Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience (1849,1866) American Culture I Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience (1849,1866)

Anti-institutionalism Nature x Art Anti-materialism Anti-enlightenment Self-reliance Individualism Solitude Non-conformity Anti-institutionalism Nature x Art Anti-materialism Anti-enlightenment Spiritual improvement spirit man nature A philosophy of action

An Experiment in Radical Independence WALDEN (written in 1846-7) An Experiment in Radical Independence “Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students”. (p. 4) “When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again”. (p. 3)

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”. (p. 7) WALDEN (written in 1846-7) Chapter: Economy “But men labor under a mistake. […] By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before”. (p. 5) “actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; […] He has no time to be anything but a machine”. (p. 3) “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”. (p. 7)

Anti-Materialistic philosophy WALDEN (written in 1846-7) Chapter: Economy Anti-Materialistic philosophy “By the words, necessary of life, I mean whatever, of all that man obtains by his own exertions, has been from the first, or from long use has become, so important to human life that few, if any […], ever attempt to do without it. To many creatures there is in this sense but one necessary of life, Food. [...]None of the brute creation requires more than Food and Shelter. The necessaries of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel”. (p. 10)

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE (written in 1848) A Night in Jail Refusal to pay a six-year poll tax debt. The Mexican-American War (1846-8): after the US annexed Texas. Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo: New Mexico, Texas and California. Critics argued that the war was an expansionist enterprise dictated by a slave-focused intent on acquiring more land for cotton cultivation and more slave states to better balance against the free states. Others blamed the war on expansion-minded Westerners who were eager for land and on eastern trading interest in establishing a Pacific port in San Francisco to increase trade with Asia. A controversial war.

From universal to local “That government is best which governs least”. “That government is best which governs not at all”. (p. 261) “[Government] does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate”. (p. 262) The motto Thoreau often moves from universal to local, that is, from his philosophical precepts to the US current affairs. “I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government”. (p. 262)

Majority X Conscience “Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?[…] 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 that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. […] The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said, that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience” (p. 263).

Stepping Away from Government “How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government also”. (p. 264) If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself. […]. This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people (p. 265).

Actionless “There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; […]”. (p. 266) How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one. Does not America offer any inducement for men to settle here? The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow, one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and cheerful self-reliance […].

Ethically Individualistic “It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders”.(p. 267) I have other affairs to attend to. […] A man has not everything to do, but something; and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should do something wrong. […]. (p. 270)

To obey, or not to obey. That is the question. Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? (p. 269) […] but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say break the law. (p. 269)

What is a peaceble revolution? If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and blood measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of peaceable revolution. (p. 271) But there’s still blood flowing... But even suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? (p. 272)

Why does the rich man never disobey? Anti-materialistic standpoint Why does the rich man never disobey? “But the rich man, not to make any invidious comparison, is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it. It puts to rest many questions which he would otherwise be taxed to answer; while the only new question which it puts is the hard but superfluous one, how to spend it. Thus his moral ground is taken from under his feet”. (p. 272)

Anti-materialistic standpoint Live simply “But, 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. This is hard. […]. It will not be worth the while to accumulate property; that would be sure to go again. You must hire or squat somewhere, and raise but a small crop, and eat that soon. You must live within yourself, and depend upon yourself always tucked up and ready for a start, and not have many affairs”. (p. 273)

In jail indeed, but still free... I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. […]. I saw that, if there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. […] As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body […] (p. 274). Mohandas Gandhi: Indian Independence Act 1947 / Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-68)