Civil Disobedience A Brief Analysis by Daniel L. Smith Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience opens with, “I heartily accept the motto, that government is best which governs least.” He goes on to say, “That government is best which governs not at all”. This sums up Thoreau’s feelings towards government and in his essay; he continues to be extremely critical of it. Thoreau believed that government serves only the interests of the powerful, but also believed that it would remain an institution in American life. He suggested that following one’s conscience was more important than following the laws of other men. Thoreau rejected the idea of organized resistance, as it too closely resembles an organized institution such as government. Civil Disobedience promotes the concept of passive resistance through individual action and has been an inspiration for activists throughout the years. Henry David Thoreau was born David Henry Thoreau to John Thoreau and Cynthia Dunbar in Concord Massachusetts on July 12 1817. He was educated in a local school and entered Harvard University at the age of sixteen. While at Harvard, Thoreau discovered the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson who became his mentor in later years and had a profound influence on his life and writings. Upon graduating in 1837, he taught school for a time, but in 1840, he decided that teaching was not the direction that he wanted his career to go and he then began to pursue a career as a writer. In 1841, Thoreau became a member of the Emerson household and lived there off and on until 1843. During his stay with Emerson, he became his assistant and helped him to edit the Dial, a Transcendentalist Journal. After leaving the Emerson household in 1845, Thoreau built and moved into a cabin on Walden Pond, where he kept a journal that later became his most famous work, “Walden, or Life in the Woods.” In July of 1846 while visiting Concord, Thoreau was arrested for refusing to pay a poll tax, which led to his incarceration. After spending one night in jail, he was inspired to write his most famous essay Civil Disobedience. When Henry David Thoreau chose to go to jail rather than pay a poll tax that, in his opinion, supported the Mexican American war and slavery, he set in motion the writing of an essay that would bring the concept of passive resistance to the world. In this essay, he claims that refusal to cooperate with and obey unjust laws was a moral obligation that every man is obliged to share. Civil Disobedience brought into the public discourse the idea that an ideal government would be one that respected individual freedom and did as little as possible to interfere with it. “There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly” (Civil Disobedience). “Nevertheless, he maintains that government is only an instrument through which people act, and that it should leave people alone as much as possible” (Bankston). Thoreau believes that only the individual can determine what is right and wrong, and as a result, the State cannot exercise any true moral authority. He also concludes that the individual citizen is morally responsible for their support of the State’s immoral acts regardless of whether or not that support is required by law. “In other words, one’s tax or one’s consumer dollar does not simply disappear into the coffers of a faraway government or a spectral corporation; it funds acts that may be immoral, and the funder must therefore acknowledge his role as an accomplice” (Carton). Although Civil Disobedience did not garner much attention when it was written, it has inspired movements of passive resistance such as Gandhi’s non-violent expulsion of the British from India and Dr. Martin Luther King’s struggle for equal rights in the United States (Thoreau online) (Carton) (Civil Disobedience). Thoreau does not advocate the overthrow of the government. He does however, state that the government does not have the right to expect or demand blind and automatic obedience from the population that it governs. Thoreau determines that the need is not for the absence of government, but for a government that is run more efficiently. “Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it” (Civil Disobedience). Government, Thoreau believes, possesses no ability to create commerce, to educate, and in any way enhance the lives of its citizens unless it gets out of the way of the individual. He states that anything of note that has been accomplished in this country has been done by the people rather than their so-called leaders. Thoreau also makes the claim that individual citizens have the right to deny the support of a government whose policies and laws are unjust. His approach to obtaining the goal of non-support is to refuse to pay taxes and as a result, deny the State the resources that it requires to continue its unjust policies. The problem that this type of non-compliance causes is that the person who is engaging in it is subject to prosecution and persecution by the State. Thoreau’s remedy for this is to live without the ownership of land and to possess only enough to sustain ones-self leaving the State nothing to seize. This is a somewhat impractical approach to resistance as jail and seizure of one’s property is not very practical unless a person lives in the fashion that Thoreau did and has no obligation or responsibilities to anyone other than themselves. He does however suggest that if the entire population were to behave in this manner that the State would be rendered powerless; true, but not likely to happen. He also recommends that people resist the State by refusing to participate in the process of government such as voting or holding office (Civil Disobedience). Thoreau states that because only individuals possess a conscience and the State does not, that it is reasonable for people to do as individuals what they think is right. He fails to address the possibility that anarchy could be a probable result of this. Thoreau’s take on people doing what they personally think is right, regardless of the law and its consequences, is a complicated issue because it has both good and bad connotations. In keeping with this line of thought, Thoreau dealt with the subject of the masses of people having opposition to injustices such as slavery, but not actively pursuing a change to such policies. This reflects back to the subject of withholding taxes to correct an injustice. One person may not be able to effect such a change and possibly place themselves in great peril if they attempt to do so, but there is strength in numbers. Thoreau wished to stir the masses from their complacency and provoke them into action, not through the vote, but through individual action. He believed that voting is similar to games of chance in that it leaves decisions determining right and wrong to the power of the majority, which he claims has little virtue. “A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men” (Civil Disobedience). “The laws passed by government, according to Thoreau, are only reflections of people, and he expresses no regard for law simply because it expresses the will or acceptance of a majority” (Bankston). As a rule, the governed will conform to and obey unjust laws and wait for majority rule to change or alter them believing that to resist the dictates of the State would result in a far worse outcome than submission. Thoreau questions the State’s inability to welcome reform and respect the wisdom of minority opinion. “Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them” (Civil Disobedience). Thoreau believes that the mechanisms the State provides its citizens for addressing grievances such as unjust laws and policies are far too time consuming to provide any effective outcome. He goes on to make the claim that it is no more the business of the individual to petition the State than it is the State’s business to petition the individual. While Thoreau believes that it is not the individual citizen’s duty to spend his time attempting to correct even the most grievous of the State’s policies, he does however offer a course of action that the individual can pursue. He suggests that the State’s actions be completely ignored and not supported by providing it with financial support or allegiance. “Thoreau’s essay, then argues not for disobedience as a strategy of political engagement, but as an act of moral disengagement from politics” (Bankston). Thoreau is of the opinion that any authority that the government exercises over its citizens is only that which the citizens concede to it. This may be a difficult concept to grasp because of the consequences of standing up to a supposed authority. When Thoreau was imprisoned for his refusal to pay his poll tax, he believed that while the State could imprison his body, it could not imprison his mind. Philosophers throughout the centuries have embraced this same belief. To be truly free, one must be indifferent to things external from one’s mind and attempt to control the only things that can be controlled which are the mind and individual actions. One may question the relevance of many of Thoreau’s ideas to life in the 21st century. In the 1860s when the average life expectancy was about 45 years, a person might not be as inclined as we are today to plan for one’s future and retirement. Thoreau’s advice that people should live without the ownership of land and possess only the means to sustain oneself with the bare essentials so that the government would have nothing to seize is not practical in today’s society. However, this does not eliminate the relevance of his basic ideas. Thoreau’s suggestions that we be independent in our thoughts and actions is still relevant today as people cannot submit unconditionally to a government’s supposed authority without compromising their individuality and disregarding their basic human nature which is to act on one’s own behalf first and foremost. What Thoreau has given us in this important work is not a step by step instruction manual for resistance, but a basic outline to provoke thought as to what is an acceptable amount of authority that we will allow ourselves to be subjected to and the methods of non-violent passive resistance to stand up to the abuse of that authority.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 17:53:14 +0000
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