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    On the Importance of Civil Disobedience
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    On the Importance of Civil Disobedience
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    On the Importance of Civil Disobedience
    Ebook33 pages34 minutes

    On the Importance of Civil Disobedience

    By Henry David Thoreau

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    About this ebook

    On the Importance of Civil Disobedience is an essay by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849. In it, Thoreau argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). Thoreau asserts that because governments are typically more harmful than helpful, they therefore cannot be justified. Democracy is no cure for this, as majorities simply by virtue of being majorities do not also gain the virtues of wisdom and justice. The judgment of an individual's conscience is not necessarily inferior to the decisions of a political body or majority, and so "it is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.... Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice." He adds, "I cannot for an instant recognize as my government [that] which is the slave's government also." The government, according to Thoreau, is not just a little corrupt or unjust in the course of doing its otherwise-important work, but in fact the government is primarily an agent of corruption and injustice. Because of this, it is "not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize." Political philosophers have counseled caution about revolution because the upheaval of revolution typically causes a lot of expense and suffering. Thoreau contends that such a cost/benefit analysis is inappropriate when the government is actively facilitating an injustice as extreme as slavery. Such a fundamental immorality justifies any difficulty or expense to bring to an end.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSheba Blake Publishing
    Release dateApr 28, 2017
    ISBN9783961895106
    Unavailable
    On the Importance of Civil Disobedience
    Author

    Henry David Thoreau

    Henry David Thoreau was born in 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts. He spent time as a school teacher after attending Harvard College but was dismissed for his refusal to administer corporal punishment. In 1845, wanting to write his first book, he moved to Walden Pond and built his cabin on land owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was during his time at Walden that Thoreau was imprisoned briefly for not paying taxes; this experience became the basis for his well-known essay "Civil Disobedience." He died of tuberculosis in 1862 at the age of 44.

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    • 2/5
      pretentious drivel