Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Pharisaical practices are as popular today as they may be supposed to have been in the time of Christ -- and one of the biggest hypocrisies of our time is what Roosevelt called "the great arsenal of democracy," the shield-phrase with which the U.S. would pursue its policy of "manifest destiny" all over the globe (and an ideology it had been pursuing since the end of the 19th century when a Republican White House paved the way for Wall Street to start directing foreign policy) (Jarecki 41). The amount of government waste that is poured into overseas wars in the Middle East would today have Thoreau off in the woods again, lamenting his heart out like a prophet of old. The same callousness with which our government devalues human life for the sake of profit is what Thoreau opposed in "Civil Disobedience": as he himself states, "I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home…are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may" (par. 10).
Obviously,...
But such pragmatism fails to nurture respect "for the right": rather than wasting our resources and (how many?) lives on a war officially waged to spread democracy, unofficially waged for control, Thoreau teaches us that "it is not desirable to cultivate a respect fro 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" (par. 4). The government that fails to teach its citizens in the ways of truth and justice, fails to conduct itself in a way befitting a governor. The citizen's role, then, becomes not one of blind submission to a rule that is neither just nor right -- but adherence to a higher law -- the metaphysical truth and transcendental virtues, praised by the old world, for which Thoreau extols us all to reach.
In conclusion, Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" serves as a kind of signpost pointing out the way to a greater governor than the one that distorts the truth for the sake of its own gain or profit. While the governor today is only nominally located in the White House, the reality is that it is, as John Perkins notes, a corportocracy located on Wall Street, where right and wrong are judged solely on the number of dollars either produces.
Works Cited
Jarecki, Eugene. The American Way of War. New York, NY: Free Press, 2008. Print.
Lenat, Richard. "Thoreau Reader." 2009. Web. 9 Aug 2011.
Perkins, John. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-
Koehler, 2004. Print.
Thoreau, Henry David. "Civil Disobedience." Web. 9 Aug 2011.
Works Cited
Jarecki, Eugene. The American Way of War. New York, NY: Free Press, 2008. Print.
Lenat, Richard. "Thoreau Reader." 2009. Web. 9 Aug 2011.
Perkins, John. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-
John Locke's social theory not only permits disobedience but also a revolution if the State violates its side of the contract. Martin Luther King, Jr. says that civil disobedience derives from the natural law tradition in that an unjust law is not a law but a perversion of it. He, therefore, sees consenting to obey laws as not extending or including unjust laws. At present, a new and different form
Civil Disobedience: Thoreau's research on civil disobedience puts it as the refusal by the citizens to obey laws or even pay taxes in a country. The end result of the disobedience is normally war, especially when the citizens want to take laws into their hands. The decision by citizens to take the law into their hands forces the government to act forcefully, which results in the war. However, when proper procedures
3). For both Thoreau and King, the matter of unjust laws was urgent. In his speech delivered during the March on Washington, King stated, "It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality," ("I Have a Dream"). A century earlier, Thoreau advocated the
MLK vs. Clergymen The Civil Rights movement was a seminal and pivotal moment in the history of the United States. To be honest, it is one of two huge shifts in the treatment and rights of African-Americans, with the other being the abolition of slavery in the 1860’s. Roughly a century later is the time period where the letters traded back and forth between Martin Luther King Jr. and certain clergymen
Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" Henry David Thoreau's essay on "Civil Disobedience" inspired many leaders, spanning from Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr., to use nonviolent resistance to enact change. King wrote: "I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau" ("Civil Disobedience," Introduction).
Introduction Civil disobedience is defined as a situation in which people take to the streets or act in violation of the law so as to review an issue by the public and the political class. Proponents of the use of civil disobedience say that such minor crimes including blocking roads and occupying public spaces are acceptable if the quest is to resolve an issue of greater magnitude. Serious issues that may