Civil Disobedience and Other Essays (Dover Thrift Editions)

If ever a document came close to matching the Gospels in detailing a way to live morally, it is Civil Disobedience. In a brief, clear, and concise essay Thoreau proffers a challenge to all men, "not to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right." In all my life, no words so simply and yet so profoundly has affected my view of our country and our world.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American philosopher, poet, and naturalist who moved in the same intellectual and social circles as Ralph Waldo Emerson. This Dover Thrift edition contains several important Thoreau tracts: Civil Disobedience, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown, Walking, and Life Without Principle. Thoreau also wrote the famous "Walden," and several other influential pieces shaped by his sense of environment and his unwavering belief in the power of the individual.

In "Civil Disobedience," Thoreau discusses the role of the individual in society and government. Starting off with his famous statement, "That government is best which governs not at all," Thoreau waxes philosophic about the role of the United States government in the Mexican War and slavery. Thoreau argues that majorities in a democracy decide what the laws are because they are the strongest element in society. According to Thoreau, what is law is not necessarily right, and just because the majority decides an issue doesn't automatically make that issue palatable to a man's conscience. Individuals can, and sometimes should, oppose the majority, and they can be right even if they are in the minority. Ultimately, if laws are not reliable beacons of truth, one should appeal to one's conscience to decide what is right and wrong. However, merely deciding something is wrong is not enough if that decision is not followed by concrete action. Thoreau criticizes the voting process in this context, since anybody can vote for something. Without action following a decision, voting or supporting something is useless. This essay also contains Thoreau's account of his stay in jail for failure to pay a tax.

"A Plea for Captain John Brown" probably caused considerable controversy at the time of its writing. John Brown was the fire-breathing abolitionist who made the famous raid on Harper's Ferry in the 1850's. Brown eventually went to the gallows for his crimes while American citizens debated his actions. Most thought Brown a wacko, an extremely dangerous radical who threatened the social fabric of the country. Thoreau defends Brown in an essay both eloquent and naïve. This is really a panegyric to an unrealistic man who used questionable methods to attain his goal. When Thoreau refers to Brown as "an angel of light," it is necessary for the reader to remember Brown killed many people in cold blood.

"Walking" is the centerpiece of this collection of essays. Thoreau starts his discussion by musing on the wonders of walking in the country (sans terre, or "sauntering"), and ends up discussing nature, the movements of mankind, work, and freedom. Thoreau feels we gave up something very special when we locked ourselves in our shops and devoted our days to long hours of work. Get out! Enjoy life! Admire the trees, a sunset, and the birds! Don't give up your freedom for a wage and dull toil! These are the things Thoreau urges upon us in this essay, and he certainly has a point. This is an amazing piece of writing because it is probably more relevant today than in Thoreau's time. At least in those days vast expanses of nature still existed. Today, we must climb into our little boxes with wheels and drive for miles before we see a small forest or some mountains, while elbowing our way through all the others doing the same thing. "Walking" is a beautiful testament to a bucolic life.

I find Thoreau's writings vastly superior to anything Emerson wrote. Thoreau is more accessible, cares more about concrete issues, and seems like a nicer person. Thoreau comes across as the type of guy you could shoot the breeze with for an hour or so, whereas Emerson seems aloof and esoteric. Thoreau as a person is from an era long dead, but his words continue to resonate deeply in our souls. I think I'll go take a walk.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), in his essays, expressed a point of view which continues to be relevant not only in the United States, but in any society that values civil liberties and democratic ideals. "Civil Disobedience and Other Essays," from Dover Publications, brings together the title essay along with four other pieces: "Slavery in Massachusetts," "A Plea for Captain John Brown," "Walking," and "Life Without Principle."

Reading Thoreau's work, I was struck by how much some of his ideals are echoed by a later United States activist: the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Thoreau was passionately opposed to slavery. He also cast a critical eye on the concept of majority rule, and was concerned about the place of a minority within an unjust system of laws. He has some noteworthy thoughts on the U.S. Constitution.

Thoreau is not just a "theoretical" radical; in the title essay he reflects on a night he spent in jail as a result of his civil disobedience (that event inspired the excellent play "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail," by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee). Thoreau's voice is still strong after all these years, and deserves to be heard by contemporary audiences. One final note: In his defense of the militant abolitionist John Brown, Thoreau describes Brown as "the most American of us all." I think that such a description also fits Thoreau himself.

Henry David Thoreau did not just think, he acted. In order to see which luxuries of life he could live without, he lived in a secluded area for two years near Walden pond. Instead of paying a poll tax he thought unjust, he spent a night in jail. Thoreau backed his thoughts with action, and this gives validity to many of his writings.

Perhaps no work of Thoreau has been more influential than his essay "Civil Disobedience." Many world leaders, including Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., drew inspiration from this classic treatise on passive, nonviolent resistance. Simply put, Thoreau did not believe in allowing government to take more of his personal liberty than he, Thoreau, was willing to surrender. He also believed that, as citizens under a government, people have the moral obligation to break any law they think unjust (provided it does not injure another). This is the basic premise of "Civil Disobedience," that "I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn."

All of the essays in this collection are important, but none has the tremendous power of "Civil Disobedience," one of the classics in American thought.

