Civil Disobedience Rhetorical Analysis

“Civil Disobedience” follows Henry Thoreau’s ideology as to what he believes is “a better government”. Throughout the text Thoreau develops multiple central ideas such as ethics and the relationship between the individual and the state to back up his claims and thoughts. Thoreau points and calls out the governments behavior towards its people and its unjust actions.
Thoreau believes that “a better government” is one that maintains a mutual relationship with its people and treats them as independent individuals. The relationship between the individual and the state is a central idea that is consistently used throughout the text in order to convey Thoreau’s points about what he believes to be “a better government”. Thoreau views the government as oppressive, abusive, and ineffective. He states that the government is unintentionally causing unnecessary problems for the people and calls them “those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.” Thoreau states multiple times about how the state abuses its power and

becomes controlling in the process. In order to achieve a better government, he believes that the state has to willfully return the power to the people, because a government that is overly controlling leads to an oppressive an unhappy society. An example of this would be in Benazir Bhutto’s speech about the Pakistani government, as it does not listen to any of its people and derives its power from military affairs. The people are extremely unhappy and have very little to almost no influence in any decision the government makes.
Thoreau uses ethics as another central idea in order to explain his views about how the government should operate and treat its people.

He develops ethics by elaborating on the people inability to determine what is right and what is wrong, due to them blindly following whatever the government does. Thoreau heavily believes that each person should have their own conscience and he stresses this throughout the text. Those who use their conscience and are capable of determining what is morally right or wrong are considered a threat to the state since they are aware of the governments wrong doings and the government has no control over them. The people know that there are flaws within the government and some of the things they do are unjust and oppressive, however they have no call to action and decide not to do anything about it. For this reason, after his night in jail Thoreau distances himself from the people and looks down upon their

morals.
In order to achieve a better government, the people must first start using their own conscience. Thoreau claims that the citizens that are loyal to the government vote just to vote and don’t think with their conscience. They have no idea who or what they are voting for, instead they are ignorant and vote under the influence of the government. Thoreau also believes that most politicians have no idea what they are doing and heavily misunderstand the people. The government has to understand and listen to its people, considering that the government derives its power from them. Thoreau states that the bible and the Constitution are the highest forms of pure authority and it should be the only law that individuals look up to instead of the government. Towards the end Thoreau establishes the fact that he does not wish to overthrow the government, instead he wishes for the government to improve the way it operates and treats its people.