On Civil Disobedience

Civil disobedience encompasses the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government or of an occupying power without resorting to physical violence. Civil disobedience has been used in nonviolent resistance movements in India in the fight against British colonialism, South Africa in the fight against apartheid, in the American Civil Rights Movement in the fight against segregation and disfranchisement, and Europe as well as in the Scandinavian resistance against Nazi occupation. Henry David Thoreau pioneered the modern theory behind this practice in his 1849 essay Civil Disobedience (available at Wikisource), originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government". The driving idea behind the essay was that of self-reliance, and how one is in morally good standing as long as they "get off another man's back"; so you don't have to physically fight the government, but you must not support it or have it support you (if you are against it). This essay has had a wide influence on many later practitioners of civil disobedience. In the essay, Thoreau explained his reasons for having refused to pay taxes as an act of protest against slavery and against the Mexican-American War.

Thoreau's central argument in his essay was “resist what your conscience can not support, even if you are in the minority.” As much as Thoreau detests the Mexican War and slavery, he always remembers his responsibility to himself. Thoreau's attitude toward reform involved his transcendental efforts to live a spiritually meaningful life in nature. He also tried setting up the reader to understand his own action of conscience. He also showed the typical Thoreauvian paradox, which seems to be logically contradictory, but is not, if one takes into account what he means by "gives himself."

It is important to consider why Thoreau chose to address this important issue as a question. His idea, I believe, is to push the reader to think for himself, consider the implications of everyday laws by which the general public abide. Thoreau would answer his own question by suggesting transgressing "them at once." He also underscored that there are men who have lost their manhood, according to Thoreau.

Thoreau's call for every man, even one man, to withdraw support from the government; a very transcendental philosophy is at work in this statement. Transcendentalists believe that there is no end to a question; the door can never be closed. In this way, one man who withdraws his support is the beginning of an endless cycle. This is Thoreau's call for every man, even one man, to withdraw support from the government. A very transcendental philosophy is at work in this statement. Transcendentalists believe that there is no end to a question; the door can never be closed. In this way, one man who withdraws his support is the beginning of an endless cycle.

Thoreau certainly believed this, and he used this essay as a chance to point out that he actually spent a night in prison in an effort to remain faithful to his conscience. He presented one solution to the problem which In fact, during the Vietnam War, there were a number of people who withheld their taxes, putting them aside into accounts which neither they nor the government could access, as a means of protest. These are powerful arguments for most. One reason that Thoreau chose to live as he did was so that he could be truly independent, not having a family which might be threatened when he acted on conscience. This is an important part of the great cost that one must pay to act according to conscience.

For Thoreau, truth is not always going to dictate the right path. It is not the main concern of truth to dictate the fairness of wrong doings. His final statements in the essay give Thoreau an opportunity to depict the "really free and enlightened state" that he imagines in the future. He goes on to say that he imagines a place where the individual and the state will be in mutual service. The individual will have power, rather than be dominated by the "overwhelming brute force of millions." The State will recognize the individual as a "higher and independent power (Wood).”

REFERENCES

Gandhi, Mohandas K. Satyagraha in South Africa. Trans. Valji Govindji Desai. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1928.

Bedau, Hugo Adam (ed.). Civil Disobedience: Theory and Practice. New York: Macmillan, 1969.

Harris, Paul (ed.). Civil Disobedience. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1989.

King, Martin Luther, Jr. "Letter From Birmingham Jail." In his Why We Can't Wait. New York: New American Library, 1964, pp. 76-95.

Thoreau, Henry David. The Variorum Civil Disobedience. Ed. Walter Harding. New York: Twayne Publishers Inc., 1967