Possibly the best exemplar of what America truly stands for is Henry David Thoreau. The above title quite effectively summarizes the premise of Thoreau's CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. Unfortunately, this sentiment is no less true today than it was in Thoreau's time. The government he so despised supported slavery, the slaughter of Native Americans, and a war of conquest against Mexico. The majority of Americans today agree that the first two, at least, are quite disgraceful (though only in retrospect). Wars of conquest are just fine providing that you win. As Hitler said, "Nobody will ever ask the winner if he told the truth." Few Americans would have minded that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and nothing whatever to do with the destruction of the World Trade Center if Bush's war had been successful. They also do not mind that American corporations keep the majority of the world's population in unnecessary poverty and subjected to brutal "pro-American" dictatorships as long as the stolen wealth of these nations make them wealthier also. Now that these corporations are hoarding most of this stolen wealth for themselves, causing America's middle class to shrink and the number below the poverty to increase, it is likely that Americans will soon start minding corporate greed - at least at home.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE is one of the books that was mentioned with mild approval in high school literature classes in the late 60's; perhaps that is why so few people ever read it. Certainly, those very few who actually read it, and acted upon its advice, were despised. Now that I have finally read it, I am astonished to find how "radical" it is. "Radical" being the term used to describe attitudes that are supposed to be both Christian and American (though the most vocal of today's Christians - the CORPORATE-WHORE sect -- revile those people who actually understand Christ and America as Godless traitors). This was the book that inspired Gandhi, who understood both the teaching of Christ and what America is really supposed to represent. It is not surprising that the hypocritical Reagan administration - the administration during which the gap between the wealthy and the middle class first started to skyrocket, corporate criminality blossomed, and a war supporting a dictatorial regime was illegally financed - adopted Thoreau's motto, "That government is best which governs least." In fact, Thoreau asserts that legislators who put obstacles in the way of commerce "deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads." If one only read the first few paragraphs of Thoreau, one might almost suppose that he was the Jesus Christ of corporate capitalism. Of course, in today's America, the corporations ARE essentially the government. When they claim they want a government that governs least they are actually declaring that they do not want Americans to have any control over them. It is mind-boggling that so many Americans lap this up. But citizens are taught to respect law rather than justice, to such a degree that they cannot distinguish between the two. "The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies." The primary human trait that has made our history so ugly is that we permit ourselves to be manipulated by the voracious. Thinking clearly enough to look out for ourselves and our brethren is condemned as traitorous, and it is against the law.

Cheney's response to being told that 71% of Americans opposed the war was, "So?" Even though it is clear now to the majority what has always been clear to radicals, (i.e. people who are not easily manipulated), that the war was for the sake of oil companies, Bush unabashedly boasts that "it was worth it." Indeed, for his ilk, the war has turned out to be far more profitable than they had imagined. But in reality it has made America one of the most hated countries in the world, has turned Iraq into a breeding ground for terrorists, jacked up the price of oil (which is why it has been "worth it" for the oil magnates), and has made all thoughtful Americans profoundly ashamed of our country.

We are now engaged in the mesmerizing media extravaganza known as voting for a new leader. An intelligent human can only respond, "So?" Thoreau points out the obvious: "All voting is a sort of gaming . . . with a slight moral tinge to it." We can vote against evil rather than actually do anything to amend evil. America will stay in Iraq regardless of who is president. One cannot be accused of saying anything that is not already obvious by stating that the corporations decide for whom we are permitted to vote. The idea that we have a two party system is transparently false. What we really have are two factions of one party, namely the liberal and the conservative, of the corporate capitalist party. Though the difference between the two factions is not nearly as significant as it was thirty years ago since the corporations have nearly succeeded in destroying the labor unions, it does still make some difference which faction is in office. On the other hand, if our "masters" decide that they want a war with Iran, as it seems they do, then America will go to war with Iran regardless of for whom we elect as president. It is not as if our government's ethical code condemns concocting a disaster that they can blame on Iran to muster popular support for such a war.

Getting rid of the draft was a cunning strategy. If all young Americans had to face combat we would quickly see mass protests. Now the military is far easier to control and the corporations have their own private militias - Blackwater and other CORPORATE THUGS beyond the control of Congress, the Pentagon, the puppet government of the occupied Iraq, and the Geneva Convention - which are nonetheless still paid for by taxpayers. (Is it being too paranoid to fantasize that different corporate factions might start vying for power so that we will see these thugs engaging in street wars just as the illegal gangster do)?

It is noteworthy that while America - "the land of the free" - has just 6% of the world's population, it has 25% of the world's prison population. While I doubt that very many American are in prison for the crime of obeying their conscience rather than the law, is there any reason to think that Americans are so much more prone to criminality than other nationalities? Thoreau writes, "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." Thoreau was imprisoned for refusing to pay his tax-bill that supported the Mexican War and slavery. Since my income tax is taken from my paycheck before I ever see it, this mode of standing up for what I know to be right is barely an option. Even if it were, I should probably not take it. "If I deny the authority of the State when it presents its tax-bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end." Gandhi and Thoreau had the sufficient courage and confidence to believe that their acts of defiance would accomplish something worthwhile, but I do not. I think I would merely ruin my marriage and my child's chance to get a college education, and only a handful of largely unsympathetic people would ever be aware of it. Jesus advised us, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's;" In other words, that might be interpreted to mean that we should pay our taxes. But how can one really do that in good conscience if those taxes support that which is clearly evil? If there is anyway in which I feel that I am a traitor to America, and a failure in doing what Jesus would do, it is that I obey unjust laws without doing anything more noteworthy to obey my conscience than writing essays such as this one.