations they have to the government to help decide the faith of another citizen is part of their civil duty as a citizen of the United States. Thoreau’s belief that we should prioritize what we think is right over what the government thinks is right is proven false under this example in our modern day lives. We owe to our government our presence to help give our opinions in the court of law. If we did not follow our political obligations and support the government then why would they protect us if we do not help to support ourselves. We may think that our presence is unnecessary, and otherwise think that our daily activities are more important but the amount of people it affects is less substantial than our presence in court, otherwise making what we think is right less of a priority then what the government thinks is right.
Thoreau espouses that the democratic party listens to and answers the majority, which are the desires of the most powerful group. The problem with this is that the most virtuous or thoughtful group is left aside because the government only pays attention to what the strongest group says. A government functioning on this principle cannot be based on justice, because the ideas of what is right and wrong is decided by the majority, not by conscience. Thoreau writes, "Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think we should be men first, and subjects afterward. (p.178 para. 4)" He claims that it is more important for people to develop a respect for the right, instead of having a respect for the law, for it is people’s duty to do what is right.